Elements of a Minimalist Website

Web Design/ Elements of a Minimalist Website

As a Toronto web design company, we embrace a minimalist philosophy in all of our website designs. We find that it best benefits our clients, allows us to get their message across effectively, and is visually appealing to their potential clients.

Here are the reasons why you should embrace a minimalist approach to your new website design.

 

User Experience (UX)

The most important consideration when developing a website is to make sure that the user experience is a good one. The visitors on your website need to be able to find what they want easily so that they do not become frustrated and go to your competitors’ websites to look for products or services. A minimalist design helps execute a good user experience. Having a clean navigation, avoiding overpowering or overcomplicated visuals and avoiding too much text, all play into having a positive user experience. A positive UX increases your chances for conversion.

 

Clear Copy

When creating the copy for a website, you want to embrace brevity.  Website visitors are more inclined to “scan” a web page these days than they are to read an extensive amount of copy, even if it is in their best interest.  The attention span of the modern website visitor is very short. We need to make sure that your message is clean and clear and to the point in as few words as possible. This also includes breaking up copy into headings, subheadings and lists.

Read: What Makes an Effective Website?

 

White Space

White space, often referred to as negative space, is the area of a web page in which nothing has been applied to it. It is the absence of content.  Why is this valuable? Well, there are two main reasons. The first is that the user is not burdened with too much data to process. An over complicated webpage frustrates the user.  The second, and more important reason, is it allows you to truly emphasize the elements of your message that you wish to deliver to your prospect. Possibly the greatest example of white space is the Google homepage. All that exists is the Google logo, a search bar, and a few additional links. We know exactly who they are and what they are offering,  without any confusion or effort on our part.

Toronto Website Design - Google Minimalist Look
Google’s homepage is a perfect example of minimalist design!

Responsive Design

Once again this gets back to a positive user experience. 65% of all web searches occur on mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones. We want to design your website so that it is mobile-friendly, and could be viewed on all devices. Nothing more frustrating for a website visitor on a smartphone than having to pinch and stretch a web page in order to read the content or to view an image, and then to do it again to look at a different part of the page. A responsive website design also allows us to reconfigure the elements of the page so that it also has a minimalist appearance when viewed on different size screens.

 

Large & Impactful Images

The images that we select for a website can have a profound impact on the person viewing them.  Since we are taking a minimalist approach to the design of the site, the content that we have in place needs to pack a punch. There is no better way to do this than through images.  Whether you are choosing stock photography or hiring a professional photographer to shoot your business and team, make sure that it has an impact.

Read: Six Stages of Website Development

 

Typography

As goes for photography, so goes for font selection. We want to make sure that the font choice that we use for the website is appealing and should reflect the tone of your business and the industry of your business. And not just the font selection, but also the font sizes that we choose for the varying heading sizes (titles, subtitles, etc.).  This important factor is often overlooked by less sophisticated designers. Don’t make the mistake of choosing an inappropriate or nondescript font to deliver your message.

 

Ridiculously Simple Navigation

In the world of web design, there has been something called the 3 click rule, which states that a visitor should not have to click more than three times to find the information that they are looking for. I would argue that the 3 click rule is now the 2 click rule.  It is paramount that you deliver your information to your clients in the simplest way possible. As mentioned above, the modern website visitor is fickle, and more than happy to move onto your competitors’ websites to find the information that they’re looking for. There are simply too many options available to your potential clients.

 

Conclusion

You can now see the tremendous advantages of having a minimalist approach to a website. That is what we believe in it Bush Marketing, and to learn more about our minimalist approach, please view our case studies and see examples of the work that we’ve done. And for good measure, check out some testimonials as well!

Interested in a unique, custom designed and branded website to help skyrocket your business? Call Bush Marketing today!

 

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