Good website design
Although many aspects of website design differ from site to site, many things remain the same on most websites on the Internet. Most notable is the navigation or the menu. How a website menu works and looks is very important, as ultimately website visitors are looking for certain criteria that will make them stay and interact or leave. This ability of a website to keep visitors interested is sometimes called stiffness. Visitors want a visually appealing and engaging experience, but perhaps most importantly, they want 'ease of use'. Website usability is a key factor for websites that want their visitors to stay, make an inquiry, and ultimately complete a transaction and request a product or service.
Easy to use web design
Internet users tend to prefer user-friendly websites, because they don't want to have to learn how to use a website every time they find a new one. They should be able to use a website after just a few seconds of looking around a home page, and they'll go off and look elsewhere. The need for fast user interaction is vital, and therefore having a fast loading website is also important for a website to be successful. Even with faster Internet connections, such as broadband, Internet users don't want to wait.
Imagine, if you go to a store on the main street and are completely ignored by the clerks at the counter for 5 minutes, even after making it clear that they want help. Here is a correlation with how an internet user may feel, when they arrive at a poorly designed website it is difficult to use, unfriendly and slow to load. Making sure that a website has been well thought out and designed with the user in mind, it displays a company's unique selling points within eye-catching action-packed and has a clear and easy-to-use menu that is key to its success.
Flash web design
With recent advances in web design, such as the introduction of Flash animation and high-definition video content, impressive websites have been produced to take advantage of much higher levels of visual effects and interaction. However, with this 'high-end' web design comes a price, most of the time, web designs that rely heavily on Flash content are often ridiculously slow to load. They often have a progress bar, which slowly goes through the web browser to indicate when the website load will finish.
This is very much like the progress bars that you may be familiar with if you use video editing or 3D rendering software, or if you use game consoles where they are displayed while you wait for the games to load. Internet users generally don't want to wait 3-5 minutes for a web page to load, even if it features high-resolution images, animation, or video. They want websites rich in fast informative content. If they wanted to see an animation or a video, they would watch television.
Good flash web design
This does not mean that Flash animation is bad news and should not be used in web design services. If used subtly and in small amounts, you can make a website more visually appealing without slowing down the load time too much. The proper uses for Flash animation in web design are such things as; Flash banner ads, Flash videos, and interactive Flash forms for online quizzes or business presentations.
However, using Flash for the entire design of a website is not a good idea. The user experience slows down because they have to wait for elements to load. Also, fully Flash-developed sites tend to use unknown menu features and structures. This can confuse visitors who just want to quickly interact with the website and not be surprised by the way the menu is animated.
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