When you build a new web site, you want people to trust your company. That is the goal considered to be the most important to anyone looking for web design services. However, in order to achieve confidence, your copy may be not enough. In this case, what you can do? It all begins with a research on more topics, which are essential in creating a user-friendly, accesible and interactive website. If you really want an effective web design, let’s take a look at what are the main elements of any web design research.

Understanding your client

Understanding your clients’s goals is the first step in any business. When you talk about design, you may say the client himself doesn’t know what he wants. However, even thought it may be intriguing, it is you job to understand his needs. That is why you should ask your customer to share all marketing materials with you and to invest time in explaining to you every detail about his brand philosophy. In addition, there may be also details you need to find out by yourself.

If your work will be constrained by already-established brand guidelines, the first research made before designing is about your client himself. Finding out what are the requirements related to a specific industry may be not enough. The web designer should know everything about his client and the history of his brand. Moreover, achieving consistency may be one of the main goals of your client in order to gain trust.

Talking to your audience

Althought it may be surprising for anyone who is not familiar with the process of bulding a high quality site, web design is strong related to sociology. Therefore, before designing, the first step is targeting and talking to your audience, by using different user research methods.

If you wonder what is the information you need to create a stunning web design and which is gained by using these methods, there are more examples, from learning about user goals to identifying user frustrations and problems. Focus groups, one-on-one interviews and different surveys will be used all along the entire process.

Nevertheless, there is no substitute for a direct conversation with your users/customers. One-on-one interviews can show you how a particular user access the website, what are his attitudes, desires, and experiences. Moreover, when it’s well done, this method, which may cost you a lot of time, may also help you to get detailed information about your user’s impressions about the accessibility and solutions he may find more proper.

Competition

Competition is another thing you need to research with all your attention. Checking other websites allows you to find information not only about what are their offers, but also about what are the expectations of your customers/users. This step may also offer you essential information about what you may really need to be successful in a particular industry and what are the “must have” pages.

Based on the main information you could extract from your competition, you can also get a general overview of the industry. In addition, observing similarities and differences between sites is important when your goal is to build a high quality and original web design.

Every successful online marketing campaign begings with research. Even thought it is a process that may cost you a lot of time, following every step of your research actually  means creating an effective website.