Is Content really a King without Good Design

They say, an interview can be over in first 10 seconds. What makes or breaks it is The First Impression. Similarly when a user visits your website for the first time what makes or breaks his stay is the first impression he gets from the look of your website. That’s the first and foremost thing that catches his attention and makes him look around for more or just bounce back.

We have been talking a lot about the mantra “Content Is King“, however, we must not forget that the users are humans, not the search bots. They don’t read content they see it. So a King dressed up like a beggar will look like the one in the picture. Let me elaborate more with an example:

Let’s talk about a Dog, a Cat or an Elephant. As soon as you read these words, your brain didn’t spell the words cat, dog or elephant but it made an image of how exactly the reference looks like. Now if I say the word “Jalebi” you would go blank unless you know how it looks like. Similarly, search engine bots read content as words and interpret as per the algorithms, whereas, humans on the other hand would use these bots and interpret via pictures, designs and appearance.

Users are scanners, they understand in pictures and not just the words. What makes the readers perceive your website is the flow in which the content is written and foremost the way it is presented. A simple sentence said or written in two different ways will make two different pictures and can completely change its meaning and its same with the design or the presentation.

Everyone has a website now and if you are looking for some information about a product or a person, first thing you do is, Google about the official or personal website. What if you are providing good information, however, your website is not good enough to convert that particular visit into sale, “You lose Business“.

Let me share my experience of a good brand with a bad design:

Brand with a Bad Design: While searching for some news lately, I found http://ibnlive.in.com/ with a very attractive title and description in the search results. After the page was fully loaded I was slapped with an advertisement which wasted one click and then somehow I found the original stuff I was looking for but I had to digg this infomation from hell lot of ads and flashing banners. I agree, they are using more space to generate revenue but what about the user experience.

Some companies do care about their brand and use the space in a well organised manner. To name a few news sites with: http://news.yahoo.com, http://www.cnn.com or http://news.bbc.co.uk are using current web standards and provide information effectively.

In my up coming post, I will discuss more about important Elements of a Good Design, so stay tuned.