Launching our new site
Today marks the official launch of the Dutch version of our new design for our website.
The previous site was completely made in Flash, which was nice and lightweight, but not too Search Engine friendly. Even though it was good looking, searchable text is more important, so web users can easily find the best service they are looking for.
Standards
This new site is built using the latest web standards. This site is XHTML 1.1 valid, CSS valid and search engine friendly. Why is this important?
Not everyone uses Microsoft Internet Explorer. Nowadays people even visit websites on their mobile devices. There are even people who use screen readers to browse the web. It’s only good karma when you create your website so anyone can have access to what your site has to offer, without having to do a lot of actions. Visitors will keep coming back to your site if the site is user friendly, no matter what they use to visit the site.
New standards separate design from structure, so the content is still accessible if the design portion of the site is inaccessible (i.e. browsing without images or styles). The HTML code will look the same everywhere, but the styling with CSS will make the site look as it should in browsers that support stylesheets. Hence, using tables to style a website combines the design with the structure, which is problematic to view in browsers that don’t support stylesheets or images. More on tableless design in this article.
Simplicity
We chose a very simple design for the new site. Flat, not too many aesthetic features that would misplace the focus. This design is chosen mainly to even accommodate people with slower Internet connections (i.e. those with slow dial-up connections).
When designing websites, it’s important to understand that the user experience is far more important than the look of the site. A simple, fast loading site with clear navigation to the right information is often far more appreciated than one with a lot of nice animations (which usually take up some time to load) and the extensive use of graphics to hold the site together, where it’s difficult to find what you’re looking for. To have people coming back, or to be able to sell your product or service, it’s important that the visitor finds what he’s looking for, as quickly as possible.
What do you think?
Let us know what you think of our new design. It’s always good to know what the visitors’ opinion is, because their experience is what will make or break your website.