Website Development: Performance vs. Design

There are certain trade-offs associated with website development that businesses have to confront. If you optimize your site for desktop computers, for example, then your site won’t function as well on mobile devices.

One of the most important decisions is whether you want to prioritize your site’s functionality or design. Some businesses may care more about their brand’s aesthetic as opposed to their site’s performance.

Unless you’re in a very visual industry, however, we recommend prioritizing your site’s functionality. The reason for this stems from how consumers browse sites.

A recent Business 2 Community article explains the impatience that most consumers have in regard to company websites. According to the article, businesses should use tools like Google Analytics to make sure that all their pages are loading fast on all types of devices:

“People don’t like having to wait for content to appear or links to work. Faster is always better. Review this information regularly to identify your slowest page and figure out what you can do to improve performance. Try opening these pages in different browsers or devices to see if there are compatibility issues. Consider removing features, reducing design complexity, or using smaller or fewer images to improve load time.”

People would rather go back to Google’s search engine results pages than wait for your website to load. Consumers have become so accustomed to fast loading pages that even a few seconds feels like an eternity.

This isn’t to say that you can’t focus on the aesthetics of your web design. You can still put pictures and videos on your webpage as long as they don’t take too much time to load. If you can isolate which specific element is dragging your performance down, then you should get rid of it as soon as possible.

To talk more about website development, or anything else, contact us today.