Does website design make a difference in how long people will visit?

You bet.

We have all seen websites that start with "please wait.." or "now loading.." or scream "I made this at home myself".   They are losing potential customers due to their ineffective website design.

Whether you are an internet newbie or an experienced internet surfer, you should understand that good website design is part of the success equation.

Studies have indicated that visitors will quickly lose interest in your website if the majority of a page does not download within 8-12 seconds. (Artists' pages should have a warning at the top of their pages.) Even websites that are marketed to high-end users need to consider download times.

Website and Browser Compatibility.

HTML was designed by engineers and scientists who never envisioned it as a page layout tool.

Their aim was to provide a way to describe structural information about a document, not a tool to determine a document's appearance. Once the real world started to work on the Web, graphic designers began adapting the primitive tools of HTML to produce documents that looked more like their print counterparts.

In days gone by, design was a page with a heading, some text and maybe an image..., but now designers are armed to the teeth with new applications and technologies to provide interaction and enhance your surfing experience.

All these bells and whistles can lead to a mindset of design over function which create problems with compatibility. This is not restricted to the overuse of new technologies, plain bad design can give you the same result.

We need those pages to appear quickly and correctly.

Your website should be easy to read.

What does this mean?

You should choose your text and background colors very carefully. You don't want to use backgrounds that obscure your text or use colors that are hard to read.

You also don't want to set your text size too small (hard to read) or too large (it will appear to shout at your visitors). All capitalised letters give the appearance of SHOUTING at your visitors.

Consistency and coherence in all documents to  project a professional image.

Just as in any document formatted on a word processor or as in any brochure, newsletter, or newspaper formatted in a desktop publishing program, all graphic images and elements, typefaces, headings, and footers should remain consistent throughout your website.

Typefaces, alignment in the main text and the headings, background effects, and the special effects on graphics should remain the same.

Incompatibility between your website and the visitor's OS and browser is not a good reflection on your business.

Providing cross platform access to your site is of utmost importance.

We design for compatibility with Operatiing Systems such as Mac, Linux ,Windows and others.

When the above elements are in balance you can take on the challenge of increasing the "flash factor" of your website without affecting your hard earned search engine rankings...