The internet is bursting with web design tips, but which should you actually take notice of? One of the main problems is that design trends change all the time, and experts constantly disagree on the best way to create websites that work – and that users love.

If you’re starting a new website, or redesigning your existing site, it’s tricky to know which tips to take on board. There’s only one thing for it – you need to follow the research.

Here’s our roundup of web design tips and tricks that are backed by cold, hard data:

Prioritise scrolling over clicking
A famous piece of research by Conversion Rate Experts looked at what would happen if all the relevant information on a site was on the homepage. This would mean that users would scroll, rather than clicking through to individual pages.

The page tested by researchers was around 20x longer than the average page. It covered answers to the target audience’s main questions and concerns (following a survey) and pretty much addressed all the essentials. The results were pretty conclusive, as the conversion rate increased by 30%.

Keep it clean
Although it was conducted back in 2012, the findings of a Google study on what visitors found most visually appealing in a website are still relevant now.  Its researchers found that simpler, less complex and less cluttered designs are more likely to be perceived as beautiful.

This means sticking to a single column, optimising use of white space and making just one of two elements the focus on each scroll depth.

Stick to a standard layout
In the race to stand out, some brands veer on the weird and wacky side when developing their websites. While it’s great to be different, website layout isn’t necessarily the place to do it.

In the same Google study as above, it was found that sites that followed normal web design standards were most likely to be loved by visitors. This includes the following elements:

Logo in the top left corner
The primary navigation in the header
The value proposition and call to action high on the page
Social media icons in the footer
Responsive design optimised for multiple devices.

Give rotating sliders a miss
Carousels are a popular feature in web design, and clients particularly seem to love them. But unfortunately, multiple studies have found that they’re pretty ineffective at delivering content. This is because only the first slide tends to be seen, so the content on others is often missed – and calls to action on these slides are almost never clicked.

In one study, it was found that nearly 90% of the clicks on a particular slider were on the first image.

Here’s what Craig Kistler at web design firm Small Farm Design has to say about rotating sliders:

“In all the testing I have done, homepage carousels are completely ineffective… In test after test the first thing the visitor did when coming to a page with a large carousel is scroll right past it and start looking for triggers that will move them forward with their task.”

Need help creating a website that swerves the trends and delivers amazing user experiences? Work with our web design experts at Nextgen Marketing.