7 Things Startups Struggle with While Designing Website

The first website was launched in 1991, and since then, over a billion unique sites have found their way onto the internet. However, in these three decades a lot has changed in the world of business and so have websites and their role. 

The last few years were all about many people taking the path of entrepreneurship with many small and big business start-ups. India stands at the second position with 1,17,254 recognized startups. Needless to say that start-ups are an integral part of the global business ecosystem and websites play a significant role in their visibility. That being said, startups grapple with several challenges when creating a website. A few of the challenges are lack of funds and resources, inexperienced staff, tight deadlines, hurried development process compromising functionality and user experience to name a few. 

In this blog we delve into the pain points of start-ups with regards to website development and how they can overcome them. But first let’s shed the spotlight on the importance of a well-designed website for any business.

Website Design: Making the First Impression

Web design is important since it establishes the first impression of a brand or business. A well-designed website attracts users, exudes professionalism, and fosters trust. A well-designed website is visually appealing, intuitive to use, responsive, optimized for both desktop and mobile, all of which improve user experience and encourage visitors to stay on the site longer.

Web design also affects a website’s usability and accessibility. Best practices for SEO are incorporated into effective design to make sure the website is easily found by search engines and reaches a larger audience. It also takes into account various screen sizes and gadgets, making the website user-friendly for everyone. Good web design facilitates more conversions, enhanced customer satisfaction, and establishes a strong online presence by giving equal weight to functionality and aesthetics.

Top 7 Challenges in Website Designing and Their Solutions

1. UI/UX Design

It is a complex task to design a user interface that is both intuitive and captivating. In order to create user interfaces that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also simple to use, it is necessary to comprehend human demands, habits, and preferences. Ineffective UX design can affect a website’s success by causing user annoyance, high bounce rates, and low conversion rates. A website’s UI must be designed such that it makes website navigation easy, has a fast loading time and keeps the user engaged. It is imperative to pay special attention to key elements like layout, color schemes, typography, navigation menu,  and interactive elements.

Solution:

For a comprehensive understanding of user preferences and pain points, conduct extensive user research using surveys, interviews, and usability testing. Create interactive prototypes and wireframes to visualize the design and test it on actual users. As you get input, make changes to the UX using iterative design methods. To create a seamless and engaging user experience, apply UX design best practices including responsive layouts, uniform design elements, and simple navigation.

2. Responsive Design

Responsive design ensures that websites are visually appealing and functionally effective across a variety of devices and screen sizes. This involves creating adaptable layouts that maintain usability and aesthetics, whether viewed on desktops, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. Without responsive design, users may encounter poorly formatted content, broken layouts, and difficult navigation, all of which lead to a subpar user experience. Ensuring consistency across different devices is crucial for retaining user engagement and satisfaction.

Solution:

Adopt a mobile-first strategy, progressively enhancing for larger screens. Use responsive frameworks like Bootstrap or Flexbox. Implement media queries, flexible images, and fluid grids. Regularly test across various devices. This approach addresses challenges like responsive images, data display, transitioning layouts, and navigation on smaller screens.

3. Loading Speed

For both SEO performance and user satisfaction, a website’s loading speed is crucial. While a page should load in between 0 and 2 seconds, 3 seconds is also regarded as a respectable time. If you take more than three seconds, more people are likely to leave your website. Users can become irritated with slow loading pages, which can lower engagement and increase bounce rates. Furthermore, loading speed is taken into account by search engines like Google when ranking web pages, so sluggish websites may show up lower in search results. It might be difficult to reduce file sizes, minimize server requests, and improve server response times while optimizing for speed.

Solution:

Utilize suitable formats, such as WebP, and optimize your photographs by compressing them. Turn on browser caching to save frequently used resources locally and avoid redownloading them. Reduce the number of HTTP requests by consolidating files (such JavaScript and CSS) and loading non-essential parts asynchronously. Reduce latency and increase the efficiency of content distribution by leveraging content delivery networks, or CDNs. Use resources such as Google PageSpeed Insights to track website performance on a regular basis. Then, make the required changes to preserve the best loading speeds.

4. Cross – browser compatibility

Since browsers read HTML, CSS, and JavaScript differently, it can be challenging to make sure a website works consistently across multiple browsers. The same code may appear differently in different browsers and versions, resulting in inconsistent functionality and design. A user’s experience may be significantly impacted by difficulties including poor layout, malfunctioning functionality, or decreased performance.

Solution:

Write clear, semantic code that is more likely to be presented consistently across browsers by adhering to web standards and best practices. Test the website frequently on popular browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge as well as previous iterations that some people may still be using. To automate testing across different browser and device combinations, use cross-browser testing solutions such as Sauce Labs or BrowserStack. When necessary, guarantee that important functionality is still accessible even in cases when certain browsers do not support advanced features by utilizing feature detection and graceful degradation approaches.

5. SEO Optimization

One major problem is to strike a balance between the technical requirements for SEO and the necessity for a visually appealing website. In order to increase a website’s exposure in search engine results, SEO entails improving the technical, content, and structural elements of the website. Even the most exquisitely designed website can struggle to draw in organic visitors if it is not properly optimized. Use of keywords, meta tags, URL structure, site speed, and mobile friendliness are important SEO factors.

Solution:

Start the design phase by using SEO best practices. Find relevant terms and phrases that users may be searching for by conducting keyword research. Make thoughtful use of these keywords in headers, titles, and body text. In order to effectively describe the information and encourage clicks, optimize meta tags, such as title tags and meta descriptions. Make sure your URL hierarchy is organized so search engines can easily crawl it. Reduce the number of server queries made, optimize images, and use browser caching to increase site speed. Finally, make sure the website is responsively designed to work on mobile devices.

6. Content management

To keep a website fresh and engaging, it’s essential to have a well-organized content management system that is easy to use. However, a non-intuitive CMS can be a barrier to updates, especially for non-technical team members. As a website grows, managing and organizing content can become increasingly challenging, leading to inconsistencies and outdated information.

Solution:

Select a content management system (CMS) that is flexible and has a user-friendly interface, such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. These platforms facilitate content management by offering templates, plugins, and modules that make it simple for non-technical people to make adjustments. Teach the group how to efficiently use the CMS, covering content creation, editing, and organization. Establish permissions and protocols to guarantee that the content is examined and approved before publication. Maintain content accuracy and relevance by routinely auditing and updating it.

7. Security 

With the increase in cyber crimes, safeguarding a website from cyber dangers and maintaining data privacy is becoming more and more difficult. Data theft, monetary loss, and reputational harm to the company are all possible outcomes of security breaches. Safeguarding user data, stopping unwanted access, and defending against different kinds of assaults including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, SQL injection, and cross-site scripting (XSS) are all part of maintaining strong security.

Solution:

Use security mechanisms to encrypt data being transferred between the user’s browser and the server, such as SSL certificates. To avoid vulnerabilities, employ secure coding techniques like user input validation and sanitization. To guard against known vulnerabilities, keep all software, including plugins, themes, and content management systems, up to date. To find and fix possible security problems, do routine vulnerability assessments and security audits. To guard against data loss and illegal access, use extra security measures like firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and frequent backups. Inform the group on the value of having a safe website and best practices for security.

Final words

Globally, web design has become essential for enterprises and companies, especially for startups. But creating a solid web application comes with a lot of difficulties. An all-encompassing plan is essential to address the many obstacles. To guarantee that you provide your clients with an exceptional product or service, you need to pay attention to every detail, from SEO optimization and security to UI/UX design and loading speed.

Catalyze your website’s success with Koda, your digital transformation partner. Overcome design challenges, optimize for diverse devices, and ensure blazing-fast performance. Elevate your brand and dominate the digital arena. Reach out to Koda today and let’s turn your vision into reality. Your journey to digital excellence begins now.