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People usually jump straight to the obvious when discussing good web design. A bold homepage. A polished layout. A great call to action. All important - but they're not what keep people on your site.
The real magic is in the parts no one brings up on project calls. The background details that shape how people interact with your site, how confident they feel while doing it, and whether they bother to come back. These aren't bells and whistles; they're the foundations. And they often separate a site that just exists from one that works.
You don't always notice them straight away, but your audience does. So here's what's actually worth paying attention to. 👇
Typography isn't only a style choice; it also affects how easy your site is to read and how likely someone is to stick around long enough to care about what you're saying.
We're talking about lesser thought-about aspects like line height, spacing between sections, font-weight, and paragraph length. If your text is cramped and heavy, it's mentally exhausting to get through. If it's overly spaced, it can feel like you're padding out content that isn't saying much.
There's even data to back this up: studies on readability show that well-spaced text improves reading speed and retention. In other words, when you get the spacing right, people understand more, faster, and are more likely to act.
We see it all the time: buttons that say "Click here" or "Learn more" tucked into the corner of a page like they're hoping not to be noticed.
But buttons are more than decoration. They're the signposts that guide people through your site. If those signposts are vague or easy to miss, people get stuck - or worse, leave. A strong button tells someone exactly what's next. "Book your table," "Download the guide," or "See menu" all perform better than generic alternatives because they create clarity and action at the same time.
You don't have to spend ages making all of your buttons flash or look overly fancy; the focus should be on helping people know what to do and making it easy for them to do it.
If someone lands on your site and can't find what they're looking for within 10 seconds, there's a good chance they'll leave. It's easy to get carried away with clever menus or creative layouts, but most people aren't exploring your site for fun; they're there for a reason. They want answers/results fast, and a messy or overly complicated navigation system will get in the way of that.
We've worked on sites where simply reorganising the navigation increased time on site and reduced bounce rates significantly. It wasn't because the visuals changed. It's because the user flow did.
Simply put, when your website makes it easy for people to find what they need without second-guessing themselves, they'll stay longer and trust you more.
You might not notice inconsistent styling on your site, but your visitors will. When the font changes from page to page, when one section is in all caps, and another is lowercase, or when the colours shift slightly between templates, it can feel disjointed. Even if people can't pinpoint what's wrong, something feels off. And when something feels off, people hesitate.
Consistency helps build familiarity, which helps build trust. A user scrolling through your site should feel like every page is part of the same story. If the About page feels like a totally different brand than the Services page, you're creating friction, and friction costs attention.
The best websites don't only focus on looking good on the homepage, but feel right throughout the entire user experience.
You don't NEED fancy animations or flashy effects to make a website work. But done well, with purpose, small bits of motion can add a lot to the user experience.
For example, a hover effect that highlights a clickable section. A subtle shift when a user scrolls. Feedback when someone submits a form. These aren't gimmicks, they're signals. They help people know what's interactive, where to look next, and whether the site works like it should.
Used poorly, they become a distraction. Used well, they help the whole experience feel more natural and intuitive. Which is exactly what good design should do.
This one definitely doesn't get talked about enough: your site's performance is part of the design. If your website takes more than three seconds to load, research from Google shows that over half of mobile users will leave. And if they leave before anything even loads? It doesn't matter how good your design is.
Slow load times are often caused by oversized images, bloated plug-ins, or bad hosting choices. And while these things might feel "technical," they're just as important to the user experience as colour schemes or layouts.
You can have the best branding in the world, but if your website feels difficult to use, trust starts to slip.
Sometimes, it's small layout quirks. Other times, it's inconsistent language or buttons that feel hidden. Whatever it is, users might not be able to explain it, but they'll feel it. And when something feels confusing or clunky, they're less likely to take action.
But when a site feels easy to navigate, clear to read, and visually aligned, people feel more confident. They trust what they're seeing. And they're far more likely to stick around.
There's more to good design than what grabs your attention straight away - spacing, flow, structure, speed, consistency.
They might not be the obvious parts that win awards. But they're the parts that win trust. And in most cases, they're what makes the difference between a website that looks good and one that actually works. 🤝
