We
recently told you about the new website we created for TimberTech, one of the UK's leading suppliers of composite decking. TimberTech UK is part of Greensquares, a British company specialising in a variety of high-quality/low-maintenance solutions for the home and garden; Greensquares have a whole family of websites showcasing different parts of their extensive product range, and the TimberTech site wasn't the only one they asked us to update for 2017.
PrimaPorcelain is the brand under which Greensquares provide a whole host of gorgeous porcelain tiles and paving slabs to customers right across the country. With nearly 40 different colours and styles - all of which can be used internally or externally - available to order from stock, PrimaPorcelain have the perfect porcelain flooring solution for practically any project, and their low-porosity products are every bit as practical and low-maintenance as TimberTech's composite deck boards.
Greensquares asked us to revamp the PrimaPorcelain website in order to better show off their beautiful porcelain tiles and give customers a keener sense of the possibilities afforded by these products. The new design,
which is now live here, is fully responsive and offers a great user experience across all devices. It also shows off PrimaPorcelain's tiles in spectacular fashion, with amazing photographs of the tiles in situ sitting alongside hi-res images of the products that really give you a feel for their irresistible texture.
We also worked to improve PrimaPorcelain's
product selector tool, making it easier than ever for site visitors to compare their options side-by-side and order up to 3 free tile samples to assist with the decision-making process.
If you're thinking of revamping your home and/or garden, be sure to visit the new PrimaPorcelain website and see what they have to offer.
Alternatively, if you need an expertly-designed website for your business, please click here to get in touch with Designer Websites and request a quotation.
TimberTech are one of the UK's leading suppliers of composite decking, a low-maintenance alternative to wooden decking that has become hugely popular over the last few years. We at Designer Websites have counted TimberTech as a valued client for quite some time now, and we are pleased to announce that we recently completed a total overhaul of the company's website, redesigning it from the ground up in order to enhance its visual appeal and provide a better experience for TimberTech's ever-expanding mobile user base.
The
new website, which went live earlier today, boasts an attractive, contemporary design that puts TimberTech's gorgeous decking products front and centre. Our design team worked hard to emphasise the outstanding technical specifications of these composite decking boards without getting in the way of the eye-catching visuals that will, at the end of the day, really move people to pick up the phone or order a
free sample.
The result is a website that works wonderfully on all devices and allows potential customers to find out all about TimberTech's various decking products while simultaneously seeing numerous examples of just how great those boards look in situ. We are very proud of the new and improved TimberTech website, and we hope that you enjoy browsing it just as much as we enjoyed designing it!
Mobile user experience should be a core consideration for all web designers and online businesses. A huge portion of all online activity now takes place on a smartphone; Google have even created a
completely separate index to make sure they're giving mobile searchers the best possible results. Even if your website works like a dream on larger screens, you'll lose a lot of potential customers if it's a nightmare for smartphone users.
So what can I do to make mobile users happy?
If you want to get a good return from your site's mobile visitors, you'll need to think about the user experience you're offering and how this translates to smaller screens. Mobile user experience quality depends on many different factors, but here are a few key areas to focus on:
Use a responsive design.
The first step towards total mobile-friendliness is upgrading to a
responsive website design. Browsing a non-responsive website on a smartphone usually means 'pinching' to zoom in and get a proper look at the content; a well-designed responsive website will automatically adapt to fit the screen it's being viewed on, so no matter what device your customer is using, your content should display perfectly with no pinching required.
Don't bury important content.
One mistake that lots of people make these days is assuming that mobile users are happy to scroll indefinitely in order to reach the piece of content they need. It's true that scrolling is a more comfortable and fluid action than clicking/tapping, and because of this, it's safe to assume that most mobile users would rather scroll through a long page than click through several small pages (this is why people don't like those articles that display information in the form of a click-to-proceed slideshow). However, smartphone users don't have an infinite supply of patience, and you won't be doing anybody any favours by putting your important content at the bottom of the page, several screen-lengths down.
Wherever possible, the 'meat' of your page should sit
above the fold (or, failing that, not too far below the fold). Make your important content - your call to action, your key info - immediately visible rather than assuming that people will be happy to scroll down to find it.
Be fast!
If there's one thing that everyone on the web (but especially the average mobile user) hates, it's a page that takes an eternity to load. Even if you don't care about ticking off smartphone owners, you should be striving to ensure that your website loads quickly for the benefit of your desktop visitors; if you are serious about maximising your mobile conversions, then site speed becomes even more important because lots of mobile users are browsing within a very limited time window. Perhaps they're killing time while they wait for the bus, or perhaps they're already on the bus and they've got one minute to peruse your website before their stop arrives - either way, time is of the essence and long loading times will cause frustration and quite possibly prompt people to try one of your competitors instead.
If you're not sure how to boost your website's loading speeds, try typing your URL into Google's
PageSpeed Insights tool.
Space out your clickable elements.
Tapping a smartphone screen with your finger is a less refined, less accurate action than a mouse click, so if there's something on your website that you want lots of people to click on (e.g. a 'Contact Us' button, a hyperlink within a paragraph of text), you'd better make it easy for them. In order to meet the basic standard for mobile-friendliness, all clickable elements on your website should be:
- A good distance from all other clickable elements
- Big enough to tap with ease
Crowding a whole bunch of links into a small space increases the likelihood that users will click the wrong link by accident. Giving your clickable elements a tiny 'click zone' that requires hyper-accurate tapping increases the likelihood that users will need multiple attempts in order to land a successful click. Both of these outcomes are very frustrating for the user and will seriously damage their experience of your site, so make sure your clickable objects are large and reasonably far apart.
Make the user's journey short and simple.
Think of your website as a running track. The end user is a sprinter, and they cross the 'finish line' whenever they complete a conversion on your site ('a conversion' being the thing that you ultimately want users to do on your website - this could mean making a purchase, requesting a quote, subscribing to your newsletter, et cetera). Between the user and the finish line are a series of hurdles: actions that they must complete and hoops they will have to jump through in order to reach the conversion stage.
Your mission is to make those hurdles as few and as minuscule as possible. Make that running track as short and as unobstructed as you possibly can!
Here are a few example of 'hurdles' and how you can help your mobile users to overcome them with ease:
- Finding the right page. The first 'hurdle' for most visitors to a website is working out where to find the thing they're looking for. You can minimise this hurdle with a clear site layout and intuitive navigation (i.e. not too many menu options, self-explanatory category names).
- Entering payment details. This is a huge hurdle on some ecommerce websites - entering your credit card number and billing address and so forth is a tedious, time-consuming task, especially when you're using a touchscreen rather than a computer keyboard. Minimise this hurdle by using an online wallet service like PayPal or allowing users to create accounts and save their payment details for future purchases.
- Entering contact details. Even if you're not selling anything through your website, the inevitable 'fill out this form' stage can still be a big hurdle for users en route to a conversion. Whether you're encouraging users to send a message, request a quote / call back / free sample, or sign up for something, they will always be forced to painstakingly tap in their details; however, you can minimise this hurdle by only asking for information that is crucially important. For example, why ask for someone's postcode, telephone number and date of birth if all you really need is a name and an email address?
