Our Approach
Creating a digital presence
With challenges and issues identified, ProfileTree were delighted to assist Brexit Plan in establishing a digital presence with a simple, yet visually appealing website. Research demonstrated that the new website was to achieve three core objectives. Firstly, it was essential that the website explained in clear terms how the service could assist businesses in preparing for Brexit. Secondly, jargon was to be discarded, with legal information presented in an accessible and easily-digestible manner. Thirdly, it was highlighted that the Brexit Plan website should highlight the service’s specific expertise into cross-border trade. In a nutshell, a path was drawn towards cutting through the noise and jargon to create an aesthetically pleasing website which would hold its users’ attention, whilst communicating sizeable amounts of information.
With this rationale, ProfileTree progressed to the design phase, where the team developed a fun, cartoon-style animation for the website hero section. The buttons on the hero directed people towards two sections: information for Irish businesses and information for Northern Irish and British businesses. This fun visual style was used to both engage users and to separate our client from what is an overtly professional industry.
With plans made to design a single-page website, we wanted to ensure that information was readable, flowing and digestible; so we divided each section into standalone panels with short, concise paragraphs. We also created an animation to complement the visual style of the website, illustrating and explaining each service that Brexit Plan could offer to clients – all within the space of two minutes. This measure proved to be especially effective in informing potential customers about the services offered by our client.
The content writers at ProfileTree also included a jargon guide at the end of the page, assisting users in understanding some of the key terminology within the context of Brexit.
Results
Fresh digital presence
New leads, more sales and a higher conversion rate thanks to a user-friendly site and a clear call to action.
Client established in a niche area of expertise thanks to engaging content and clear and concise copy.
A fresh and debut digital presence – essential for any modern business.
Website design principles for explaining complex information
Website design ensures that the User Interface is visually appealing to website visitors. It helps create a positive User Experience and encourages them to stay on your website for longer periods of time, digest more information and engage further with your content.
A website that has been poorly constructed will only serve to frustrate website visitors which could have a negative impact on your brand’s reputation.
For businesses that provide complex services or products, they need to pay particularly close attention to their website design, as it is crucial for explaining who you are, what your business does and what it provides to customers.
When you are an industry expert, it can be challenging to put yourself in the shoes of a novice. The technical terms are part of your vocabulary and second nature for you to use, although using this type of language is counter productive when designing a website that non-industry professionals are going to be engaging with.
At ProfileTree, we know how to help businesses explain their complex products and services so that anyone can understand what it is that they do. Check out these 8 website design principles for explaining complex information.
1. Structured content within website design
How you structure content within a website build is crucial for explaining complex information efficiently. If your website homepage is full of jargon, lot’s of context and has little use of helpful visuals, then it’s going to be too overwhelming for a novice who is trying to understand the complex information.
Check out these tips for an effective structure with website design:
- Content should be structured in an inverted pyramid type structure.
- Content should have multiple headings throughout in order to break up the information and help the reader digest it.
- Paragraphs shouldn’t be longer than 4-5 lines.
- Try to summarise the complex process/products into a couple of sentences.
2. Website navigation
Website navigation is another crucial factor for helping people to digest and understand complex information. Well designed website navigation provides the visitor with an easy path for navigating different parts of info, ensuring that they don’t get lost in complex descriptions.
Check out these tips for creating pleasing and appealing website navigation using web development:
- Use multiple web pages to organise content.
- Use effective ‘breadcrumb’ trails that allow visitors to go back and forth on pages that they have previously viewed.
- Ensure all of your website pages are active and live, as inactive or dead web pages will make the visitor feel as though they have lost out on gaining important info.
- Make use of side bars or ‘a table of contents’ in order to help the visitor visualise where they are going.
3. Condense the website content into sizeable chunks
Although we have touched on this ‘structure of the website content’ section, it is worth noting again as a point on its own. If your business provides complex products or services, you cannot overload your audience with information that explains it.
Audiences don’t need to know every detail about how your business provides complex services/products, they only need to know the parts that are relevant and useful to them. It is worth condensing complex information into sizable chunks that audiences can easily grasp the context of. Content writing services can help you condense important information and communicate effectively with audiences.
4. Avoid using jargon
For businesses that provide complex services/products, industry language is going to be second nature to them, it’s natural and part of their expertise. However, using this type of language doesn’t work so well when trying to create a website design that easily explains complex information to website visitors.
It may be useful to get a complete novice to write the website content for you as they will be able to explain what it is that you provide using layman’s terms and they won’t be tempted to use industry jargon as a default. If website visitors are confused by your website content, then they aren’t going to be convinced to use your products/services.
5. Use lots of visuals
For some people, trying to understand complex information in a text format is challenging, they need information to be explained using a visual demonstration. Visuals are your best friend when it comes to explaining complex information within a website.
Visuals can be used to explain difficult concepts and they should most definitely be included within the website’s design. Some visuals that you may want to include in your website design includes:
- Infographics
- Animations
- Explainer videos
- Explainer images
- Recordings
- Flow charts
- Diagrams
At ProfileTree, we have a strong team of videographers and animators that can create engaging videos to help you explain complex information.
6. Auditory resources
On the same thread of appealing to people’s different learning styles, businesses that provide complex services/products, should also consider creating auditory resources in order to appeal to auditory learners.
Auditory resources may include podcasts, music or even voice notes – really it’s any resource that explains complex information verbally. This tactic ensures that audiences, regardless of how they learn, are able to digest information in a way that is useful for them.
A range of learning resources also helps to increase the time that visitors spend on your website, which assists in SEO rankings and website credibility.
7. Use of colour in website design
The choice of colour that is used in website design can also be a crucial factor in helping audiences to understand and digest complex information. There needs to be a fine balance as using lots of demanding colours will confuse audiences, whilst only using a couple of colours ie.) black and white, won’t work well for helping them condense information, rather it will bore them and make them lose interest.
Think of incorporating the following colours into your website design:
Red: a colour that promotes energy
Yellow: a colour that grabs attention
Orange: a colour that lifts the mood
Green: a colour that promotes calm concentration
Blue: a colour that stimulates productivity
These colour suggestions are based on colour theory, a method that is used widely in schools and in educational organisations.
Type of font used in website design
It might seem like an obvious point, to not use calligraphy style fonts when you’re trying to explain complex information, but there are other points regarding the font that you should consider in website design.
Bold font
Highlighting certain keywords or key terms in bold will help your audience to understand that they are important pieces of information they should pay attention to. Bold font demands attention, but on an equal point, shouldn’t be over used as it loses its impact.
Italics
Italics is great for providing a supplement point that helps audiences understand additional information. It’s another method for grabbing attention and inadvertently saying, “this isn’t crucial to know, but it is a helpful point for increasing your understanding.”
Type of font used
It is best to stick with fonts that are easy to read and comprehend. Fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman and Calibri are safe options. As we mentioned before though, avoid calligraphy style fonts at all costs!
Why ProfileTree?
At ProfileTree, we have helped many businesses explain their complex products/services to their target audience. Ensuring that they are using the terms that people use when referring to the nature of their business. View our other web design projects for further inspiration. For assistance in developing a website that is capable of explaining complex information, get in touch with our website design team and we would be happy to assist you on your digital marketing journey.