Website Designing: Process, Best Tools, & Six Popular Web Design Types

Introduction

You must get the look and feel of your website just right since it will be a major part of your brand's online identity. Bottom-of-the-funnel leads may also be nurtured and converted on your website. For this, you can hire web designers in Ireland who can get you started with creating a website for your business.

People are inherently attracted to beautiful design because we all respond to it consciously or subconsciously. A study by web design dublin firms proved that a website's design can make or break its success, with people forming snap judgments about your business based on its visuals and abandoning your site in droves if it's badly executed. That's why it is important to have a website design agency that helps you stay abreast with your ideas.

Approximately 71% of small businesses have a website, and 57% of internet users say they will only recommend a business with a well-designed website on mobile. This shows why having a well-designed website is crucial for business growth. Moreover, 81% of shoppers research their products online before purchasing. 

You can speak with a website design agency in Ireland to leverage the power of digital presence. For instance, you may populate your website with testimonials, images of your goods and services, useful information, and anything else that can enhance your reputation. This helps build trust amongst users. Benefit from SEO to get on top of the search engine results for enhanced local and global results. 

Following a cohesive web design process is best if you want the best out of your business website. 

Web Design Process

Building a website and making it available to the public can be stressful. There are many questions to answer and problems to solve along the way. Here, consider hiring web designers in Ireland at Square Root who follow a proven process that is tried and tested. 

The web design process is comparable to other IT procedures involving creative decision-making. A typical process will need you to get acquainted with creating a creative brief, a public relations strategy, a communication plan, and iterating product design. 

Here is the web design checklist that is followed to ensure quality results. 

#1. Know your website goal

Start with identifying the reason behind creating a website. Begin with a creative brief to develop an engaging design approach. The designer can articulate thoughts and pick attractive web design colours based on your website’s purpose. These decisions help designers make smart choices that deliver better results.

It is best to ask these questions before coming up with a website goal —

• What kind of website do you plan to create?

• How are competitors faring in the web space?

• Who is your target audience?

• What are some of the crucial things you’d want your website to do?

• What services will the website offer to your targeted customers?

Once you have brief answers to these questions, it is time to move on to the next phase ̦— wireframing and site architecture.

#2. Wireframes and Site Architecture

Site architecture includes sitemaps and wireframes for individual web pages. Sitemaps showcase the general navigation layout of your website and provide quick access to all the web pages.

On the other hand, wireframes are the first stage of website design — the bones and structure based on which the website is shaped. It gives a quick overview of what will be shown on each page. Wireframes do not include graphic design elements but are useful in mapping out the basic organisation of a page's information.

#3. Development

This is one of the major website design steps where the designers will pass the baton to developers who take care of website functionalities. It includes front-end and back-end development, where the former involves designers working on the design and interactive elements. The functioning website is built by breaking the preliminary concept into its constituent graphic pieces. 

Take a look at the difference between front-end and back-end.

Think of creating a WordPress theme where you’ll consider UI/UX elements coupled with compatibility — for mobile and desktop users. 

Once the development structure concludes, the content task begins filling those pages with valuable information. 

Then, the QA tasks follow in the website design process.

#4. Quality Assurance

Here, developers and designers will work in tandem to check for button actions (UI elements’ response), different load URLs, etc. A typical website QA task involves the following.

When hiring web designers in Ireland, ask them to follow the same process since it is best to do the same thing. Try passing the final design across multiple designers and developers before going live.

But then, QA testers would run multiple manual and automated tests to check for the website’s vulnerability. The goal of testing is to ensure end-users get a satisfactory experience when they look at a website to check for UI/UX issues. They’d redirect any discovered problems to the development or design team.

#5. Maintenance

There is much to do even after your website goes live. Keep visitors coming back to your site by providing the most up-to-day content. Furthermore, it should be updated if a newer version of WordPress or a plugin has been installed.

Therefore, keeping your website up to date is crucial for its long-term success, where you avoid a security breach, sluggish page speed, or UX issues. It is ideal for checking out multiple maintenance options your web design agency offers.

The role of web designers involves creating visual content that includes videos, images, and other UI animations. Therefore, they'd need a wide range of web design tools to add value.

Ideally, a designer would go for the best web design software to ensure everything goes smoothly and quickly. That's why it's necessary to look at the design arsenal every so often to ensure that there is plenty to leverage from available resources.

When working with web designers in Ireland, ensure your partnered web design agency in Ireland is well-equipped with the latest designing tools.

Best web-design tools. 

Here are some of the best web design tools that designers use —

#1. Visual Studio Code

One of the highly-preferred favourite free coding editors is Visual Studio Code (open-sourced by Microsoft). It comes with built-in Git commands and a terminal while being able to Debug code in the editor.

Use extensions to add different website elements like skins, debuggers, and language settings. Apart from syntax highlighting and autocomplete, Microsoft's IntelliSense functionality autocompletes code and data on function arguments and known variable names.

#2. Figma 

Figma is a web designing tool offering a real-time interface design tool. It can let several designers work on a single project simultaneously.

While there are various paid (premium) plans, free users can still leverage features like unlimited drafts, commenting, and editing. This one is the right fit for those working on a single website.

#3. Webflow

The next in the web designing tools list is Webflow. It is for designers who want less time to pick up coding lessons. It lets users make their websites from scratch, customise the look and feel, and publish work online without knowing how to code.

Therefore, it is considered a central point that integrates several other programmes of graphic design, animation, content administration, marketing, and electronic commerce. Webflow simplifies delivering and promoting websites for coders and non-coder, as it does not conceal editing features.

#4. Sketch

The sketch is a popular macOS desktop graphics editor used for User Interface (UI) design, interactive prototyping, and passing off designs to developers. This is a vector-based tool aimed at solving issues related to web design.

It is available as both a desktop programme and a web tool. It lets users collaborate on and see drawings and prototypes in any web browser. The browser-based feedback features enable users to post comments next to any Artboard and name individual persons.

#5. Affinity Designer

This one is not solely crafted for UX designers but works as an alternative to Adobe Illustrator. Web designers required to create prototypes often are increasingly using Affinity Designer. It lets one make changes to photos or vectors without worrying about ruining them, thanks to its changeable, non-destructive layers.

It offers a million-to-one magnification to help examine intricate details in vector graphics, enabling designers to perform any number of changes.

Popular web design types

Designing a successful website requires a fine balance between fulfilling SEO requirements and catering to user needs. Aim to build a website that addresses both these aspects. Therefore, hiring website designers and developers with proven expertise is best for choosing the right type of web design for your business. 

Since website design is diverse, choose from different types of web design for your website depending on your goal.

Here is the list of popular website design types —

Popular website design types

Static page layout

A static website doesn't need much involvement from its visitors and has a layout that stays the same across devices. Most static page layouts will have a limited number of pages and are built using web design elements like HTML or CSS. 

Static designers are often used to communicate information rather than offer products or services due to their simplistic design and limited capacity for interaction with users.

Liquid design layout

A liquid website design is different from the various types of website design. It will not change the page layout based on screen size. For those who do not want to compromise web content based on browser size, the design compresses or extends the whole page to suit the window. However, seeing the design on too-small or too-large displays might result in irregular fonts, making it difficult to read.

Adaptive website layout

This website layout will have a user interface that changes dynamically to generate alternative page layouts according to the device where it is opened. It makes unique designs for screens of varying widths — 320px, 480px, 760px, 960px, 1200px, and 1600px. 

Showing the page's information and layout in various sizes helps offer a native viewing experience on mobile phones, tablets, and other devices with ease. 

Dynamic website layout

A dynamic layout will have several components that make a page. Dynamic web pages evolve using server technologies like PHP or JavaScript. These computer instructions construct HTML and CSS "on the fly," so all its pieces are shown when a dynamic web page is loaded. Usually, such a layout will have forms, actionable buttons, etc. 

Responsive design layout

Websites built with responsive design provide the same content across all devices but adapt to each visitor's screen size and orientation to provide an optimal viewing experience.

Developers leverage CSS to create a single codebase for the whole site while ensuring that each page automatically adjusts to the size of the user's viewport by using breakpoints.

Result? The same site could have a four-column format on a big desktop computer screen, three on a laptop screen, two on a tablet screen, and one on a mobile phone. Responsive websites have the same information and design across devices.

Single page layout

A single or one-page site will have just one HTML without additional pages. This means there are no sections like Services/Features, About Us, Contact page, etc.

The content on single-page websites is fully loaded on a single page to offer readers a more continuous and fluid viewing experience. Most of the single page layout will consist of menu bars like regular websites, but rather than redirecting users to a different URL. Users would simply scroll down an anchor within the page. Such navigation is enabled through Ajax, jQuery, JavaScript, and CSS3.

Conclusion

Designing a website is daunting, but not if you have the right team to get you started. Businesses can leverage such expertise to make themself available online quickly and effectively. It frees up valuable time and resources for other endeavours. To everyone concerned about the cost of website development, be assured that it has never been more affordable or less complicated to create a website for your business.

These site design tips and tools are just the beginning. The finest outcomes will come from combining your thoughts and bringing in the expertise of a web design agency. Speak to our web designers and share your thoughts. Our experienced team of designers will gauge your business goal, use modern tools, and bring your idea to life.

FAQs

How Much Does a Web Developer Charge?

Professional web developers might charge anywhere from €25 to €50 an hour, depending on their skill level. The average cost of hiring a developer to create a fully-featured website for a company is between €7,000 and €15,000. These estimates are subject to change based on the developer's proficiency and the project's scope.

How does this website process work?

We are a website design and development company that follows a tried and tested method. We begin by discussing your website needs, technology requirements, and more. Based on the initial meeting, our web designers in Ireland will define the scope of the website project and develop a comprehensive website assessment along with the expected results.

How much time does it take to create a website design?

It takes around six to ten weeks to build a website from scratch. But, more complex websites may take more time, especially if they have payment options, are loaded with multimedia content, and need high-level customizations.