
So, how does website design work?
Competitive analysis: identifying strengths and weaknesses
Analyzing what your competitors are doing allows us to highlight their best practices, as well as the less effective ones, and draw inspiration from them. This stage of website design starts with a general analysis, focusing on the type of content, features, services, and entry points offered to users. Then, we dig into the details: Is the site easy to use? What terms are most commonly used? What presentation conventions are in place?

Content and features: meeting user needs
Next in website design, we’ll do everything we can to meet user needs with relevant content. To do this, it’s important to remember that a website must meet a dual objective:
- Overall utility: This is the primary goal, the main reason users come to your site.
- Micro-utilities: These are all the features and information that enhance the user experience. For example, the ability to preview a book excerpt, or offering product visualization on a home decor site.

Navigation: guiding the user in their search
Users need to know where they are on your site and how to find what they’re looking for. That’s why navigation is a crucial aspect that must be tailored to your target audience. There are several types of navigation:
- Step-by-step: The menu is always displayed (global navigation) or adapts based on the selected section (local navigation).
- Cross-navigation: The user clicks on internal links to move from one page to another.
- Free navigation: Users are given the freedom to explore, while always having the option to exit the site.

Information architecture: group, simplify, adapt
On a website, information needs to be organized according to the mental models of users. This is why special attention must be given to menu categorization. Should it be presented alphabetically, chronologically, geographically, by theme, or by target audience?
Next, the architecture should facilitate navigation. With just a glance, users should understand, thanks to the menu, links, or buttons, where they are, where they can find what interests them, and everything the site has to offer.

Organizing elements: focus on content before design
Before designing your content—text, images—we first need to think about the visual organization of the different elements on your website. To do this, we start by asking the right questions: What is the entry point for each page? What are users trying to do? What do you want them to do?
After considering these different points, we need to determine which spaces the website is being designed for, taking into account screen resolution, horizontal and vertical space. Lastly, today’s web browsing on mobile devices is unavoidable. This is why we need to think in terms of responsive design: either adapt the interface and navigation or go for a “mobile-first” approach.

Designing a website in detail: zoning, wireframe, and prototype
We’re almost there: you’re finally going to see what your future website could look like! At Kryzalid, we offer three complementary approaches to help you better visualize your project:
- Zoning: This phase prioritizes and lays the foundation for the interface, serving as a very useful tool for considering the various intended interactions.
- Wireframe: Also known as a functional mock-up, this step is essential for achieving the best possible interface, used to gather user feedback and thus validate the design.
- Prototype: This is where everything designed so far is tested! In a prototype, the screens and interaction steps are connected, allowing us to observe behaviors within a page and react to these scenarios.

We have one last aspect of User Experience to present in website design: the rules of usability. Stay tuned for the next and final part of this article series!