Simple Is Good
Good Gallery websites follow a minimalist design aesthetic. There are several reasons to embrace this creative philosophy. Some benefits include faster websites, better search engine performance, improved cognitive fluency, more conversions, greater focus, and mobile friendliness.
Simple Websites Load Faster
With fewer design elements, minimal JavaScript programming, and less downloadable data, our websites can load faster than websites that are heavily designed.
Think about the last time you visited a website that wasn’t very fast. What did you do?
Search Engine Friendly
When websites incorporate too many creative elements, the technical presentation of that information can interfere with search engines and their ability to recognize and index important textual content and photos.
Cognitive Fluency
Cognitive fluency refers to perceptions relative to difficulties visitors may encounter on websites. When websites include clutter, they increase cognitive load for visitors. However, a reduced cognitive load means that visitors can quickly complete their desired task.
When you consider your own experiences online, do you prefer a simple website that provides you with quick and easy access to the information you seek or a website that hides their goodies behind an over-designed interface?
Improved Conversions
We contend that for most photographers, first-time visitors want to perform three critical tasks. Those potential customers want to:
- See your photographs.
- Know how much you charge.
- Contact you to determine availability.
What do you think is the best way to design a website to help visitors meet those goals? You might also want to learn more about our overall design philosophy.
Focus on Important Content
When a website features a menu that’s nearly invisible when not in use and simple design elements, visitors pay closer attention to your most important content—whether that’s your photographs or textual information.
Those potential customers aren’t distracted by visual elements that don’t further their path to conversion. In other words, simple websites are easier to read and scan.
Mobile Friendly
Simple websites tend to be friendlier on mobile devices. With the reduced screen real estate available to visitors, it’s even more important that websites present the most important information quickly and simply.
Timeless
We have all seen photography trends come and go. And as they go, we sometimes say to ourselves, “What were we thinking!” The same concept applies to website designs.
Popular past design trends include parallax scrolling and single-page websites. That means that once you launch most new websites, your design only has a few years of shelf life (at best) before it starts to look dated.
However, with Good Gallery’s simple design aesthetic, you can be assured that your website will appear more timeless—just like your best photographs.
Less Salesy
Have you ever met a salesperson who is cheesy, aggressive and superficial? Did that turn you off?
When you offer an over designed website, visitors can sometimes feel that they’re overburdened with your presentation. Simple designs like ours are different in that they don’t make the visitor feel like your website is just a sales tool.
Beautiful
Based on separate research studies by noted psychologists Helmut Leder, Daniel Berlyne, and Alexandre N. Tuch, it was determined that more complex websites are perceived as being less beautiful than less complex websites.
This theory was also explored more recently in a study by Google/YouTube User Experience Research in Zurich, Switzerland.