Guide Your Audience to What They Need to See 

Does your website need to provide audiences with lots of information? 

As websites have evolved, we have seen the need to fill more space and hold more content than ever before. Many businesses have struggled with pulling off the tricky balancing act of designing a good website that is content-heavy. Do it wrong and you risk information overload, and your audience is quickly frustrated and navigates away from your website.  

Get it right, however, and you gain a new audience member who not only understands your message but also might just spread the word on your website. Based on our experience designing and developing websites for over 20 years – including content-heavy websites for clients like the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre – we have summarized three key factors you should consider addressing when designing your website. 

Three Tools to Tackle the Challenge of Creating Content-Rich Websites

One: Whitespace 

Misunderstood and underappreciated, whitespace allows content room to breathe. It improves legibility and invites the audience in. Whitespace makes the audience feel more comfortable and makes it easier for them to absorb – and therefore remember – your message. The two ads below show the difference whitespace can make to the message: 

The two ads use the same content and photography, but the ad on the right utilizes whitespace to create a different look and feel. Notice how whitespace gives text room to breathe, and is more inviting than the ad on the left. 

Two: Visual Hierarchy 

An important way to make webpages easy to grasp in a hurry is to ensure that the appearance of elements on the page accurately portrays the relationships between the elements on the page. This means visually implying the relative importance of different content in a clear manner. Important elements should be larger, bolder, in a distinct colour, set off by more white space, or some combination of the above.  

The example below shows clear visual hierarchy: 

Notice how the important elements are made clear because they are larger, bolder, and set off by more whitespace. It is clear to the audience which elements are more important, so the audience is able to scan for the content they are looking for. 

Three: Grids, Boxes, and Borders 

Segment the information into visual categories to show how they are related. The audience is more comfortable scanning organized buckets of information rather than a jumbled mess of data. By organizing content into a rigid, consistent structure, there is less effort required to process it, and the audience can navigate without frustration. The example below shows how grids and boxes can be used to segment a content-rich website: 

The grid structure combined with boxes and colour identifiers (i.e., Orange for “News”, Purple for “People”, etc.) effectively segments information into buckets. This enables the audience to find content that interests them in an intuitive manner. 

Wrapping It Up 

As the examples above show, it is possible to create a website that is both content-rich and engaging for an audience. The challenge is designing strategically, and deliberately planning the layout, typography, and graphical elements to ensure that the website is both welcoming and engaging. 

At William Joseph, our team of strategists and designers rely on research and design strategy to accommodate all your content in a compelling website. We carefully craft visual designs that present dense content in a clear and effective manner, and encourages your audience to visit and read what you have to offer. 

Feel Free to Reach Out.