Here at BuildThis, we decided it was time for a fresh, new website design to start off the new decade. We’ve refined our branding and generated new content to provide a simple, clean and fast experience for our website visitors. Some of the new design changes might seem pretty obvious, but let’s walk through some of the major changes and why we made them.
SEO Driven Content and More White Space
To start, brand new content was generated to explain more about our business, our processes, and our services. When a page has a lot of written content, it can be easy for readers to become overwhelmed by trying to process too much at once. Adding more white space, or negative space, helps users to digest sections of content more easily.
Custom Graphics
Especially to those who are new to the web world, digital services can seem abstract and may be hard to visualize, so we designed custom graphics that represent each of our services and to showcase different portions of our processes. These graphics are simplistic and layer multiple elements on top of each other, using drop shadows to draw attention to specific text or features while creating depth. Each graphic also includes an image to produce a warmer, more human feel. Every custom graphic uses the BuildThis color palette to form consistency throughout the website.
Lightning Fast Page Load and Page Speed
In the early stages of our project, the BuildThis Team recognized that page load speed was a crucial element of the project and one of the primary objectives. Waiting for pages to load is the last thing we want our users to experience, and we kept that in mind through every design and development decision that was made. This site is lean. It doesn’t rely on over-animated interactions or oversized hero images that slow page load speed to a crawl. The new BuildThis.com website was designed and developed to make our users journey quick and to the point.
Accessibility and ADA Compliance
In light of a few recent high-profile lawsuits, accessibility is gaining more attention than ever in website and application design. “Digital accessibility refers to the practice of building digital content and applications that can be used by a wide range of people, including individuals who have visual, motor, auditory, speech, or cognitive disabilities.”1. We’ve restructured our web style guide so that our color and font combinations pass WCAG 2.0 contrast ratio standards. This means that all headings and body text on the website have a very high contrast against backgrounds, making them easier to read. Additionally, our contact form has explicit labels and all images have relevant alt tags.
Help Center
The new Help Center on BuildThis.com will direct you to frequently asked questions related to your BuildThis account or the basic info you need to use and navigate the backend of your WordPress site. This new resource will save you time and money by providing you with the instructions to make simple edits, like setting a blog featured image. Can’t find what you’re looking for in the Help Center? No worries, just reach out to the BuildThis team directly for whatever support you need!
Interested in finding out how BuildThis can improve the content, design, speed, or accessibility of your website?
Contact a Web Strategist today.
1 Designing for accessibility is not that hard