Remember that each piece of graphic design content on your website should serve one purpose. When thinking about whether to use the video, photograph, call to action or sign up form, ask yourself: “What is its purpose?” Should it lead the user to do something? Inform them? Does this piece of graphic content portray my practice in the way I want it portrayed? Even if you have multiple goals in mind for your content, pick one and make sure your design makes it very clear to the end user what the goal is. Why look like the practice down the street with the same website template? Visual impressions count, especially on the internet. If a new client cannot tell you and your local competitors apart, you are not growing your practice as much as possible.
Learn more about the visual graphics on your website and how they affect your visitors’ interaction with your hospital
If you have developed your current website over 2 years ago (before COVID!) and have not had a veterinary website professional review your site during that time (or in other words, launched and left it) chances are your graphics are not current and your online image is not keeping up with your practice. You are missing important marketing opportunities to connect with pet owners and gain new customers.
They should enhance the design, structure, or informative content of the web page without distracting attention. As much as you may want to add a video clip or image to a page because it shows off some fancy new effect or cute pets, think first about whether it fits in or not. If you have dogs catching a ball as the opening video of your website, think whether that video highlights your practice or not. What about cat owners?
Using visually strong graphic elements on a page can be useful in directing viewers’ attention toward the page topic as well as providing structure for the page. Be careful, though. Strong graphic elements can also pull attention away from central content or compete with one another on the page. This results in the page appearing overly busy or cluttered and makes it difficult to read. Remember, if you attempt to emphasize everything then nothing ends up standing out.
These types of “eye catching” images may be attractive at first, but after the novelty wears off, they may cause viewers to lose patience with the site or, worse, cause the site to be slow loading. While an animation of a dog catching a ball or pets running on a beach may seem cute, interesting or funny at first, over time it may become annoying and drive viewers away.
We understand it may be tempting from a design standpoint to use images for textual information because of the greater number of design options available to present the information. Graphic based text presents a variety of problems and can cause your website to become ADA noncompliant:
When using text in graphics, make sure there is sufficient contrast between the text and the background color. Design graphic elements so that users can easily distinguish the text from its background. Also, be sure to avoid color combinations (reds and greens for example) that color blind users will not be able to distinguish apart from one another.