It only takes 50 milliseconds for people to decide if they want to stay on a website. That is why a website’s first impression is crucial – it has to be well-designed and attractive enough to grab the audience’s attention immediately.
Other factors also contribute to a website’s first impression, such as loading speed. Visitors will leave a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load, so you have to ensure the design does not affect loading time.
Thinking of all the considerations can get a little overwhelming, but the solution may be more straightforward than it seems. For instance, you can easily handle website speed problems with hosting plans that guarantee uptime and unlimited bandwidth. A prime example of this is web hosting Hostinger.
Context
- Best Designed Website to Inspire You
- Zillow
- Hello Monday
- Slavery Footprint
- FPP
- Nest Wifi
- NOWNESS
- Nomadic Tribe
- Paper Planes
- Block Rage
- Frans Hals Museum
- Conclusion
Best Designed Website to Inspire You
Now, we will list the top 10 best websites that may inspire you with a handy trick or two when developing your website design. Let’s get started.
1. Zillow
Zillow is a real estate website from the United States that connects people with various property needs to sellers or renters. It received high ratings for website layout and user experience in 2016 for having a simplistic but feature-rich design.
The website opens with a search bar where visitors can type the area they’re interested in. Below the bar, there are three buttons for different purposes – buying a home, selling a home, and renting a home. It serves as a shortcut for visitors with the listed needs.
Zillow’s website excels in having a straightforward design. The audience can immediately reach all the features they need on the front page, and the simple layout is easy to navigate. These features are great for eCommerce websites with plenty of product listings.
2. Hello Monday
Hello Monday is a digital creative studio that specializes in branding and advertising for various purposes. They are based in New York and have worked with clients from popular brands, such as Google and youtube.
The website is a portfolio that compiles and displays Hello Monday’s best work altogether. It uses a one-page layout where visitors can scroll through the various projects attached. Other information is included in the About and Contact page, accessible through the right sidebar.
Hello Monday is an excellent example if you aim to create a visual portfolio website. It uses a white background and almost no decorative elements to highlight the projects. The design also uses space between the projects, making the site look neat even with many projects attached.
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3. Slavery Footprint
The Slavery Footprint organization began with Justin Dillon, a musician who aims to eradicate slavery in modern days. Together with his team, he created a website to raise awareness on modern-day slavery that asks the visitors one question; how many slaves work for you?
The website opens with a strong message that makes the visitors ask themselves how involved they are with companies that practice modern-day slavery. Next to it is a button that says “what? Slaves work for me?”, which is a very powerful CTA. The button leads to another part of the page that explains what the movement is about in one quick scroll.
This is an excellent example of websites that use a one-page layout to communicate mission and information to a vast audience. The team used a simple layout that ensures everyone can see and understand the core message they are trying to communicate.
4. FPP
FPP is a shopper marketing agency that helps brands introduce or promote their products to the market. They specialize in in-store advertising methods that immediately grab the attention of shoppers. Their website was awarded for best UI and innovation by the CSS award.
The website loads to show a virtual shopping aisle, and the visitors are instructed to scroll to walk inside it. As the visitors scroll further deep into the corridors, FPP uses animation to present how important it is to strategize shopper marketing properly and what they can do as specialists.
This website shows how important it is to make use of interactive presentations. Using interactive animation, FPP grabs the audience’s attention and conveys the message they want to get across about FPP as a professional shopper marketing agency.
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5. Nest Wifi
Nest Wifi is a smart, multifunctional internet router produced by Google. It is part of Google’s smart home product series, optimized to create a comfortable smart home experience for the users. It won Best Website of the day by CSS in 2014.
The website displays the products as soon as you open their homepage. Nest Wifi uses plain colors with similar tones that complement each other and create a refined feel.
Another point to note is how they use the CTA (call-to-action) buttons at the top, middle, and bottom of the page. This encourages visitors to buy the product as they read more information about how Nest Wifi outperforms competitors’ products.
6. NOWNESS
NOWNESS is a crowdsourced video blog displaying artistic video content from various filmmakers all over the world. It started in 2010 and has since received hundreds of video submissions from different categories, such as food, fashion, beauty, and more. Their website won the 2017 Webby Awards for the Best Cultural Blog.
The NOWNESS website knows that visitors will spend time browsing through the videos on the site, so they prioritized a neat and straightforward design. Monochromatic color schemes are chosen to give the website a tidy look and ensure comfort when browsing.
The navigation bar is placed at the top to make browsing video categories more convenient. There is also a sidebar as a shortcut to their main categories and information pages.
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7. Nomadic Tribe
The Nomadic Tribe website is created by makemepulse – a global interactive production studio. They first started in 2009 and have worked with major brands worldwide, such as Netflix, Google, and Ubisoft.
Makemepulse created Nomadic Tribe as one of their showreels, where potential clients can simply visit and see the quality of their work.
This is another excellent example of a portfolio website. Rather than compiling various projects into one page, makemepulse uses the website as a showcase project that offers an immersive experience. They also combine interactive elements, animation, and audio narration to keep the audience engaged.
8. Paper Planes
Paper planes is a website created by Active Theory as an experiment in 2016. It aims to represent the convenience of connecting people all over the world using today’s technology. The site is accessible to all devices but can only operate on mobile phones.
The site opens with blank paper to stamp your current location. Then, it will instruct you to fold and fly it to the crowd of paper planes. You can also catch one of the paper planes, open them, see who else has stamped on it, and leave your stamp.
Paper Planes is an excellent example of a website that raises awareness or sends important messages to visitors. They created a unique yet easy interactive feature to represent the message that they want to deliver.
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9. Block Rage
Block Rage is a website created by PGS software from Poland. It won the Site of the day award by awwwards on November 19, 2020.
The website opens with a room that has iconic items from the 80s. When clicked, the screen will slide to show a small TV where you can play Block Rage, a vintage puzzle game. What’s unique, the website will provide you with a barcode that will turn your phone into the game controller.
Block Rage is an excellent example of websites that use decorative elements to create an experience for the audience. PGS software made excellent use of nostalgic items like VHS tapes, Dragonball cartoon posters, and an old popular lamp.
10. Frans Hals Museum
The Frans Hals Museum is located in the Netherlands and was opened in 2016. Its website serves as a guide to the visitors, where they can purchase tickets, see what’s currently on display, and browse through the archives of displayed arts.
The website that won the 2018 awwward for Site of the Year opens with a big welcome message under their logo. Upon scrolling down, visitors will see current news and highlights from the museum. There are also shortcut buttons to buy tickets and visit archives of previously displayed artworks.
The Frans Hals website is designed to give off the impression of the museum. They used a careful mix of colors on different pages to make their content pop. When the mouse hovers over one of the artworks, a yellow frame forms around it to make it seem like a museum display.
The art archives are also designed efficiently to place as much information as possible on one page. They used the same design and set the art thumbnails like paintings on a wall. This website gives the audience both an immersive and educational experience.
Conclusion
All in all, various factors make a good website design. Here are some quick takeaways from the websites listed above:
- Create an experience for the audience. Try to use engaging elements like animations, interactive features, or even minigames to grab their attention.
- Simple is best. Use color palettes that are easy on the eyes and have similar tones to make your core message stand out. Don’t overuse decorative elements and features, as they may clutter the website.
- Add navigation features. Make your website easy to browse by adding sidebars, search bars, or buttons that help navigate essential pages.
- Represent the brand or the message. Ensure the overall design immediately gives an idea of who you are or what you do to the audience.
We have listed the ten best website designs to inspire you. All there’s left to do is sit down with a paper and pen and brainstorm the best ideas for your site.
Good luck! And if you have any questions, make sure to leave them in the comments section below.