All too often web design is principally informed by what the company want the visitors to see and less about what the visitors expect to see. This frequently leads to users becoming instantly disengaged with a website when its design does not fall into line with what they are comfortable with, and more importantly – what their pre-conceptions tell them they should see.

Back in the early days of the internet, web designers could get away with all sorts of new ideas, shapes and imagery, as visitors didn’t really know what to expect of websites yet. They had not been exposed to their new online worlds for very long and there were often vary few direct comparisons that could be made between websites in the same niche. Nowadays however, with a plethora of websites occupying every possible online sphere, users now often arrive at a website expecting to see certain designs, certain information, certain functionality and even certain colours.

To use an extreme example – Imagine if you will, you type in “car insurance” into a search engine and the first result is a well know car insurance company. If you then clicked on that site and were faced with an underwater screen with Flash-animated fishes swimming around and all sort of watery design feature like shells for buttons and a fishing rod-shaped search bar. How would that make you feel? You expected to see images of cars, a clean and functional design, and maybe the smiling face of a customer service advisor. Consciously or subconsciously, your confidence in the website’s ability to deliver what you are looking for has been undermined and there is a very high chance of you looking else ware. The content might have been spot on and prices the very competitive, but because the design is not right, users won’t become engaged.

Now, as I stated, the example above is an extreme one, but as competition online continuous to get fiercer, it has never been more important to deliver spot-on web designs.  Causing your visitors to become even the smallest bit uncertain or disengaged with your website can mean the difference between boom and bust. So how do you incorporate user’s expectations into your design? Aside from using expensive feedback groups, here are a few quick tips:

Look Elsewhere in Your Niche

Inspiration and ideas for customer expectations can normally be found in the other forms of media utilized in your niche. For example, if you’ve got a website selling car parts and accessories, check out what the big car TV shows such as Top Gear are doing in terms of their styling on their show and in their adverts. Go along to the car dealers themselves and check out their brochures, points of sale and even their business cards. When considering the design of my surf clothing site I used techniques and styles found in multiple surfing and snowboarding magazines, which were already well established and largely responsible for creating the industry conceptions in the first place. The result is a design that slots in well with its surroundings and gains instant credibility with users in that niche.

Check Out the Competition

There is a lot to be said for taking a long hard look at what the biggest competitors are doing and using the best bits for yourself. I’m not saying you should create a mirror image and there is certainly benefit in creating something new and exciting, but largely speaking the most successful amongst your competition are doing well simply because they are getting it right. These days you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to get a good web design. Instead just use what currently works, put your stamp on it, and try to make it better than the competition if you can.  It is also very important to keep up to speed with developments in the market and with what users want.

Ask for Ongoing Feedback

At the end of the day, some of the most valuable feedback you can ever get is from the people using your site. Try very hard to get open and honest feedback from your visitors and customers and ideally reward them with exclusive offers or freebies. However, a word of caution, the people already engaging with your site are the ones that stuck around and obviously liked something about it. There may be many more that you lost at an early stage, and it’s a lot harder to get feedback from these guys.

Using all three techniques above should get you into a strong position to start with, but fundamentally being sensitive to your visitor’s ongoing and ever-changing design expectations will delivery you long-term success.

Author Bio: Duncan is owner and manager of Extreme Sports Trader –an online marketplace and price comparison website for items such as Animal board shorts and backpacks. He also designs blogs as a part-time hobby.