Content Vs Visual Driven Websites
All websites can be viewed as content driven or visual driven, or somewhere in between.
Knowing what type of website you are making will help you decide on where to place your effort first and how to balance content and images.
What is a content-driven website?
What is a visual-driven website?
A visual driven website is one where images drive the user experience. Images are used to get people to focus on text, but the text is simple and not that important.
How does this affect making a website?
When building a content driven website—the initial focus is on getting the content right, then worry about the visuals later.
With a visual-driven website – it’s the other way round.
Example of a mainly visual
A coffee shop or a clothes shop is a purely visually driven website. Everyone knows what coffee is, so there is little to explain. The website is more emotionally driven, whereas the content—which can still be informative, is not as important.
Example of a mainly content driven
A website for an IT company that sells specialist services.
People will need to understand the service on offer to know if they should contact the company.
The subject is fairly emotionless, so photos are there to add a little emotion and flavor, but not get in the way of understanding.
Example of a mixed visual / and content
Some project may be somewhere in the middle, where both the images and content are just as important (or not)
For example, a plumber’s website may simply explain details about known services and won’t need that much content BUT the website will look quite plain without interesting images, so finding nice images and pairing them with small bits of text will work.
This is where templates come in handy.
Example of something that can be either
A law firm can either have a simple, visually driven website (essential) or a website with lots of informative content. (professional)
Some law firms use their websites as a way to get people to contact them, and others want to explain what they do in more detail to improve their chances of getting clients.
In both cases, finding good images is important, but what changes is the arrangement and the amount of text.
Given that law firms have difficulty in finding good stock photos that build trust, it may be better to go for a content-driven website.