A website can look good and still make it difficult to understand the offer or send an enquiry. Check whether images, motion or navigation delay those tasks before commissioning a redesign.
Low enquiry numbers alone do not identify a design problem. These checks help you find specific obstacles.
Check one: can the page become useful quickly?
Run the URL through Google PageSpeed Insights and read the mobile result first.
If the report has real-user data, pay attention to it. Lab tests are valuable for finding regressions, but field data reports the experiences of eligible Chrome users in the dataset. It does not cover every visitor or browser.
The current Core Web Vitals are:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how long the largest visible image or text block takes to appear. A good result is 2.5 seconds or less.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how quickly the page gives visual feedback after interactions. A good result is 200 milliseconds or less.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how much the layout unexpectedly moves. A good result is 0.1 or less.
The Web Vitals guidance evaluates those thresholds at the 75th percentile, separately for mobile and desktop. That matters: one unusually fast test on the office connection does not describe the customer experience.
Do not reduce this to a single score. Open the diagnostics and look for the cause: an oversized hero asset, scripts doing work before the page is usable, fonts delaying text or elements being inserted above content after it appears.
Check two: can somebody act without learning the interface?
Open the site on your phone, turn off Wi-Fi and try to complete the main customer task.
For a hospitality business that may be checking rooms or sending an enquiry. For a clinic it may be finding the location and calling. For a professional service it may be understanding what the firm does and deciding whether to make contact.
Count:
- how long before you can read something useful;
- how many choices appear before the main action;
- how many taps it takes to reach that action;
- whether a banner, chat widget or animation covers it; and
- whether the page still makes sense when an image or script is late.
The number of taps is not a universal score. One clear, considered step can be better than a short but confusing path. What matters is whether each step answers a question the visitor actually has.
Check three: watch somebody use it
Give the phone to somebody who has not seen the site. Ask them to explain what the business offers, find one important detail and start an enquiry. Then do not help.
Where they pause is evidence. Where they tap is evidence. “I would normally go back to Google here” is evidence.
Record what happened and test that step again after changing it. A small observation session can identify a problem to investigate, but it cannot establish how often all visitors encounter it.
What over-design actually means
It does not mean animation, unusual layouts or strong art direction are bad. Our 3D work uses animation and interaction too.
An effect gets in the way when it delays reading, covers a control or makes a simple task difficult. Large downloads and unwanted movement also need to be considered during design.
A cinematic introduction can be appropriate when atmosphere is part of the product. It still should not hold the headline, hide the next step or make a low-powered phone do work before the page becomes useful.
The same applies to “conversion” additions. A pop-up, chatbot and sticky button can each sound sensible. Together they can create three competing requests before the visitor understands the business.
Ask the builder for constraints, not adjectives
Before approving a design, ask:
- What is the mobile performance budget?
- Which content works before JavaScript runs?
- What happens for reduced motion and a constrained device?
- Which effect can be removed without changing the customer journey?
- How will the enquiry path be tested end to end?
- What real-user performance will be watched after launch?
A good answer is specific and testable. “Optimised” is not a budget. “SEO-friendly” is not a measurement. “Mobile responsive” does not show that the page is useful on a slow phone.
For a project with animation or interactive 3D, agree the download limits, supported devices and fallback before production. Our note on using 3D on a website explains the choices.
Test the full enquiry journey
Keep the design choices that help people understand the business. Make the important text and links available before optional effects load. Provide a reduced-motion version and test on the devices and connections your customers use.
Then test a complete enquiry: submit the form, confirm that the message arrives and check that it can be answered. A homepage performance score does not verify those steps.
Related: What a booking site actually costs you and CJAX Labs services.
Sources: Web Vitals on web.dev · Google PageSpeed Insights