Web Interface Design: Should You Use a Template or Design from Scratch?

Vũ Khôi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

Web Interface Design: Should You Use a Template or Design from Scratch?

What is website interface design?

Website interface design (also known as UI/UX design) is the process of creating the user interface (UI - User Interface) for a website or web application. It includes everything that appears on the website, including:

• Images: Pictures, logos, icons, etc.

• Information: Content, articles, product descriptions, etc.

• Videos: Introductory videos, tutorial videos, etc.

• Layout: Website layout design, arranging the elements on the page.

• Colors: The website's dominant color scheme.

• Typography: The typefaces used in the website.

• Navigation: Menus, buttons, links, etc. that help users navigate the website.

The goal of website interface design is to create a website that is visually appealing, easy to use (easy to find information and perform desired actions), and delivers the best user experience. A beautiful website interface attracts users and keeps them on the site longer.

Website interface design is an important part of building a successful website. A website with a beautiful, easy-to-use interface attracts more users, helping increase revenue and profit for the business.

However, designing a web interface takes a great deal of time and knowledge, requiring the business to invest properly to get a polished web theme (web interface) that fits its users. So, beyond designing the interface entirely from scratch, the market currently offers many different solutions to serve additional diverse needs. Here are some interface solutions:

• Purpose-built website template interfaces: These are interfaces designed by designers specifically for services or products with highly distinctive characteristics. These interfaces are usually practical for same-industry needs, suitable for newly established businesses that need a polished website for opening day.

• Multi-purpose website template interfaces: Based on the pre-existing theme idea, publishers wanted to serve a wider audience and sell more to businesses, so they designed the easiest-to-use layouts with the most neutral colors so that anyone can use them, without being tied to specific content or industry. The drawback is that the layout will be quite boring and users may not be impressed.

• Website interfaces generated by AI (Artificial Intelligence): This is a new model introduced in 2023, when ChatGPT began to mature. Users simply enter their requirements into the request field, and the system automatically finds purpose-built templates and multi-purpose templates to offer the user to choose from or modify to their liking. However, everything is still in a nascent stage, so practical applicability is limited.

• UI Components (interface blocks): This is the group of interfaces that web application programmers usually like because of its flexibility. This is not the template of a complete page. Each block on the page is called a Component; the programmer just needs to call up these blocks at will. However, to use them, the programmer must have an aesthetic sense or must collaborate with someone experienced in web interface design.

• One interface for one purpose: This is just a fancy name for designing the interface from scratch. With this solution, the brand's essence, content, and design intent are calculated and executed purposefully by the Designer. Results vary depending on the designer's skill. The drawbacks of this solution are the time and investment cost, and heavy dependence on the Designer's skill.

What is a template? What role does a template play in web interface design?

A website template (also called a website interface template) is a ready-made design kit that lets you create a website quickly and easily without needing to know programming. A website template includes the following elements:

• Page layout: How elements on the page are arranged, including menu, content, images, etc.

• Typography: The typefaces used in the website.

• Colors: The website's dominant color scheme.

• Images: The images used in the website.

• HTML and CSS code: The HTML and CSS code that makes up the website's interface. (Some website interfaces don't come with HTML/CSS — only graphics files to edit. Users must code those interfaces themselves on various platforms)

Using a ready-made template for your website interface is a perfectly legitimate solution when you need a website quickly while still meeting aesthetic requirements. However, the solution needs to fit; below, Markdao will analyze the pros and cons to give you more grounds for choosing.

What are the benefits of designing a website interface from a sample template?

TIME SAVING:

For some website projects, time is the foremost factor serving business purposes. With ready-made templates, users only need to adjust the website's interface design to fit the presented content and replace images and text — and the site is ready to use. Having the layout and animations already built saves the maximum amount of time.

Currently, popular open-source website platforms like WordPress and Joomla already have visual no-code interface-building systems (Visual Builder No-code). And popular No-code builders like Squarespace, Webflow, and Framer have many pre-built templates, making adjustments faster — even without the involvement of programmers.

COST SAVING:

Because fewer adjustments are needed, marketing staff or personnel with a technical background can intervene in the template interface themselves, so businesses can partly avoid additional costs from outsourcing units. This helps businesses become more self-sufficient, able to easily change and adapt to needs.

In case the business doesn't have the internal resources and must use a Digital Agency, then with the ready-made platforms of the interface combined with high skill, completing a website also becomes faster — 3 to 5 days (if content is already prepared) will get the website finished quickly.

EASY UPDATING:

The built-in library of web page layouts makes rolling out new pages for new content much faster. If you use a No-code Builder platform, your marketing team can do it without hiring additional staff. If you need to run A/B Testing, there are already many interfaces to choose the best one for your website.

If the sample interfaces come from reputable providers with after-purchase support, we will always have fresh interfaces in the app library. Just press Update, and the interface will gain many new components and screens with a similar look, adding variety and giving your website a constant change of clothes that surprises users.

Potentially fewer errors:

To design an SEO-standard web interface, remember that you need to focus not only on the website's "storefront" but also master the techniques "behind" the site — code, typically. Compared to writing your own code, using a template with ready-made code samples helps you make corrections more accurately.

Nowadays there are quite a few templates supporting SEO-standard web design, so you don't need to write much code, unless you need to make in-depth edits on some issue. The less you write, the rarer the errors — and your website will be better optimized.

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3 limitations of using a website template

NO DISTINCTIVE IDENTITY YET:

Designing a web interface with a ready-made template brings you many benefits, but in parallel you must also accept this method's limitations. A ready-made template, purchased with just one click, cannot convey your brand essence (Brand Essence).

The main purpose of a website is to convey content and messages in the form of text and images. If content comes first and design follows to serve the content, the effectiveness of the message delivery is clearer. If content comes after the layout and design, we are trying to force the message into it. The message's effectiveness may not match what a fully custom website design achieves.

So, to achieve optimal effectiveness, content must still come first, coordinated with the brand style, and only then select the most suitable templates based on those two criteria. However, making adjustments is not easy either if you have no design knowledge.

Therefore, for just a small cost you can use Markdao's affordable website design service. Though reasonably priced, the quality can reach 70% of a completely brand-new web interface design.

WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION IS HARDER:

The main goal of today's templates is an attractive interface that drives users' purchase decisions, with SEO coming second. So sometimes the optimizations in the interface don't truly meet strict SEO requirements. Of course we can still adjust them, but if the interface had been designed with customization in mind from the start, it would be far more optimized.

Sometimes these sample interfaces have page load speeds that are not optimal on Google PageSpeed Insights, so deep theme customization is needed to improve them. This is by no means simple and could cause your website to lose connectivity at any moment. While not a prerequisite SEO factor, optimizing GPSI will help decide rankings in hard-fought matches against competitors of nearly equal strength.

During SEO execution, improving the website's UX is very important to raise the site's conversion rate. In this case, small tweaks that can't be made can become a big obstacle.

SECURITY ISSUES:

Using a generic codebase for web interface design can make your website easier to hack by cunning rivals. In addition, ready-made templates may contain hidden ads inserted by the theme designer, or in some cases malicious code that lowers your website's ranking in search results. Fortunately, Markdao Vietnam anticipated this limitation and has its own website protection program, supporting you in keeping your site running for the long term.

Analyzing the full custom web interface design approach (Custom UI Design)

Custom website design: The website is designed and programmed from scratch according to the customer's specific requirements. This method is more expensive but allows the creation of a unique website that meets all of the customer's needs.

Custom website design is the process of creating a website on the internet. It involves many different tasks, including:

• Planning: Defining the website's goals, target audience, and necessary functions.

• Interface design: Creating a beautiful, easy-to-use interface that fits the website's goals.

• Content development: Writing articles, creating images and videos, and gathering other content for the website.

• Programming: Writing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code to create the website's functionality.

• Testing: Ensuring the website works correctly and is bug-free.

• Launch and maintenance: Publishing the website to the internet and updating content and functionality over time.

Strengths of applying custom website interface design

BUILDING A UNIQUE BRAND:

To breathe soul into a customized interface made exclusively for a brand, the most important thing is a complete brand identity (Brand Guideline). Only then can the Web Designer help you complete a website with a strong brand impression. Using shape, font, and color elements creates a perfect combination for the interface.

Beyond visuals and content, customizing the interface also lets us intervene in the header, footer, buttons, typography, background blocks, and most importantly, animation. With deep intervention that follows the brand's exact identity, that is the ultimate weapon ensuring no one can copy your interface. If they try to do the same, they're essentially making your brand more famous on the Internet.

SEO OPTIMIZATION:

When keywords are defined in advance and the SEO strategy is carefully calculated before execution, the Bread Crumb, keyword allocation, and Headings have a complete structure that won't need changes in the future. If you later hand it to any SEO Agency, they can greatly reduce the time spent adjusting On-page SEO on your current website interface.

Limited plugin use, trimming unused CSS and layouts makes the website overall lighter than template-based websites. Better speed is the foundation for competing. On mobile devices, images load at a much smaller size than on Desktop — another competitive edge in tough markets for businesses.

MORE COST-EFFECTIVE:

Getting advice, planning usage, defining the user audience, and drawing the Customer Journey are steps that, even if you do perform them, are very hard to incorporate into templates. Once this information exists, the website interface will be designed carefully, usable for the long term, without needing too many changes that waste time after the website interface is finished.

EASY TO EDIT:

Once the website is 100% your property, you can edit it freely without any copyright or security issues. This is very advantageous when you want to make deep changes to some effect or technique that requires "mining" everything behind the website. Unique design allows adding page types in unlimited ways.

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What are the limitations of custom interface design?

TIME-CONSUMING:

Choosing unique design for your web interface means you need to give us a bit more time to complete the website in the best way possible. The template design stage is crucial; it must be meticulously planned from the very first steps so the website has the most solid framework. Besides, understanding your company's spirit and mining its truly standout differentiators also takes extra time.

EASY TO ENCOUNTER INEXPERIENCED PROVIDERS:

There are many providers on the market without the capability to execute a complete website interface design, for many reasons, but they are commonly known for two main ones:

• Using an inexperienced workforce: this makes the website's construction cost nearly as cheap as a website template. But the quality is mostly worse than even building a website template. When coding up these interfaces, even more problems arise if this designer has no programming experience.

• Using a Developer to design a website's interface — skipping the design step and jumping straight into Front-end programming from sketches. In the early 2010s, this was very common when website design talent was scarce; programmers took on this work. Today this reason has declined but still exists in the market.

HIGH COST:

The initial cost of the unique design approach will be higher than choosing a ready-made template design. Choosing unique design means choosing to use 100% of the brainpower of the Markdao web design team itself. So, a higher cost is easy to understand. In return, you'll receive a one-of-a-kind website in your own style, and only you will own this website.

Below are some representative website design projects carried out by Markdao's Design team:

Which interface design method is right for you?

Finally, choosing a method shouldn't revolve too much around the price. Budget is only one reflecting factor. What matters most is that the choice should center on your business's goals and the best means to achieve them. Overemphasizing price is the trap many managers fall into.

So, before making a choice, it's important to understand your own needs. Markdao Vietnam is the partner that can help you identify these issues: your needs, your goals, determining the suitable type of website, saving time and money. We will support you in making a wise decision about the technology choice for your web interface design.

With many years of experience in full-package graphic design services, we know the best practices, understand what needs to be done, choose the best way to do it, and leverage your business's message to succeed.

Elevate your website interface design quality with Markdao Agency

Markdao Vietnam has over 6 years of experience in the design and internet advertising industry, and over 10 years in multi-platform programming. We clearly understand the shortcomings that Custom UI Design still has. That's why our team has overcome all of these weaknesses.

Markdao currently provides website interface design services both on ready-made templates and fully custom designs from scratch. Although we have only just set foot in the template market, we believe that the polish from the traditional design approach will help us quickly reach the top of this market.

Contact Markdao Vietnam now for web interface design consultation and to choose the most suitable service:

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