Advantages and disadvantages of sidebars in web design

web design manchester

Creating a professional, stunning and practical website for your company or business can be a challenge. From balancing colour schemes, to visual elements like illustration, animation and icons, there is a lot to think about. Not to mention the layout. Headers, footers and sidebars can all be practical and useful additions to any website. And knowing exactly how to use these effectively, or if at all, is essential to the overall success of your website. Here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester, we are Manchester’s leading web design experts. And we work with companies and clients across the region, to provide excellent web design solutions. As a result, we have produced this guide to the advantages and disadvantages of sidebars in web design.

What is a sidebar?

A sidebar is usually a bar that sections off less than a third of your page to include some secondary content. You might have seen these used in blogs, where the content takes up 2/3rds of the page, and a bar, usually with a different background colour, runs as a stripe down the side. The content within this bar will usually not be specific to the content of the page, but it might instead include a contact form, a video or a call to action button. This is a nice way to break up a page, but is it useful?

Advantages and disadvantages of sidebars in web design

A sidebar was a “must have” for around a decade in web design. But is it still relevant? Well, here are the advantages, and disadvantages, to using a sidebar on your website:

Advantages:

  • give users quality, important information that might not otherwise fit on the page or with the content
  • add a call to action button button above the fold
  • add a form above the fold
  • show off your best blog content
  • lead to relevant pages
  • show ads from yourself or affiliates
  • share social media content
  • meets user expectations
  • show off video content
  • add client testimonials

All of the advantages show that a sidebar could help you increase conversions, by keeping your call to action button, or contact form, on the screen, and in the mind of your users. A sidebar can also help to improve the user experience by showing off relevant content or blog posts that can provide more information for interested users. However, there are disadvantages to using sidebars too.

Disadvantages

  • a sidebar can be distracting
  • can create unnecessary friction, detracting from the user experience
  • can create clutter on a website page
  • doesn’t fit with a minimalist design

By adding content to the side of the page, you could be distracting your users from the content that’s there in front of them. And this could reduce the effectiveness of your website page overall. And on a minimalist website, with minimalist design, the sidebar can crowd the content, and add unnecessary clutter.

In conclusion

So should you ditch the sidebar? Well, it depends on the aim of you website. Some studies have shown that without a sidebar, you could get more sign ups, because users will read the content, and sign up at the bottom. However, this goes against the principle of providing users with what they need, immediately. So it’s probably a good idea to test your sidebar, and take a look at the results, before you make a decision one way or the other.

For more information or advice about all aspects of web design, get in touch with the professionals today, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester.