AA website used to be a brochure. For most Haitian organizations it is now the first place a customer, donor or partner checks before picking up the phone. That raises the bar. A site that loads slowly, breaks on a phone or looks abandoned costs you trust before anyone has spoken to you.
Here are the trends we think matter for decision-makers here, and the ones we would not chase.
Mobile comes first
Most of your visitors reach you on a phone, often on a mobile data plan with an uneven signal. That is the real design brief. Start with the small screen, keep the layout simple, make buttons easy to tap with a thumb, and treat the desktop version as the bonus. Test on a mid-range Android device, not only on the latest iPhone in the office.
A practical check: open your site on a phone with the connection limited to a slow mobile network. If the first screen takes more than a few seconds to show something useful, visitors in the field or on the road will leave. Also look at forms. A contact form with ten fields is painful on a small screen, so keep it to name, phone or email, and message.
Speed is a feature
Every extra megabyte is a visitor who may give up. Compress images, serve modern formats such as WebP, avoid autoplay video, and load only the scripts a page needs. Modern frameworks can pre-build pages so they appear almost instantly, and a static site is also cheaper and safer to host than one that runs a database on every visit.
Keep the home page well under a few megabytes.- Use one or two fonts, not five.
- Measure on a throttled connection, not on office Wi-Fi.
A common mistake is uploading photos straight from a camera, sometimes several megabytes each. Resize them to the largest size the page actually displays before you upload. Another is embedding a video that starts loading on arrival. Show a still image and let visitors choose to play the video.
Build for people and search
Good structure helps readers and search engines at the same time. Clear headings, descriptive page titles, real text instead of text baked into images, and alt text on photos all make a site easier to find and easier to use with a screen reader. Add the basics of local search: your address in Delmas or wherever you operate, a working contact form, and a map link.
Ask your developer for a short checklist at handover: unique page titles, descriptions, readable link text, contrast that works in daylight, and a sitemap. Bilingual sites need extra care. Keep French and Creole versions clearly separate so search engines and visitors both find the right one.
Choose tools your team can own
The newest framework is not always the right one. Ask who will update the site in two years. If your communications officer needs a developer for every typo, the project has a hidden cost. A good build separates content from code, so your team can edit text and images without touching the engineering.
At Atrax we hand over sites with a short training session, so the people who run the organization can run its website too.
When you compare proposals, ask three questions. Where will the site be hosted and who pays for it each year? Who holds the domain name and the passwords? Can we get the source files if we change developer? Clear answers protect you from being locked in.
- 01
Mobile first
Design for a phone on a weak connection before you design for a desktop.
- 02
Speed is a feature
Light pages load, rank and convert better than heavy ones.
- 03
Own your stack
Choose tools your team can maintain after launch.
What we would skip
Be careful with trends that add weight without adding value: heavy animation on every page, chat widgets nobody monitors, and features built because a competitor has them. If a feature does not help a visitor do something they came to do, it is a candidate for removal.
Before you brief a developer, write down the three things a visitor must be able to do on your site. Then judge every design and technical choice against that list.
Ask for evidence before adding a feature: how many visitors will use it, and what does it cost to maintain every year? A smaller site that is kept current is more credible than a large one with outdated pages and broken links.
Next Step
A website is the most visible tool you own, and small technical choices decide whether it helps or hurts. If you would like a second opinion before you commit budget, the Atrax team is happy to talk it through. You can reach us through the contact page.
Atrax Team
The Atrax Team is a six-person group of engineers, GIS and data specialists, and designers based in Delmas, Haiti. Atrax has built digital products and field-data systems for Haitian organizations since 2015.
