It's common to look for website design inspirations before creating your own website design. Most website design lists never showcase Ugandan websites.
In a bid for the marketing industry to take part in BUBU, we are kicking off a new website design inspiration category we hope to update often to showcase what we can be proud of as Ugandans.
We also hope this category will positively inspire creativity among Ugandan website designers
The criteria for selection will be quite simple. The following will be tested for:
- User Interface and Usability
- Responsiveness
- and Accessibility
For each episode, we'll try to select websites from different industries to break monotony and provide inspiration from a wider array of categories.
Enough talk, lets dive right into it,
10: Yokuku Website
We kicking things off with Yokuku. Yokuku is Ugandan owned family business registered under HMH-Rainbow Ltd. These deal in chicken related products. Their responsive website loads pretty nice on mobile and desktop too.
The hero slide showcasing their products shows initiative in highlighting the important facets of the website first. The Kuku shops menu is great for those needing to find Kuku shop locations. During load, First content paint took 7.6 seconds and First CPU Idle 7.1 seconds time to Interactive 21.1 seconds. This could present a challenge for low bandwidth devices otherwise, good design.
9: KCCA website
The number 9 spot is occupied by the KCCA website.KCCA is an acronym for Kampala City Council Authority. They have a highly informative website giving off true organization vibes.
The website is fully responsive on all media device sizes. KCCA has first content paint of 2.6 seconds which is not so bad for a government website. The first CPU idle and Time to interactive wich stand at 14.8s and 18.3 seconds respectively could be improved further.
8: Spotlight Magazine Website
Number 8 spot belongs to the Spotlight Magazine website. This heavy graphics website loads pretty nicely which can be a challenge that we don't take for granted.
The website is fully responsive as well. First input delay takes less than a second i.e 80ms. The first CPU idle and Time to interactive stand at 6.7s and 12.6 seconds respectively.
7: Eversend Website
Eversend's website is minimalistic and uncluttered. It communicates its key message in a few precise words.
The use of wide white spaces is part of the "less is more" mantra that is effective in improving readability and clarity. On the speed scale, First input delay takes less than a second i.e 270ms. The first CPU idle and Time to interactive stand at 5.4s and 18.2 seconds respectively.
6: Case Clinic
Case clinic is a website belonging to Case Group. Case group is an umbrella company for Case Medical Center, Case Medicare, and the affiliated health care facilities all over the country.
5: Eden Conserve Website
Eden Conserve is a beautiful website created by the winners of Zoohackathon Uganda 2019.
The founder's mission is to create awareness on environmental conservation, climate change ond conservation of endangered species. The website layouts and visuals are great. We however couldn't carry out the speed test as the lighthouse wasn't able to retrieve the URL. Overall, nice job.
4: Monitor Website
Monitor is one of the websites that has evolved with time to keep up with the trends. It belongs to the nation media group of companies.
The use of real estate ( webspace ) to provide lots of content categories in a logical way is commendable. First input delay is at 320ms. The first CPU idle and Time to interactive which stand at 12.3s and 23.7 seconds respectively. Though pretty high these values are expected for high content websites.
3: Jiji Website
jiji is a classifieds website where you can buy goods and services formerly known as OLX.
The website design uses modern paradigms to create a great UX experience. This website aced the lighthouse speed test in comparison to other websites on this list. Nicely done @Jiji team.
2: Jumia website
Jumia is a website that would be considered the Amazon of Uganda.
There was a bit of contention on whether to add Jumia and Jiji to this list as they don't truly fit the BUBU category but since they have a strong presence in the country, we included them nonetheless.
Jumia performed well on the lightspeed test with First input delay of 315ms and First Content Paint t 3.7 seconds.
1: Innovation Village
Innovation Village is an organisation that promotes entrepreneurship through innovation. Its has an eye-catching website that perfectly harmonizes its colors. The contrasting color sections make for easy reading. The speed insights test, however, revealed no optimization for persons with low bandwidth.
Conclusion
There are many websites that should probably make this list, If you know of any let us know in the comments.
The tests we carried out reveal that accessibility is sacrificed on the design alter for most Ugandans websites. There are modern coding methods that can be used to build great website designs that are accessible.
We hope to do better with this series next time.
