McKinney web design for a customer who reads the whole page.

With a median household income of $124,215 and a median home value of $471,800, McKinney is a place where we'd expect people to read before they hand over a deposit. The sites we tested give a design a small head start. The median page weighs 2.72 MB against 3.08 MB in our 31-city sample, and 15 of 38 came in under 2 MB. Yet the main content takes a median 7.2 seconds to show on a simulated mid-range phone, about the same as the 7.4 seconds there. On a lighter page, our first suspect is the big picture at the top. Design that decides what goes on the first screen, and how large it is, is the cheapest speed you can buy, in our view.

The finish matters to a careful reader, and here the sites we tested are close to the pack. 55% failed the color-contrast check, against 62%. 18% failed on tap targets, against 22%. 39% skipped heading levels, against 47%. A failure means some elements on the page failed, and on 38 sites gaps like these may be noise. What the page must show depends on the trade. A builder needs finished jobs and the towns on the route. A financial firm needs real names and a plain account of who it serves. A dental practice needs a next step for a family new to town.

Websites run from $1,500 to $5,750 at a fixed price, up to 70 pages, and every package lists design, content writing and lead form capture. If the look is fine and only a few things are broken, design fixes may be the whole job, with repairs from $149. The McKinney report has the rest of the test. Read your homepage as a stranger with money would, note the first thing that makes you doubt it, and send us that.