Your website’s user experience can make a huge difference in determining whether or not it is a quality website. Do users feel welcomed to your site when they click on the link? Do they have an easy time finding the information they need? Does your website make it easy for visitors to navigate? How fast does the site load? Does the design appear professional and aesthetically pleasing? Is your website usable on mobile devices as well? Is your website designed to encourage them to convert as well? Our discussion today will address all of these questions.
A website’s user experience may not be a new topic in itself, but it remains an essential element of website design. This merits a separate article. Let’s share our tips for improving user experience so you can create a website that makes users go, “Wow”.
UI/UX design: what is it?
Both UI and UX design are often confused as they go hand-in-hand – perhaps you’ve heard of a UI/UX designer? In this article, we will focus on user experience (UX) rather than user interface (UI).
A website’s UI (user interface) is its visual layout. Designing buttons, fonts, images, layout, colors, animations, and graphics are all part of it. It is the UI designers’ responsibility to create interfaces that look good, have a suitable theme, and accurately reflect a brand.
The next step after designing user interfaces is to design a user experience. User interaction is the key to this concept. There are several facets to this, including navigation, understanding the interface, completing tasks, converting, and overall ease of use.
UX and UI are interconnected for the following reasons:
- The terms UI/UX design refer to the combination of the two tasks carried out by the same designer
- Designing a user interface should always take user experience into account – aesthetics aren’t everything
User expectations are a key component of UX design. A UX designer must consider what other websites and applications people have used and how their general structure usually looks. You may lose customers if your website’s navigation is different from the industry standard and makes it difficult for them to navigate. An intuitive interface prevents users from spending time trying to figure out how your website works. Thus, the UX designer should be aware of user needs and wants, map it with the business goals during the web design process.
The Benefits of Improving the User Experience
The importance of improving your user experience doesn’t mean it’s an altruistic endeavor. The ease of navigation and satisfaction with the interface of your business/website will reap many benefits. Let’s look at some of the main advantages:
– A higher level of Customer Loyalty
Setting a website up for success requires understanding how to attract a highly quality customer and even creating loyalty. People are likely to leave your website, but your users will largely stay if they have a positive experience. People are likely to recommend your website as well, and in turn to others and increase traffic and revenue to your site.
– A better Conversion Rate
Measuring a website’s success is performed by analyzing which URLs drive conversions versus those that are poorly performing. A website that is difficult to navigate will have a difficult time converting visitors, especially if they arrive by mistake. A well-designed website, however, will be easier to navigate and will appear more trustworthy, which leads to a higher conversion rate.
– An increasing ROI (return on investment)
When the user experience of your website is good, your ROI will be good too. Investing in your business and running your website in a way that meets the needs of your customers will reap many benefits, as your website can accurately be used to reflect the quality of your offer. Not only will better user experience lead to increased sales and quicker deliveries, but it will also help users make purchases at a faster rate. All of this increases your ROI significantly.
– More Satisfied Customers
A great FAQ or healthful website creates a good experience for customers. If you want a successful business, customers will be more satisfied if you have a website design that reflects the quality of your product. Something is wrong when people enjoy visiting your site and are still having to overcome issues like lengthy dropouts and bouncing on every page. It’s better to have a site that is usable and reflects your line of products.
Happy Customers = Profitable Business!
How to Create a Better User Experience?
There’s a lot to consider when optimizing your website’s UX. Here’s a list of elements we think will get you started:
– User Journey & Navigation
Your website should feel like a clear path, not a maze. At times what you create may look easy, but for new users, it is quite the reverse. They need to be able to move easily from section to section by following a straightforward path so that it is likely that when they click on your page they will find it simple to navigate back to your homepage. Search abilities must be ingrained in every step and every aspect of the website so that visitors can find exactly what they are looking for. Most importantly, your navigation bar should be clear and visible throughout your site.
People using mobile devices should quickly be able to locate the information they want to view. This can be done by having your page views on your navigation bar, which is always visible, so people can simply switch between pages.
– Having Consistency
In the ideal case, every page on your website should look the same. The web pages should have the same Typography, color theme, section dividers, images, button styles, graphic illustrations, icons, and so on. Users should not feel as if they have moved to different websites which can happen if the pages seem quite different from the main design on the rest of your site. Go through each page and make sure the elements are consistent. And, you can always go more Creative on the Website’s Content, isn’t it?
– Webpage Load Time
One of the most frustrating things that a user can find is a long loading time. Relatable much?
You may click on a website looking for the information you need, only to have to wait a long time for your website to load. If the loading time is longer than 3-4 seconds, many users are likely to click off and go to a website with a shorter load time. This is unfortunate because most users want instant gratification. Businesses can lose out on a significant number of potential customers just because of slow loading time.
Not to worry! Here are a few basic things to consider if you want to reduce the loading time, the first thing you need to do is find out how you really perform. This can be found online using a free service on Google, which offers information on page speed. In case your web loading time is greater than 3 to 4 seconds, you might want to reduce/compress the image file sizes on your website, as these can cause the pages to become heavy and load slower.
– Having Quality Content
You may never be content, but make sure you develop the content your visitors will love. Visitors will not appreciate having to wade through paragraphs of text. Consider using a simplified approach that consists of bullet points to help maximize user comprehension. Save the long reads for your blog, as visitors will not enjoy perusing your site to access important information. When showing different types of information on your website, include the most important information first to make it handy.
Although sometimes useful, you should avoid using pop-ups unless you really need to. When you do so, you annoy website visitors so much that they want to click on the back button in their browser. Make sure you include little useful information on your website and not pop-ups. Use pop-ups when you need to, but not more than that.
– Optimizing White Space
White space refers to any area on your website that is designated for images or text that is not included in any particular section of the page. It does not need to look white, but it should be free of any extra text or images. This helps balance out the amount of content in each section of your website, creating a pleasing browsing experience. This helps in making your web content look less crowded.
White space is not “wasted” space – it can be cleverly utilized. Adding white space organizes a webpage and makes it clearer what readers should focus on and which parts are less important. Try adding white space to make elements clear and acquire a barrier between pages giving viewers a breather between sections.
– Graphics & Visuals
Your website should include various sketches, whether you’re selling clothes, insurance products, or legal services; including some unique, good-quality images that distinguish your brand from the herd. Utilizing product photos from stock agencies is alright in moderation and with caution. Your real website should definitely have a unique collection of images that communicate your brand and product, otherwise, people will just be bombarded with too many images and it could be too much to handle. The point is that people are visual beings; therefore, your images should reflect that and make sure that they support your content.
Most websites also contain a lot of interactive elements. For reference purposes, these include animations, graphics, and interactive controls embedded within the website. The animations are useful as they help guide user actions and explain to them the completion status of various tasks making user interactions more pleasing.
– Call-To-Actions
CTAs are an integral part of user experience. They help a website perform well, get users to perform some action on the website, and attract more traffic. They need to be well-designed and stand out from the noise. When selecting what to place on the page, use positioning tests to understand which call-to-action is most effective. When designing the buttons, ensure they stand out from the rest of the content and aren’t too similar to things on the page.
– Make it Responsive
The goal of responsive design is to offer the user experience as good as possible across all devices, even though the designs for those devices are slightly different. For example, on a smartphone compared to a laptop, the information displayed may appear in one column. But, should maintain the brand and content consistency.
You need a website that looks as good when viewed on a smartphone screen as when viewed on a laptop screen. This is what responsive design can provide.
Do you need help with UX design services or would like to improve your User Experience?
Growth Graphers’ user experience designers and consultants focus on understanding your users’ behaviors, their requirements, their online needs, and their overall motivations.
As a leading UX design services provider and having some of the most seasoned UX design experts in the world on staff, Growth Graphers is ready to tackle your next project helping your organization with user experience design and navigating the digital landscape.
[…] Optimize your website’s design and user experience (UX) to increase search engine visibility and drive traffic. Follow best practices such as using appropriate heading tags, ensuring responsive design, and monitoring usability through tools like Google Search Console. […]