Your website is the face of your business, and it’s your responsibility to ensure it functions well. The only way you can do that is to offer your users a smooth experience that begins as soon as they land on your page all the way through to when they leave.
Setting up a seamless interface for your audience might not be rocket science, but it’s imperative to understand the technicalities of design and user psychology.
Rapidly changing digital market trends may cause your website to appear outdated. While a redesign may be ideal in some cases, it might not be the best if you have a limited budget or time. To help you overcome this obstacle, we’ve compiled a list of 8 simple ways you can improve your website to make it more helpful and valuable to your users.
But before moving further, let’s understand the terminology.
What is User Experience (UX)?
“No product is an island. A product is more than the product. It is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences. Think through all of the stages of a product or service – from initial intentions through final reflections, from the first usage to help, service, and maintenance. Make them all work together seamlessly.”
— Don Norman, inventor of the term “User Experience.”
User experience (UX) thoroughly understands users’ requirements, values, abilities, and limitations. It considers the business goals and objectives of the project management team.
It seeks to provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. UX design includes acquiring and integrating a product, branding, design, usability, and function.
Making the product easy to use and creating other product-related experiences such as marketing campaigns, packaging, and after-sales support are all part of designing an experience. Most importantly, UX design is concerned with solving problems and meeting needs.
What makes a good UX Design?
It can be challenging to distinguish between good and bad user experiences, and what constitutes a good experience is frequently subjective. It will likely differ between people or contexts, so understanding your user is critical to the design process.
Let’s dive in.
1. Make it responsive and mobile-friendly
Google recently began penalizing sites that aren’t optimized for mobile devices, emphasizing the importance of responsiveness. This is the most valuable way to improve the usability of your website. Mobile devices account for more than half of all web traffic. As a result, users are five times more likely to abandon your website if it is not mobile-optimized. If you don’t optimize your website for the best mobile experience, you’re undeniably losing potential customers.
2. Focus on white space
White space improves the legibility of your data while also allowing your audience to focus on the elements surrounding the content.
User attention increases by 20% when there is white space around text and titles. White space will make your website open and fresh and help you communicate that feeling to the user. One thing to remember about white space is that it takes up space, so be mindful of how you utilize it.
3. User research is the key
Before you start designing product experiences, you might ask yourself, “Who is this product for?” No question is more important in the context of UX.
Suppose you’re creating a mobile experience to supplement an existing one, such as a web application or a brick-and-mortar retail encounter. In that case, this part is easy because you already know and can survey your current users.
Make sure you understand the goal of your website. If you are unsure how to go about surveying current or potential users, a quality UX Research professional can help you with rich quantitative and qualitative research methods.
4. Focus on simplicity
A clean layout, plenty of white space, an average of two fonts, and a third for your logo are the elements your website needs. Your graphics must serve a purpose to be both clickable and informative.
Every page should have a clear goal. The checkout page should contain only what is required for the checkout process. The contact page should include information and forms, not blog posts. The user should understand the intent of each page and included information without further explanation.
5. Good Copywriting Is Essential
Keywords in your title are crucial for targeting your message and attracting the right audience.
Search engines typically give more weight than other content to headings, so picking the correct title and making it stand out can drastically enhance your searchability. But, more notably, headers lead your user through the website, making it easier for them to skim through and find content that speaks directly to them.
6. Be consistent with your layout
In terms of style, brutalism is still on the rise, emphasizing user experience. A beautiful website can go a long way toward establishing your brand as a market leader. Minimalism and broken-grid layouts underscore the importance of reducing clutter.
7. Don’t let ads overpower your work
Advertisements are a great way to monetize your work and earn money. You do not have to eliminate them, but we strongly advise using them judiciously. Limiting ad space per page is one way to improve the user experience. Visitors may become frustrated if they cannot find your content among all the advertisements, and reserving white space is a simple way to reduce this likelihood.
8. Learn the marketing funnel
A marketing funnel is an ingenious way to cater to your target audience. For newer visitors, this model provides only the most essential information. Then, as they become more acquainted with your brand, more engaging content is introduced to bring them closer to conversion.
This strategy can help increase sales while organically personalizing each visitor’s experience. It can also help users find more relevant content and thus spend more time on your site.
A thoughtful internal linking strategy is a simple way to build a funnel. For example, if your content is aimed at beginners, you should avoid linking to advanced articles.
Wrapping up
Good UX design aims to provide users with highly functional, aesthetically pleasing, intuitive interfaces and the best user experience possible. It takes time, commitment, and effort, but the benefits are enormous. Always prioritize users and stay current on the latest trends.
UX design is a multidisciplinary field, and UX designers have backgrounds in visual design, programming, psychology, and interaction design. This is essential for success in any discipline.
Before you begin designing a product, make sure to keep the considerations mentioned above in mind.
The opinions expressed here by Guest Contributors are their own, not those of Rise Marketing.