Having a website is one thing, but having a great website? That’s another! To be honest, whether your website is great isn’t really up to you. It is often subjective and can depend on the user and why they’re visiting your site. What makes a website great can be different for everyone. That being said, there are many website functionalities that are perfect for any website, no matter the audience, branding or design and it all comes down to the user experience.
You don’t have to be a user experience (UX) designer to have a good website, but you do need to understand the basics of UX to make the most out of your site’s design and content. Not sure what any of this means? Read on to find out more about UX design and why it’s important for your site.
What is UX Design?
The basic idea of user experience (UX) design is centered around creating a website based on usability. UX design is essentially the blueprint for your design and ensures your site is usable for anyone who visits.
The UX design process generally begins with research on the website’s target audience, with a focus on the following:
- Their pain points – what problem can your site solve for them?
- Their motivations – why would they visit your site.
- Their goals – what will they do once they have visited your site? Will they make a purchase, sign up for more information etc.?
- What they need to achieve on the site
UX design also looks at the content on your site, and whether it needs to be changed or removed to fit the customer/client journey. A good UX designer will look at all possible paths that a potential customer/client could take, keeping the targeted audience in mind but also looking at the secondary audience (i.e. those who may just happen upon your site) as well.
Once the UX designer has done the necessary research, they will then start to build out the site with well thought-out menus, callouts, call-to-action (CTA) buttons, features or related content suggestions and the order of the content on a page. If you choose to hire a UX designer for your site, they will create a prototype of your website first before creating the site itself to give you an idea of what it will look like and how it will flow together.
But why does UX design matter so much?
As they say, just like Rome wasn’t built in a day neither will your site. Building a functional and well-designed site takes time and involves more than just a few photos, some content, and some pretty colours.
UX design is important because it helps to move people through your sales funnel and is an essential component of your business plan. UX design attracts more visitors to your site, increases your conversion rate and generates more leads for your sales.
UX design also ensures that when someone lands on your site, there is clear messaging, navigation and content to help take them to the next (and important) step. UX design also directly impacts your bottom line as a great website can directly impact your sales and leads. There are a number of UX considerations that can directly impact your sales including:
- Menus – size, location, options, content
- CTA buttons – placement, content
- Forms – placement, content
- Reliability – signs of data security, messaging
- Mobile-friendliness – ease of use on any device
A weakness in any one of these elements can lead to lost sales and lower overall usability of your site.
How does UX design affect search engine optimization?
UX design can have an effect on your search engine page rankings. While Google has a number of ranking factors, one of the most important comes from human interaction with your site. By planning for positive interactions, you are also helping to increase your ranking on Google. That’s because the more people that interact with your site (and for longer periods of time), the more Google sees your site as reputable and that it should rank higher on search engines.
What are the most important UX principles for your site?
To truly make your website UX friendly, there are a few key factors you need to make it a great website.
1. Focus on one target audience
The first question you’ll want to ask as you design your website is, “who will visit my site”? This will have a significant impact on the entire design of your site because the answer will provide direction to the design. A strong website has a content structure, navigation, and messaging that’s focused on helping your target audience achieve their goals.
2. Make it easy to use
The majority of online shoppers won’t return to a site if they’ve had a bad user experience. So how do you prevent this from happening? By creating a site that is user-friendly. For example:
- Place menus in logical places, and make sure they are highly visible, and easily clicked
- Include search bars or filtering menus to help visitors find content
- Have a select number of menu choices
- Ensure clear wording on menus and CTA buttons
When creating your site, think from the perspective of the user and try to visualize their journey. As yourself questions like, “what information is important to them?”, “which pages are they most likely to visit?”, “what questions might they have?” as you start to think about your site’s design.
3. Ensure site responsiveness
In this day and age, being mobile friendly is standard for all websites. Almost half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices, so you should ensure your site works and is accessible across a variety of devices.
Responsiveness is one of the most important UX factors to consider when designing a website. It’s important that any visitor to your site has the same experience, regardless of what type of device they’re using. Once you’ve created your site, double check the responsiveness of all elements including navigation, layout, call-to-action buttons, functionality, and user journey.
4. Make it visually appealing
They say first impressions are important and that couldn’t be any more true with your website. Many visitors will have an impression of your site based on its overall visual attractiveness. If it looks good, people are more likely to stay and look around.
The overall colour combinations of the website, design elements, background, and call to action buttons should all be aligned with your brand colours. Try using modern and up-to-date illustrations, graphic elements, shapes, and fonts to help elevate your design and increase your visual appeal.
5. Be mindful of user flow
When it comes to the flow of your website, you want it to play out like a story, and your customer is the one reading your story. If the story feels disjointed because the content doesn’t flow in a logical order or there are random pages when you click, then you may need to make some adjustments.
There are some things that will block your user flow and make the experience more disjointed, including:
- Too many callouts to different types of content
- Too many intrusions (i.e. the constant dreaded popup)
- Too many menus
To ensure good flow, your content should be easily discoverable without too many redirects and without overwhelming your customer.
6. Be strategic with content
Your content plays a major role in the overall UX design of your site. It’s the way that visitors engage with and stay on your site, and it’s also the way that your site sends ranking signals to search engines like Google. The longer you can keep a user moving around on your site, engaged, and viewing your content, the better (for your sales and your SEO).
Make sure you use callouts on related content, like on product pages or blog posts. A callout is a block that usually features written content, an image and a CTA button that leads to another page on your site. If placed at the end of a page, these are called footer CTAs. Both callouts and footer CTAs are great because they lead the visitor to the natural next step in their journey. Be careful though, your callouts and footer CTAs have to make sense otherwise it’s going to mess with the flow of your site and most likely won’t even get clicked.
7. Keep it consistent
To make your website great, it needs to be consistent. All your site elements, from fonts to brand colours and images, should all work well together and complement each other. Users will be drawn to consistent branding and will be more likely to return.
It may not seem obvious, but a lot of web page viewers are turned off with things like colour scheme changes, changes in navigational tools and layout shifts. They don’t like to keep guessing and a consistent theme keeps them focused. Keep your design consistent on all pages, from the homepage to the checkout page.
Inconsistency in your colours and branding can make your site appear amateur and can send mixed messages. Cool colours give off feelings of tranquility and peace, while warm colours send a message of energy and passion.
8. Have a clear visual hierarchy
When it comes to UX design, hierarchy is an important element in your website design. Hierarchy ensures smooth navigation throughout your site and ensures users who visit your site can easily find what they are looking for.
Visual hierarchy guides users from one page or section to another. By highlighting key content, you’re helping users take the next essential step on their buying journey. For example, you may use a darker font on a “Read More” button or you may make a “Click-here button” larger than anything else on the screen to draw the visitors eye to where you want it to go.
9. Use simple language in your content
When writing the content on your page, keep it simple with language that your users can relate to. Avoid using technical terms and word-heavy academic style writing. Try to imagine your audience and how they would talk or interact with others and write your content in the same tone and be sure to follow the three Cs – be clear, be concise and be consistent!
10. Less is more
When it comes to UX design, less is more. Be sure to prioritize simplicity over anything else with a focus on usability and consistency. Too many bells and whistles on your site can distract the user from completing the action you want them to take. Less is more focuses on simplicity and aesthetic design instead of over-decoration.
When it comes to UX design, remember the most important thing is to prioritize the user’s experience and make it easy for them to achieve their goals on your website. A site can look gorgeous but if it doesn’t serve its required purpose, then it is almost entirely useless. Your website should add value to your users, through UX design and content. Not sure where to start? Reach out to the team at Trilogy Solutions. We can help you design a website that ticks all the boxes of UX design principles!
