A website that doesn’t speak to its target audience won’t perform to its full potential. A great website speaks directly to your user’s motivations and frustrations, taking them on a journey to fulfilling their needs.
If a website provides a poor experience for the user, they will either get confused, do the wrong thing or simply leave. Making sure a website is built with the customer’s needs in mind will ensure a smooth experience for them.
What is user experience?
First, let’s break down what user experience is and why you need to streamline it. User experience, or UX for short, is the experience individuals have when they encounter a product, service or website. When creating a website, you ensure you deliver the visitor the most satisfactory experience. The user experience of your website needs to be:
- Functional
- Helpful
- Unrestricted
- Plausible
- Worthwhile
- Desirable
Why does user experience matter?
If you’ve ever been on a website or app, don’t know how to find specific information, or have ended up on a 404 error web page, you have encountered a lousy website user experience. Good user experience matters because bad UX can result in missed sales and leads coming through your website. Positive experiences keep users loyal to the product or brand, ultimately leading to business success.
Your website visitors will expect elements of your site to work and deliver what they need. If it doesn’t, your website is targeting the wrong audience. With a bad UX, you might need to rewind, do some deeper digging, and create some personas and customer journey maps to understand your users better.
Ask yourself the following questions when navigating through your website:
- How easy is the site to navigate? Is it clear what you offer?
- How can the website be improved to increase conversions?
- Does content connect with the end-users?
- Are you using the right call to action?
Begin with user research
When it comes to UX, the question ‘who is it for?’ is the first thing you should ask. You need to know who will use your website or app to understand the best design for them. Find your target audience persona by asking:
- What demographics am I targeting? Men or women? Young or old? Students or professionals?
- What interests do they have? Travellers? Gamers? Fashionistas?
- What products or services do they already use?
Now you have done your persona and customer journey map research, let’s understand what website elements are critical to a great user experience.
Elements that make a great user experience
- Value: The website design should convey the importance of the service or product you are offering and convey your brand personality, purpose and tone.
- Navigation: A good website UX will help users quickly find what they are looking for and navigate a simple journey, rather than clicking through multiple unnecessary links.
- Design: It’s essential to design a website which attracts your users and keeps them engaged. Don’t make it distracting for the user; streamline the process and make sections look attractive!
- Usability: The layout of the site shouldn’t be confusing. Create a sitemap and menu that caters to your user’s needs at every stage of their journey. Make it easy for customers to find what they need.
- Functionality: Make sure no links are broken and remove anything that doesn’t need to be there. Every website element should have a purpose and link back to your personas.
Better UX = Better conversion rates
If your website isn’t performing as expected, something must be wrong. Review the content on your landing pages, check the click-through rate, and study the data from Google Analytics. Make a plan on what needs changing to your website and implement it to improve those conversions.
Your target user’s needs change all the time, and if you do not see the conversion rate you want, then implementing website updates to improve user experience might give you the conversions your business needs to grow.
Conclusion
The key to good website UX design is making it work for both your users and your platform. Successful businesses listen to what their customers express. Create some short surveys to gather valuable opinions from users. Great website UX will break or make your brand.
At Fifteen, we have a proven track record with our web design services. We deliver creativity that works for you and your audience. Take a look at what we can offer or get in touch with us to see how we can help transform your business.