The user experience of a website is not about its colour scheme, logo or layout – those are design elements. Instead, the user experience refers to a person’s overall feeling when they visit a website. This is an extremely important factor for your business because if users have a poor experience, they will leave your site and probably never come back.
A poor user experience can be defined as one that frustrates or disappoints visitors in some way. They might find it hard to navigate the site, be confused by the content, or have trouble with forms or checkout processes. If you want to increase sales and build trust with customers, you need to make your website as enjoyable as possible for them to use.
Thus, user experience is a crucial part of a successful website. An easy to use website is what people love scrolling through. If it’s difficult, they’ll leave. It really is that simple.
Tips to improve website’s user experience
There are lots of reasons why you’d want to work on it as you try to understand how to improve a website and its user experience. Not only are happy customers more likely to make a purchase, but they’re also more likely to return and recommend you to others.
Let’s take a look at how you can keep visitors on your site for longer.
- Use a responsive design.
It ensures your website looks great on every device it is accessed from (desktops, laptops, tablets and phones) by using different layouts based on the screen’s size. Google also prefers responsive web designs because they eliminate duplicate content in search results, making it easier for them to categorize your site in their index.
- Reduce page load time.
Long page load times frustrate visitors and cause them to leave before even seeing your content. Optimise images by compressing them and removing unnecessary plugins, which can slow down your site. Use a tool like Pingdom or GTmetrix to test your page speed and find ways to improve it.
- Use a mobile-friendly theme.
Many themes are now designed with both desktop and mobile users in mind. Make sure you pick one that looks good on all screen sizes!
- Use Layout Strategically
Site layout is one of the most important aspects of your site’s design. The layout of your site can determine where visitors look and what they do when they get there. For instance, studies have shown that people read from left to right and from top to bottom. This means that if you have an opt-in form at the bottom of your page or somewhere in the corner, you may lose a lot of subscribers.
To use this strategy effectively, keep in mind that people read Web pages differently than they do books or newspapers. When we read online content, we tend to scan it rather than read every word on the page. We skim through the text, searching for relevant information until we find what we’re looking for. Then we may stop scanning and pay more attention to what we found or keep going on searching for more information.
- Lower bounce rate
Bounce rate is an important metric you can use to measure your website’s user experience. This metric tells you the percentage of people who leave your site after visiting only one page. Ideally, your goal should be to keep this rate low.
The lower your bounce rate, the better will be the conversion rate for the website. It indicates that people are visiting and engaging with multiple pages on your site and that they’re finding what they need.
- Maintain simplicity and consistency in navigation
Navigation is an important element of web design and user experience. Ensure that links and menus are easily accessible and easy to find by placing them in prominent positions like at the top of every page or within an accessible side menu. Also, ensure they are consistent across all pages so visitors can easily navigate through your website.
- Keep content short and sweet.
A long-winded story might feel like you’re making an emotional connection with your customer, but it could also have the opposite effect. People have short attention spans online. Clear, crisp and direct content will strike the cord, ensuring the right user experience.
- Improve the readability of your content
A huge part of UX is whether or not you can clearly communicate with users through your content. If a user needs to click around a lot or scroll through pages and pages of text just to understand what you’re offering, then they’ll probably end up leaving before they get the chance. This is why it’s so important to create clear, concise content that helps guide users towards what they want (and what you offer).
- Use design elements that are easy on the eyes.
For example, stick with a colour scheme that is easy to read and doesn’t cause eye strain. It will help if you avoid using too many different fonts or font types, making your website look cluttered and unprofessional. Using too many colours or crazy fonts will make it difficult for users to focus on your site’s content and can lead them to leave before they’ve had a chance to see everything that you have to offer. If you’re unsure what colours work well together, take advantage of sites like Coolors and Adobe Color CC that offer colour palettes based on specific colours you choose.
Most websites are hard to use, which is why you need a team of experts in user experience (UX) design.
You want your site to be easy to use, of course. You also want it to be attractive and appealing to look at. And you want to put the right things in the right places so that all your visitors can find what they need.
That’s trickier than it sounds. It’s not always easy to know and understand the placement of icons, tabs or design elements or understand what’s best for users. That’s why there are professionals who can help you with user experience (UX) design — experts who have some knowledge about what works and what doesn’t.
In case of a dilemma, let an experienced and skilled web development company in Melbourne handle your UI and UX concerns.
