Much like SEO, UX has become a buzzword within website design that holds great weight. Designers like to add it to their job titles, clients know it’s important without (usually) knowing what it actually means.
Simply put, UX (user experience) refers to the overall experience that users have when interacting with a website. It encompasses all aspects of a user’s interaction with the site and will typically include things such as Usability, Visual Design elements, Navigation and Content Clarity. Great UX will keep users engaged, satisfied and will ultimately achieve the goal of the website, be that providing information or lead/sales generation. Poor UX will almost certainly create a negative experience for users and subsequently the site will perform poorly – users will probably get frustrated and leave.
As you can imagine, we spend a lot of time working on UX as well as contemplating ways of improving users’ overall experience regardless of the website goals. These are some of the key aspects that we consider to be essential when, not only building a new website, but when creating new content too.
Invest time in understanding your users, their needs and behaviours. What is the purpose of their visit? What are their goals and pain points? What device are they using? Answering questions like these will become invaluable in helping to create great UX. But don’t guess – use actual data – review analytics, talk to users. Create user personas to represent your users’ characteristics, needs and behaviours. These become a great reference, not only for your website but other aspects of the business too, such as marketing.
Keep your navigation menus and site structure simple and intuitive. Use clear, obvious titles and organise menu hierarchies to help users find what they’re looking for easily. Don’t give your users too many options in the main navigation if you can avoid it – this can lead to analysis paralysis, where they become overwhelmed and end up leaving – we feel that 5 is the magic number (just like with boy bands!). If you have more, you could always add a burger menu for the remaining links, with only the most important on show permanantly.
Information should be presented progressively, revealing details as the user needs them to avoid overwhelming them with a wall of text all at once. The user’s experience should be a journey and dumping them with everything up front is not an enjoyable experience. Breaking content into bitesize chunks helps, as does giving the user plenty of opportunities to decide what they read next instead of force feeding them.
Organise and present the content in a logical way that makes it easy for users to understand the structure of the website and find the information they need. Prioritise content based upon its relevance and importance to the user – consider the information found in the user research when establishing this. Make use of contrast to ensure the most important things stand out prominently.
Consistency is key to everything. Consistency in design elements, branding, navigation, formatting, tone of voice, page layouts… it’s all important. When a website is consistent, the user can recognise how it works, feels comfortanble and more trusting. In this instance they are much more likely to have a positive experience with positive end results. If an element on the site isn’t consistent, it feels off and the user will often pick up on that, perhaps only subconsciously. It can cause confusion and disrupt an otherwise positive experience.
User affordances are characteristics of an object, interface or environment that provides clues or signals to users about how they can interact with it. They help users understand the functionality and purpose of an element making it easier for them to perform actions. Getting these indicators right is essential to prevent confusion. If the user absolutely knows what will happen when they interact with a given element then a positive experience will be had and they will ‘trust’ the site. If the outcome does not match the perceived outcome then trust is lost and problems will ensue.
Designers forever bang on about whitespace. It is one of the most essential elements of design. It is the pause between the action (and it doesn’t have to actually be white). Image a movie or song that was full-on from start to finish, with no breathers, bridges or breaks – the end result is one-dimensional and it’s exhausting to endure. So it is with websites – by adding whitespace within a layout you not only create breathing point for your eyes and brain, you create contrast which allows you to direct the users focus to what’s important.
This should be a no-brainer, but often (usually by accident) form trumps function. You should not be excluding anyone from your website, but if you don’t consider accessibility guidelines (such as WCAG) then you could well be rendering your site unusable to select groups of users, including those with disabilities. The reality is that these guidelines are often just common sense, so it’s things you should be considering anyway.
Gone are the days of ‘one size fits all’ where websites are concerned (cue nostalgic thoughts of building table-based HTML websites in the 90s). To function properly a website has to provide a positive experience for users no matter what device they’re viewing it on. Your user research will tell you what the preferred device(s) of users is, and you can prioritise that, but do not exclude the others. The design and layout must work for everyone.
Possibly the most important aspect of UX (aside from research perhaps). There’s a saying that goes something like… “No battleplan, no matter how good, survives contact with the enemy”. The users may not be the enemy but they will do unpredictable things – it is not possible to test your new website or content too much. The more bugs, glitches and mistakes you can find and fix before going live the better – it will save embarrassment, bad PR and unhappy customers.
Remember that UX is an ongoing process, it’s never ‘done’. Always be open to user feedback and be willing to make improvements based on their needs and expectations.
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