It’s no secret that a website is basically the face of the company. It is the representation of its story and mission, as well as the company’s main point of sale, in most cases.
Almost every business has a website these days. Without one, you basically don’t exist in the online world.
However, even having a website oftentimes isn’t enough to get people to visit or remain long enough on your pages to make a difference. But why is that?
The main reason is that consumers are more concerned about the overall browsing experience rather than being focused on individual website elements.
Therefore, if you have the best content on the Internet but your website is poorly designed, or it isn’t functional, no one will stay long enough to consume your content. That’s why the overall experience is essential.
Users must absolutely fall in love with the experience on your website, or they’ll most likely bounce right off.
Online consumers have seen pretty much all there is to see and they expect something unique that will manage to truly impress them.
With that in mind, here’s how to design a site experience users will love.
1. Conduct a bit of research
Before you can create a truly amazing site experience, you have to determine for whom you’re creating such an experience, to begin with.
Your target audience has various needs, preferences, demands and expectations.
Of course, you cannot cater to each individual, but your target audience does have many things in common. You just have to find out what those things are. This is where a bit of research will definitely come in handy.
It’s important to answer the question: “Who is this for?” before you can actually begin to design an exceptional website experience.
Here are a few things you should look for when researching your target audience:
- The audience’s demographics.
- Their interests.
- Products, services and apps they commonly use.
- Their pain points.
Once you start learning more about your audience, you can start creating buyer personas to help you understand the customer journey. The purpose of this is to assist you in creating the ideal user experience (UX) that your audience will love.
Aside from research, you can ask your audience for feedback directly.
Consumers generally prefer when companies ask them for their opinions. They especially appreciate when companies act upon that feedback and make the necessary improvements.
2. Focus on the visuals
Website design is one of the most important factors when it comes to UX. Web design is the first thing visitors see when they land on your pages and they’ll continue to notice visual elements as they browse the website further.
As mentioned before, consumers expect to see something unique that will impress them, which is why you must make an effort to have a well-designed website.
You might even consider website development consultants services to help you bring your untie website to life.
Once you nail the web design, everything else is much easier to implement.
Here are a few things you should focus on when designing your website.
- Choose the right layout for your website.
- Pick the right colors that match your brand.
- Use high-quality images as much as you can but make sure they are well-optimized.
- Create amazing landing pages. You might even consider using hero images as a background.
- Decide on the font size, style and color.
- Leverage white space.
An aesthetically pleasing website can encourage your visitors to stay and explore further. This is vital for ensuring that your user will actually enjoy their time spent on your website.
The fact of the matter is that humans are primarily visual beings.
We process visual information much faster than it takes our brain to decode text. That’s why it only takes less than a second for a consumer to judge a website based on the visual design alone.
3. Don’t forget about the performance and functionality
Your website’s performance plays a vital role in UX. As you may already know, modern consumers have very high expectations when it comes to browsing websites.
If your website’s performance isn’t up to the task, your visitors will bounce sooner than you think.
This is especially true when it comes to website speed and overall page loading time. If it takes your pages just one second longer to load than what your users are expecting, then you’ll experience a 16% decrease in user satisfaction, as well as a 7% decrease in conversion rate.
That’s why it’s very important to ensure great website performance and functionality, aside from having a great website design. Here are a few things you should focus on:
- Test your website speed frequently.
- Implement proper security measures, especially if you collect sensitive information for your users or customers.
- Ensure both user and mobile friendliness.
- Improve the website’s usability.
- Ensure 100% uptime if possible.
A fast and reliable website is pretty much mandatory these days. Since there are so many other websites and businesses that may offer the same products or services, you cannot afford to lose website visitors due to technicalities. Furthermore, you can seek for help of Top IT Services Companies on this matter.
As far as consumers go, they won’t tolerate any inconveniences or delays because they know they’ll find something that meets their expectations eventually.
4. UI is the key
User Interface (UI) is one of the most crucial components in UX. The way users interact with your website can either make or break your consumer base. That said, it’s very important for your website to be as convenient as possible to users.
UI is the interactivity of your web or mobile application. That includes buttons, menus and other visual elements that help users navigate your site seamlessly.
If your users can’t get from where they’re currently at to where they want to get in a few clicks or less, they won’t be very happy about it. That’s why you should help them out with your UI design as much as possible. Here are a few things you should do:
- Use a simple design for menus and CTA buttons.
- Plan and use menu order strategically.
- Be consistent on all of your pages.
- Use breadcrumbs for more seamless navigation.
- Make primary navigation stand out, i.e., clearly visible search bar.
- Link back to the homepage with your logo.
- Be specific.
- Keep your header options to a minimum.
- Use responsive navigation for mobile users.
The more interactive your website is, the more users will like it.
Convenience is vital for the overall experience and users are quite aware of this fact. If they keep running into inconveniences, such as missing pages, broken links, redirects and errors while browsing your website, you can be sure that they’ll bounce and never come back.
5. Create awesome content
The key to designing an ideal site experience revolves around the content you create.
Every other element, such as visuals, functionality, performance and usability, is there to complement the main reason your visitors decide to remain on your pages, which is content.
Content can be anything that’s valuable to your audience, ranging from product descriptions to articles and blog posts.
That said, your content must have quality so that it can bring everything together into a unified experience. Therefore, when creating content for your website, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
- Make sure your content is informative, relevant, educational and entertaining.
- Organize your content into categories and topics.
- Add recommended content to recirculate traffic.
- Use images and videos to enrich your content.
- Be user-oriented.
- Provide answers and solutions.
- Provide additional information by adding a blog with more content.
The higher the content quality, the more interested and engaged your users will be. Content can provide value and enhance user experience tenfold.
Your users will not only love the experience, but they’ll also recommend your website to others like their friends or family. Word-of-mouth recommendations and referrals can help your business grow despite the fierce competition in the online market.
Closing word
Crafting a site experience your users will love is not an easy task.
As mentioned before, you can’t make everyone happy, but you can cater to their needs as much as possible. This produces great results because consumers don’t have to look beyond your website to find what they’re looking for.
However, ensuring that your web design, website functionality and content quality are all perfectly aligned can be quite challenging.
In the end, it comes down to providing users with everything they need while removing all the obstacles in their path.
The best way to achieve this is to learn as much as you can about your audience so that you can meet or even exceed their expectations. That way, you can create a truly amazing site experience that your users will easily fall in love with.
