What is User Experience?

User experience is about creating a great experience for the users of your website. So, the focus is less about making it look aesthetically pleasing and more about making it easy and intuitive to use. Although you still want to be creative and unique, you want the function to be 100% where it needs to be. When a user visits your site, they should naturally be able to find what they’re looking for and interact with your site properly. 

Keeping it Simple

When the user gets to a page that is jam-packed with elements and distracting typography, the end result may be that the user saying “see ya” and proceeds to spend time elsewhere, possibly your competition. This is something you NEVER want. Because of this, it’s better to keep things user-friendly and not overwhelming. Your goal is to keep the user focused on why they came to your site and you wouldn’t want to get in your own way by creating unnecessary distractions.

Accessibility Matters for Everyone

It is important that your website is accessible to everyone in order to provide equal access and opportunity to people with disabilities. To ensure that all of your potential users have a decent user experience and are able to easily access your information you can improve areas like heading structure, colors, and clear descriptions. Accessibility can enhance your brand and extend your market reach. This year, many companies are learning more about The Americans with Disabilities Act and thus working to improve their websites to meet its standards.

People Love to be Entertained

Websites that are equipped with immersive 3D Elements and details are gaining a lot of momentum right now and with good reason. People enjoy going to a site and being visually stimulated by interesting designs or having nice animation to lead their eye to potential next steps like CTAs. Potential customers tend to stay longer and increase the average session time. If you can spin a design with visuals that attract users and lead them to contact you or leave with valuable information than you are on the right track.

Characteristics of Bad User Experience Design

As a business, if you want to make a mark in your niche, you cannot and must not ignore user experience. Your website is one of the most important branding weapons you’ve got and with so many easy mistakes to make, you can be harming your business’s potential without even realizing it. Here are a few things to look out for the next time you go through your website.

Slow-loading Times

Anyone who frequents the world wide web has come across a site that decides to take its sweet time to load. This leads to a highly frustrating experience that can most likely, if not definitely, make a user say “nope” and continue to your competitors. The last thing you want is for a visitor to leave without learning more about your products and services, so take your time and solve any issues that might be delaying your loading time. Luckily, we are experts on fixing these types of problems for our clients.

Photography with a Purpose

Have you ever visited a site and out of nowhere you feel this wave of dread? It’s often difficult to put your finger on why you have that reaction but it’s mostly because of poor quality photos or photos that just don’t make sense for the page you are visiting. Photos can sometimes not be taken so seriously during the design process because some companies value their written content so much that they don’t understand how much great photos can boost a user’s experience.

Pixelated, blurry, stretched, and awkward photos can be a headache but one point that can lead to bad user experience and a potential negative review is stock photos. Stock imagery makes sense in a lot of cases but some are so generic and commonly used across different websites they can damage the perception of your business, so proceed with caution.

Way Too Complex

When it comes to designing websites it is easy to go overboard. There are SO many ways to add cool animations and graphic elements but they can also be a bit distracting if they don’t compliment your site. A design element that is not absolutely necessary for your site to make a clear point can cause more of an issue and will make a visitor feel like they are wasting their time trying to find something. We don’t want that. You always want any valuable information to be easily found and accessible.

Boring and Bleh

Boring websites are no fun and they simply don’t work. When a company has a service or product that is familiar it can be easy for them to create a site that classifies as “boring and corporate.” What you want to focus on are the creative ways you can introduce your team, services, and story in a way that appeals to your audience. You want to give your visitors a site that they will enjoy going through.

Conclusion

One of the most important things to think about when it comes to user experience design is the flow of your website and the visitors’ journey throughout. Maintaining the consistency of your site will help visitors move naturally on your site.