Making sure your customer has a positive experience with your brand is of the utmost importance. It’s essential that when being on your site that the process is seamless. No user wants to scroll endlessly, have slow loading times, or interact with any aspect that’s going to make it difficult to be on your brand’s site. Use these tips to improve user experience and retain more of your customers.
The most important part of user experience is making sure your website is easy to use. Have a layout that anyone can understand. Don’t make finding crucial information on your site a scavenger hunt for your customers. While it’s important to make your website stand out among the competition, there are other ways to do this. Follow an easy-to-use website layout so your website visitors have a seamless experience.
We are on our phones constantly. You might even be on yours right now. It’s crucial when building out your website that it’s optimized for both desktop and mobile platforms. Having the wrong size images or text on a phone doesn’t only make it more difficult for the customer but also makes you look unprofessional.
To optimize your website on mobile make sure that your website builder has these capabilities. Website builders like Sav’s have preview options to view what your site would look like on mobile. This feature automatically adjusts your site to mobile for you. Make sure to go with a website builder who has these tech attributes to take a load off of you.
Being there for your audience should be a top priority. That being said, you most likely have a million things on your plate. To offset the work but still be there for customers, make sure you have an option for virtual help. Ultimately, you would opt into a chatbot option, but that can get tricky. One way to simplify the process is to have a regularly updated FAQ page. Chances are, if one customer has a question, it’s likely to come up again. Having these questions posted in an easy-to-spot place on your website will help address customer concerns.
If there’s one takeaway when it comes to user experience design it’s: don’t be overwhelming. Less is truly more in this category. When putting your website design together, keep in mind that every word, every image, and every button should be contributing to your overarching goal. If it’s not contributing, then it’s distracting the consumer for what you want their end goal to be. Having appropriate white space and images helps your image stand out that much more. A study by Human Factors International found that whitespace increases comprehension by almost 20%. So take white space, simple design, and strong images into account when building your website.
In a world where you can get almost anything delivered to you within two days for free, patience is running thin. Customers expect to have what they want almost immediately! Taking that into consideration, page speed needs to be optimized for every consumer, so they aren’t waiting for things to load. If page speeds aren’t up to par, most visitors will bounce from the site. A study done by Google says that if a page isn’t loaded on a mobile device within 3 seconds, 53% of users will leave the site. While thinking of 53% of visitors bouncing from your site can be unsettling, there are ways to avoid this. Try compressing your images with resources like tinypng.com to improve your load times. Use tools like PageSpeed Insights to see what your page speed is looking like. Plus–get suggestions on how to increase your speed on both desktop and mobile!
If you hyperlink a passage, it means you feel strongly enough about that link that you would pass the user there. When linking to a resource, make sure that it stands out! It needs to be easily identifiable so an individual knows that it could lead to more information. If your entire website text is in a light gray, for example, it wouldn’t be advisable for all links to be in black. Use blue, red, or another contrasting color to improve user experience.
Using bullet points, lists, and other text visuals helps bring attention to important information. Plus, with a quick glance, a user can consume the most crucial details. Bullet points and lists go back to the idea of supporting the purpose of your site. Make everything as seamless as possible while helping the consumer get to the end goal.
Having a user go through several fonts, headings, and design elements can be confusing and off-putting for a visitor. Make sure everything on your site matches. Headings, fonts, and graphics all need to have a central theme. While everything doesn’t need to be exactly the same, all the elements should be similar. For example, if all calls to action (CTA’s) are in green, don’t have one or two in red. This disrupts the user journey and takes them away from the optimal goal.
The world of scrolling is very different between a desktop and a mobile phone. There is a common standard for desktops that it’s not good to make a user double scroll. Meaning that on one page they wouldn’t scroll twice in the same direction. This also means that most of the content should fit on one single screen. However, in a world where users are engaging in SEO with longer reads and have to scroll on mobile phones, the rules are changing. Just keep in mind when building a website that once on a desktop, you don’t want to have the user endlessly scroll. When it comes to mobile optimization, the same rule applies. There will be scrolling involved but don’t make it 10 miles long. A good rule of thumb is no more than three complete screen scrolls.
Hick’s law is a theory that was created describing the amount of time it takes for an individual to make a decision when there are choices. The more choices there are, the more time it will take to make a decision. Hick’s law claims that most individuals don’t want this stimulus. Having too many choices distracts the user from the end goal. Keep this in mind when building your site. When it comes to user experience, less is probably more.
One sure way to increase UX design is to ask your users how they feel about your site. What would they change about the homepage? Would they consider a redesign? Ask your target audience how they feel about your site and whether it’s lacking anything. Hearing it straight from the source will give you direction in the design process and allow you to increase conversations, decrease bounce rate, and create a positive experience for your audience.
If you don’t know where to start when asking your audience how you can improve, consider a survey or a UX Audit. The easiest way to conduct an audit would be to ask an individual who has never been to your site to do a series of tasks. Reading the blog, purchasing a product, or watching a video on specific web pages are a few examples. After completing each task, have them write notes on the user interface. The good, the bad, and the ugly are all things you need to know. Once completing said tasks, take their comments and use them to improve your website. This usability testing lets you right into the minds of potential customers and their journey on your website.
Remember to get regular feedback at least once a year. It’s important to recognize that there’s always room for growth.
While these 11 tips are important for user experience for any site, there are a few other things to keep in mind if you have an eCommerce site.
So many sales are lost after a customer adds a product to their cart. They can get distracted, have difficulty entering in payment information, or feel that the process is taking too long. These are all common reasons for cart abandonment. The checkout process is truly a make or break moment for your customers. Make sure that the process is as seamless as possible so you can turn potential customers into individuals who are loyal to your brand.
Returns are extremely important to users, especially now when everything is bought online. The buying journey doesn’t end when they click confirm to order. It ends when they’ve set eyes on the product and are sure they want to keep it. Navar reports that 49% of shoppers won't make an online purchase before checking return policies. To improve user experience, consider having a more flexible return policy. It will refine the purchasing experience and increase brand loyalty. It's also important to note where the return policy can be found. Don’t send users on a chase to find the policy, be as forthright as you can. Remember that when you sell an individual a product you are also selling the experience that comes along with the product–returns included.
Remember that if you build a great user experience for your customers, you’re more likely to build customer loyalty. If you provide them with the best functionality, easy-to-understand web design, and optimize your site to work towards your end goal, you will be fulfilling user needs. To make sure you’re maximizing user experience and increasing customer conversions, choose a website builder that gives you all the capabilities you need to present your information at its best.