Not all websites are created equal. While the very best websites stay up to date with design trends, offer embedded media and simple controls, others are not so appealing to visitors. Many readers will be familiar with legacy web 1.0 traits like walls of text, confusing interfaces and labyrinthine structures that sometimes made surfing the internet feel like a bit of a chore (or adventure, depending upon who you are asking).
If you are running a business, it is absolutely essential that you create the best user experience possible. Potential customers and collaborators always have the option to leave at the drop of the hat, and a poor-quality user experience is a surefire way of making them do just that. Here are some simple ways of making your website more user friendly.
K.I.S.S
One of the most widely – and wisely – used acronyms in business, K.I.S.S stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid! In no field is this mantra more relevant than in web design. User experience is directly related to user comprehension. If your website is complicated or confusing, a user will simply find it hard to comprehend and enjoy what you have to offer. Keep everything as logical as possible. Keep menu options to a minimum, do not require multiple click throughs and do not confront your visitors with multiple annoying pop ups. One of the simplest ways to improve your websites user experience is to think about what you can take away as opposed to what you can add. Do not jumble up your homepage with features. Get your message across and lead your customer or client directly to where you want them to go. A good way to incorporate K.I.S.S into your design to research other websites within your field and take note of the things that they do, and then implement them yourself. This way, customers who enter your site will already have an expectation on how it’s designed to be surfed and used
Growth Driven Design
User experience is not an entirely objective and measurable thing. It changes due to quality of design, yes, but also due to socio-aesthetic and socio-demographic norms. Keeping up with trends in design and trends within your target audience is hard to do when it means completely redesigning your website every year. It is for precisely this reason that growth-driven design is a great way of building a site. GDD principles are based around the constant adaptation of core website structures in order to better optimize user experience based on market research. Building your website using GDD principles can allow you to nimbly improve your website’s visitor experience quickly as changes in the market occur. It also helps keep costs down as it minimizes the need for frequent website overhauls. Instead of having to get a developer to rebuild your website from the group up in order to match the standards brought in by a new trend, you can simply and easily update your website. Using this type of design philosophy helps to futureproof your website.
Improve Content Quality
All of the aesthetic and structural improvements in the world can have very little effect if the quality of your website content is not up to scratch. Visitors are intelligent enough to see through jargonistic or patronizing content in a heartbeat. Make sure to hire experienced and demographically suitable creatives to produce content if you want your users to have an experience that will bring them back to your site time and time again. When writing content, it needs to have value, and it needs to be relevant. No longer are blackhat techniques such as keyword stuffing going to help your website rank. Instead, it’s far better to write something engaging that connects with the users. Good content doesn’t just mean the copy of the website either. You should also think about adding interesting pictures to illustrate products, videos to help provide guides and information, and infographics, which can be a good way to teach your users something while also diversifying your content.
Improving the quality of your website content is not just about hiring the right copywriters. Visual content also needs to be tailored to the interests and desires of your target audience.
