How to improve website user experience.
With so much competition across every industry, just having an online presence isn’t always enough to gain conversions. You need to make sure that every visitor enjoys a smooth journey and gains value from their interactions and overall experience.
In this article, we explore how to improve website user experience (UX) to make sure your site is a joy to use – and also enhances your business prospects. We’ve also peppered in a few wise words from the Ketchup Crew’s [dedicated] design team for further inspiration.
Get to know your audience
The main audience for your website is, well… your target audience. If you don’t know who that is, you’ll struggle to craft a user experience that works [for them]. Understanding your users’ needs, goals and pain points can provide a roadmap to creating a better user experience.
Spend some time brainstorming and answering questions about who they are and what they’re trying to accomplish by visiting your website. When you’ve built up a bank of ideas, you can then use this data to inform your UX decisions.
“The most important step is to take the time to understand your users and make decisions based on their needs and goals.” - Lucy
Make a good first impression
Users will make a decision about you as soon as they land on your website. So, make sure they can tell who you are and what you offer from the very first glance. It’s also vital to build trust by appearing professional – think high-quality images, consistent branding and clear messaging.
After all, if visitors don’t have a positive experience on your website, it takes less than a second for them to leave – and your competitors are [just] a click away.
Test and regularly monitor your website’s performance
Even if your site performs well right now, consumer habits and expectations are constantly changing. And that’s to say nothing of the ever-changing world of website design! Tools like Clarity and Google Analytics show you how visitors interact with your website, offering great insights into pain points that need a little soothing.
Remember not to make too many changes at once, or else you won’t be able to tell what works and what doesn’t.
Review your calls to action
A call to action (CTA) invites a user to take action and should reward them with something valuable, whether that’s a [juicy] piece of information or the next step towards their goal. If a CTA leads to a dead end or an unexpected page, this can interrupt a user’s journey and may cause them to abandon your site altogether.
Regularly review the CTAs on your site to make sure they’re consistent, enticing, relevant and functional.
Make sure content is easy to find
Time is your users’ most valuable commodity, so avoid overwhelming them with too many options. Make sure your website content is easy to navigate with clear signposting, remembering that users are likely to scan your website rather than read every word.
Make use of [tried and tested] design elements like hamburger menus on mobile, navigation bars and eye-catching buttons so your users know exactly where to find what they’re looking for.
“UX website design is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good. Focus on relieving pain points and avoiding causing rage clicks. You want the user to breeze through the site with ease.” - Kitty
Optimise load times
Similarly, slow-loading pages can be frustrating and can cause visitors to leave before they’ve even seen the [spectacular] website you’ve worked so hard on. 1 in 4 users will abandon a website if it takes more than 4 seconds to load, so bandwidth-hungry sites are a strict no-no. As part of your web development strategy, make sure to optimise your web pages and images so users can reach their end goal as fast as possible.
Page speed is also a key Google ranking factor, so a speedy website is more likely to rank higher in search results.
Keep it simple
Make sure all the content and design elements on your website are relevant and serve a purpose. It helps to try and separate yourself from your business and imagine yourself in your audience’s shoes. If you were looking for a certain product or service, how would you go about it, and what would you need to know? Does the current UX meet your needs, or are there stumbling blocks?
There’s a time and a place for design innovation, but there’s also a time and a place for delivering [exactly] what your users are expecting.
“Embrace simplicity in design; it’s the key to a seamless user experience.” - Amanda
Design for accessibility
Accessibility has become an increasingly important design element, and one that should be built in as standard, not as an afterthought. As well as making your website easier to navigate for those with visual impairments or learning disabilities, web content accessibility guidelines also help to make your site easier to navigate and enjoy for everyone else.
From providing the option to increase text size to ensuring there’s enough contrast between your chosen colours, there are many simple [yet effective] ways to improve accessibility.
Meet your UX experts
As we’ve demonstrated, Ketchup’s [dynamic] designers know how to improve website user experience while still delivering results for your brand. Whether you need a new website built from scratch or you’re looking to optimise the UX of your existing design, we know what to do to improve website user experience.