How To Design A User-Friendly Website

31st Jul 2018

How To Design A User-Friendly Website

Our attention spans are getting shorter and, in the overcrowded online space, competition for consumer attention is increasingly fierce. Some studies have shown that you may have as little as eight seconds to make an impression on a visitor to your website, which makes its design particularly crucial. If you want to find a way to convert those initial eight seconds into something more substantial then you need to ensure that your website is designed with user experience in mind. So here are six things to consider to make sure UX is top of your site's design priority list.

 

1. Position your value proposition in the right place

 

According to eye tracking research, whatever is above the fold on a web page will attract the most attention. The human eye will naturally start on the left hand side of the page, before tracking right and then down. Avoid overcrowding these areas but use them to clearly define your value proposition - what are your products or services, what pain points do they address and what solutions do they offer? The right hook ensures visitors will stay to explore further.

 

2. Make sure browsing is efficient

 

40% of users will abandon a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. If you're using chunky code, too much embedded media, large image files or extras such as Flash then you could be slowing down page loading speeds and ruining user experience.

 

3. Prioritise space and quality in your content

 

Overcrowded pages are a headache to read so, make sure that text is broken into paragraphs and there is enough white space between each one to make it easy and pleasurable to read. The quality of the content will also be crucial - content written purely to get keywords on to a page will rarely result in conversions and adds nothing to user experience. What do your users want to read about, what are their pressing questions, what are their pain points and how can your content be genuinely useful?

 

4. Don't forget a call to action

 

Websites have a purpose and that purpose is most often to get a user to take a specific action, whether that's downloading something or buying something. So, call to action buttons are essential if you want your website to perform. Avoid positioning these above the fold, as that's often viewed as an overly-aggressive tactic. Mid-way down the page is preferable and just as effective.

 

5. Take care of the little details

 

How easy is your site to navigate and do links lead where they should? It's important to fix broken links as users get incredibly frustrated by ending up in the wrong place. Equally, a 404 error page is important to have - it will at least tell the user that what they're looking for isn't there, rather than just directing them to the wrong place.

 

6. Test your site as a user

 

Test the site yourself, get your team to test it and carry out A/B testing to see how it performs with target users. If it's not a positive user experience for you, then it won't for others either.

 

Website design is crucial to getting return on investment from your online presence, so contact us today and let's chat about improving the design and performance of your site.



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