What is User Experience?
User Experience, otherwise known as UX, refers to a customer’s overall experience when visiting a website or an application (APP). In other words, it is the overall interaction the customer has with a business from the moment they enter their website. Normally, UX is prominently found on websites, mobile sites, mobile applications, and desktop software.
Ensuring a positive user experience also encompasses search engine optimization (SEO) tactics as well. Since every business has the desire to rank at the top of search engine results, a well-designed UX increases the online presence of your business and can help rank higher in search engines. SEO and UX work in tandem with each other.
The Benefits of Having a Great UX Design
UX design is important to not only keep a brand relevant to its customers but also to remain ahead of competitors. Creating and developing a best-in-class website and presenting a strong UX comes with amazing benefits, including:
- UX increases conversion rates on your website – A website with a well-designed user experience can increase conversion rates by 400%. Of course, increasing conversion rates help your business grow.
- UX improves your SEO rankings – As stated above, SEO plays a major role in UX. With the right combination of User Experience and Search Engine Optimization strategies, you will attract more people to your website and deliver a satisfying UX with related content, a user-friendly interface, and a higher rank in search engines.
- A well-designed UX establishes trust and credibility – When looking for a product or service, customers will choose a provider whom they resonate with. When they receive robust reasons for why they should choose your business among other competitors, they will be more inclined to choose you.
- UX saves time and money – Let’s be honest, you have to spend money to make money. The investment in creating a well-designed user experience will pay off in the long run.
- UX drives revenue – When you create a well-designed user experience, especially when partnering with an experienced UX design company, it encourages potential customers to make a purchase.
Things That Make UX Vital for Everyone
Have you ever visited a website and left less than 10 seconds later? You probably left because you did not see relevant content or had trouble navigating through its design. Having bad UX can leave a ‘bad taste’ in a potential customer’s mouth, and we all know how critical first impressions are to establishing a long-term relationship. For example, experiencing a slow web response rate, seeing poor-quality images, not receiving enough information, and only seeing a site that is optimized for one device instead of multiple can prevent your business from reaching the next level in terms of growth.
What Does Being UX-Friendly Look Like?
Simply put, UX-friendly is both effortless and intuitive. Whether a user is visiting a website or application on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile device, the design will be consistent and accessible, no matter how large or small the screen.
The Process of Becoming User-Friendly
The process to develop a user-friendly experience can be daunting if you look at everything at once. Instead, let’s take it step-by-step.
- Creating User Profiles and Personas – Get to know your audience. This allows you to craft customized experiences that relate to the users’ emotions and voices.
- Conduct Interface Testing – The more data you can collect, the better. Conduct a study that compares the effectiveness and quality of experience between multiple user interfaces, including your current website. That way, you can identify both minor and major changes that should be made.
- Create User Surveys – Chat with both potential and existing users of your system to gain insight into what could be changed to make the most effective design and UX. Most of the time, the survey results would point out things you never thought of before, such as a page element that you thought was working but was invisible to the user, and so on.
- Using Floor Diagrams – Making a flowchart will help you gain a visual of how users should move through a system. Then, you will decide how the users will interact with it. When you understand the profile of the user on your site/system/application, you can then plan the optimal experience for them.
- Incorporating Site Maps – Once you studied the user flow of site visitors, build a sitemap for the pages you would like to create. A sitemap is an organized hierarchy of every page and subpage within your site.
- Wireframes and Prototypes – The visuals on each web page are just as essential as their structure. With that being said, invest time into creating wireframes (visual guides) that represent the skeletal framework of each page and provide a preview of your entire site’s look and feel for the user. With a proper framework in place, there is an increased risk to eliminate usability issues before any page hits a computer screen, saving your company development time for adjustments down the line.
- Creating Design Patterns – Design patterns create consistency when finding the most effective design for user interface (UI) elements.
- Using Style Guides – Style guides give web writers and designers a framework to work with when creating content and developing a design that ensures both brand and design elements align with a business’s goals.
- Developing Quality Content – This is self-explanatory. Developing quality content will keep your users informed, engaged, and more inclined to make a purchase.
Unsure If Your Website or Application is UX-Friendly?
Ensuring your website or application provides a user-friendly experience is critical to ensuring the long-term success of your business. Just like the features mentioned above, following the necessary steps will ensure your website or application provides a thoughtfully-curated and well-designed UX. It is important to note that you may not have to scrap your entire website to achieve this unless you are going through a rebranding. Collaborating with the right UX team will help you achieve your goal much faster than you thought possible.
Let Our Web Development Experts Improve Your UX Design Today!
Our team of website development and SEO experts will improve the user experience of your website with some simple modifications and ensure a fantastic UX so that your business shines! As a digital marketing industry leader, our team provides professional web services that are built for mobile, SEO, UX, and page speed. By putting the right steps in place, we will not only ensure your UX design is both impressive and functional but is developed at the highest level of quality, creativity, and attention to detail. And before your website is live, we advise you through each step of the process and make any changes you need to make the most impact in terms of usability and compatibility. Stop guessing if you are providing an exceptional User Experience. Instead, make the change to see the best result!
