How to Determine if Your Website’s UX Actually Has the User in Mind
There are many different ways to focus on the user experience for your website. However, sometimes those ideas are so overused and generic that they may not actually have you typical user in mind. When determining if your website’s UX actually has the user in mind, you should look at what process your target audience will likely to go through when landing on your page.
Usability truly matters. Consider that 79% of consumers who are dissatisfied are less likely to return or buy from the site again. You need to really focus on the user experience from the moment they land on your page until they leave your site. Here are some questions to ask yourself to help determine if your site truly is UX friendly:
1. Is the Landing Page Aimed at the Target User?
There are any number of factors that can impact your bounce rate – or the rate at which people leave your page and how fast they leave. Pop-up ads, music and design can all impact your bounce rate.
By creating the page for the needs of your target user, you can improve your bounce rate. This includes providing relevant content, adding a search feature and speeding up the page. Most of all, the page should be aimed at your target user to meet the needs he or she has.
One example of a landing page that strongly targets the typical user of that site is Figment by Random House. The typical user is someone who loves to read and maybe dreams of writing. From the moment you land on the page, you’re given the option to start writing, start reading, or start talking with others. The focus in the top fold of the page is very honed into those three things.
2. Is the Site Easy to Navigate?
You probably feel like you’ve heard this one a million times. There’s a reason why — navigation matters greatly. Put yourself into the shows of the person landing on your website for the first time. Where do you go next? How can you find that specific feature your friend told you to look for? What happens if you get lost? There should be an easy to find search bar and a home button to take you back to where you started. If your site is difficult to navigate, users will grow frustrated and leave.
Consider the Wall Street Journal site as an example of how to take a site with a lot of different categories and make navigation simple and intuitive. On every page, the nav bar is the same. They also put a ticker of the stock market at the top of the page as many people reading are business professionals or investors and want that info first. The navigation bar goes under that, but still near the top of the page.
3. Is the Process Personalized?
If you really want to ramp up your user experience, then you’ll need to personalize the user’s experience as much as possible. You can do this through a series of questions, by creating a user persona that represents your typical user, or through polling. Some sites, of course, lend themselves more easily to personalization than others, but any site can create a more user-centered experience.
At Glass.com, the site narrows down exactly what type of glass the consumer is looking for by directly asking the question “What type of glass do you need?” The site then offers some very simple navigation choices such as Auto Glass, Mirrors, Table Tops, Windows and Doors, Shower Doors, and so on.
4. Is Your Site Mobile Ready?
About 52% of users indicate that a bad mobile experience will turn them off a company and make them less likely to engage with that company. With more and more people accessing the Internet from their mobile devices, it is vital that your site is not only mobile friendly but that users have the best experience possible. The only way to ensure this is to rest your site frequently on actual mobile devices. This will allow you to work out any bugs and make sure everything is seamless.
You’ve probably seen the commercials for Klondike Bars — what would you do for a Klondike Bar? Their mobile responsiveness takes this into consideration and does a brilliant branding move. If you go to their mobile website, you can pull up all the locations around you selling Klondike Bars, locate your favorite, and have it in hand within mere minutes.
5. Is Your Site Accessible?
Accessibility can encompass a wide number of things, and you should consider them all. For the average user, it can be as simple as making sure that there is a search feature in a spot that is easy to find, making all areas of your site instantly accessible. However, you should also consider the needs of users who have vision impairments — this can include those who have a hard time reading small type and those who are color blind (keep in mind that some colors will not mesh well for someone with color blindness, such as blue or red on a gray background).
6. Are the Aesthetics Beautiful?
Your website design truly matters to those who visit your site — 94% of consumers rejected a site because of design or stated that they mistrusted the site. Your site should look professional and match the overall mood of your company. The layout should make sense and be pleasing to the eye. You should have enough white space that the page doesn’t look cluttered. The color pallet should be visually pleasing. Figuring out how all of this comes together takes professional input and plenty of A/B testing to see what works and what doesn’t.
From the minute that your visitor lands on your page, he or she is judging everything. The truth is that speed matters, navigation matters, personalization matters, and the overall look matters. You have to pay attention to every aspect of the user’s experience if you want to be truly successful.
About the author:
Lexie is a freelance UX designer and writer. She enjoys conducting A/B testing and sending off prototypes to clients. She manages Design Roast and can be followed on Twitter @lexieludesigner.
