User experience is a popular topic in web design circles, but something business owners tend to dismiss as a buzzword or a vague idea. Holding onto such a mindset is unfortunate, because it’s a notion that can cost you and your company a lot of money.
That’s because bringing traffic to your pages, creating compelling content, and impressing potential customers with design all ends up being meaningless if people don’t like interacting with your website. If they are frustrated by the process of looking for information and resources, they aren’t going to hang around for very long. They certainly won’t bother to bookmark your page, share with friends and colleagues, or return again in the future.
Let’s take a look at a few user experience best practices you and your web design team should be following…
Responsive Web Design
Smartphone and tablet users make up the majority on the web these days. So, you need a responsive web design that adapts itself to any screen size or mobile browser.
Fast-Loading Pages
No one likes to wait ages for websites to come up, especially if they are using a handheld device. Invest in premium web hosting and optimize your pages for quick loading speed and dump anything on your site that slows it down.
Clean Layouts
If you give visitors too much to look at, or too many choices on a page, your content can start to feel overwhelming pretty quickly. Utilize simple layouts with bold images and lots of white space.
Skimmable Text
It might shock you know, but most readers aren’t going to obsess over your carefully-crafted content. Instead, they’re going to skim pages for headlines, stats, and next steps. Make it easy for them to scan your ideas and figure out what they need to know.
Simple Search and Navigation
One big web visitor frustration comes into play when someone has to click through multiple different menus to find the product or answer they’re looking for. Use simple navigation and an embedded search feature.
Targeted Fonts and Word Choice
If you have older readers, make the text on your website bigger. Likewise, understand your audience and use words and phrases that make sense to them.
Multiple Language Options
Some of your potential customers might not use English as their first language. With so many different translation tools available, giving them different choices is an easy way to reach farther in the market.
Although business owners tend to think of UX (or user experience) as being a technical and trendy pursuit, you may have noticed that each of these boils down to simple common sense. When you give web visitors more of what they want, they are more likely to spend time on your site and interact with your business.
Connect with Weblinx Today
If your web design team isn’t giving you pages your customers want to use, maybe it’s time you worked with a vendor who will. Call 630-551-0334 or email Weblinx today to see how we can help!