Having trouble converting your web visitors despite your best efforts to create relevant and valuable content? Can’t figure out why many of your app users have decided to opt out?
Well, odds are, your user experience (UX) design might have something to do with such issues.
Not having a well-thought-out design can get potential customers to leave before you can even grab the opportunity to promote your products and/or services to them. Once they realize that your site doesn’t provide a seamless browsing experience, they’ll end up leaving. Consumers can write you off in a matter of seconds if they don’t find your website easy to use.
That’s why more and more businesses today are investing in user experience design.
In this post, we’ll discuss what UX design is, its principles, the benefits it can bring to your brand, and several tried-and-true tips to help you get started.
Ready to expand your UX knowledge? Let’s dive right in!
User Experience Design – What Is It?
User experience design, or UX design for short, refers to the process of increasing a user’s satisfaction level with a product by improving its functionality and ease of use. In other words, it’s about creating products that offer a meaningful experiences to users.
Principles of UX Design
While UX is an ever-changing field, its fundamental principles stay the same. These are what guide designers in addressing different problems through a methodology that’s focused and consistent. Take a look at what they are below:
Be findable. Let’s be honest, no user wants to waste time looking for information. They want to see results in an instant. So, make sure that your work is easily discoverable.
Be contextual. Your design is there to guide your prospective and existing customers along their user journey. Don’t make it in such a way that confuses or overwhelms them.
Be easy. Everyone wants to deal with things as smoothly as possible. Providing your target audience with enjoyable and hassle-free experiences will help you win them over in no time.
Be simple. Being direct and straightforward is another principle you must follow when designing for user experience. Stay away from fluff or unnecessary descriptions; keep things simple and go straight to the point.
Be human. Put yourself in the shoes of a user and imagine how you’ll feel when a brand interacts with you in a robotic manner. If off-putting or anything synonymous to it is your answer, then that’s most likely how your users would feel if you were that brand.
Benefits of Having a Good UX Design for Your Business
Improving the user experience design of your website, app, or software will no doubt create a more desirable place for your target audience to interact with your brand. However, that’s just one of the numerous perks you’ll be gaining. Here are the rest:
Higher Conversions and Revenue
An intuitive and easy-to-navigate UX design will encourage web visitors to return for more. They’ll enjoy the experience enough to stay longer, browse your other pages, and come more often to shop. This can eventually result in a boost in your ROI and conversion rates.
Brand Loyalty
A good UX design can lead to enhanced customer satisfaction. Modern people have tons of things to think about in their day-to-day lives, which is why most if not all UX designers try their best to make like easier for their users.
And so, the more you satisfy your audience with your website or app, the higher your chances of retaining them and maybe even turning them into brand advocates who’ll gladly do free word-of-mouth advertising. The key is to understand their needs first so you can find ways to help simplify their lives.
Reduced Development Costs
Many assume that implementing user experience design during product development causes projects to cost more and take longer to finish. However, it’s actually the opposite. Proper UX design implementation can save you money and time.
By integrating an optimized design into the development process, you’ll be able to address usability issues beforehand, thus avoiding unexpected and extensive changes which will cost you far more expensive to fix.
Good for SEO
Another reason you want to invest in UX design and UX writing is that it can boost your website’s search engine rankings. That’s because Google favors sites that provide users with a pleasant experience. Once it sees that in yours, expect to see your ranking rise. A higher ranking means better online visibility, more organic traffic, and more qualified leads.
Optimal Experience for All Devices
UX design is all about providing nothing but the best experience for everyone regardless of the devices they’re using. Especially now that the number of people browsing online from smartphones and tablets continues to grow each day, ensuring uniformity across platforms will get you to tap into a broader audience base.
User Experience Design Tips for Beginners
If you're just starting out in the world of UX design, it can be tough to know where to begin. There are so many best practices and principles to learn, and it can be hard to know what's important and what you can ignore.
In this section, we will discuss some of the most important UX design best practices for newbies. We'll talk about how to create a user-friendly interface, how to make your designs responsive, and how to optimize your designs for different devices. So, if you're new to UX design, or if you're just looking for some helpful tips, read on!
1. Keep It Simple
They say simplicity is beauty, and in UX design, this is totally true. When starting out, it’s crucial to keep your designs as simple as possible. Overcomplicating things will only make the user experience worse, not better. Instead, focus on the basics and build from there.
Keep in mind that “too much” can turn off users in an instant. For instance, when someone is directed to a page that’s filled with distracting elements and typography here and there, they’ll more than likely bounce off to another website. Just like that, you lost a potential customer.
Your goal is to keep the focus of your visitors on getting what they’re looking for on your site. As long as you don’t allow them to deviate form their goal, you’ll be able to achieve yours.
2. Make Your Elements Visually Appealing & Distinct
Design isn’t just about functionality – it’s also about making things look aesthetically appealing and distinct. That way, you get to maintain a fluid user journey and engaging user experience.
Below are several tips to win the hearts of your visitors through your UX design:
Create hierarchy
Arrange elements in a way that indicates their significance, with the most important elements being the largest and most prominent, and the least important ones being smaller and less noticeable. Use typography to create a hierarchy by making headlines larger than the body copy, and using different fonts or font weights to further distinguish between different levels of information.
Use color to add visual interest
Color is a powerful design tool that can be used to draw attention to vital elements, create visual interest, and even convey mood or emotion. When choosing colors for your UX design, consider both the meaning of different colors and how they will work together. For example, red is often used to indicate danger or error, while blue is associated with trustworthiness and calm.
Take advantage of whitespace
Whitespace, also known as negative space, is the empty space around elements on a page. It might seem counterintuitive, but adding more whitespace to your design can actually help create a sense of focus and improve legibility. When used correctly, it can make your designs look cleaner and more elegant.
Make it easy to scan
Users often don’t read webpages word for word; instead, they scan them for key information. That’s why you should make it a point to design your pages in a manner that makes it easy for users to find the information they’re searching for. You can do this by using short paragraphs, clear headings, and bulleted lists.
3. Pay Attention to Detail
As the old saying goes, the devil is in the details. And, this is very much applicable in UX design – even the smallest details can make a big difference in the overall user experience.
The details are what makes the user experience. They're there to make your product easy and enjoyable to use. Attention to detail in UX design is essential to creating a great user experience. Be sure to concentrate on the following:
The overall layout and navigation of your app or website: How easy is it for users to find what they're looking for? Is the navigation logical and intuitive?
The visual design of your app or website: Is everything consistent and on brand? Do the visuals help users understand the information presented?
The content of your app or website: Is the copy clear, concise, and free of errors? Does it provide value to users?
The functionality of your app or website: Does everything work as it should? Are there any glitches or bugs?
4. Think Like a User
To be successful in UX design, you should put yourself in the shoes of your users when designing anything, whether it’s a website, app, or another type of product. This means understanding how they think, feel, and behave when they interact with your product or service. It also means empathizing with their needs and goals, and designing your solution accordingly.
One helpful method to think like a user is by creating personas, which are fictionalized representations of your target users. persona research can give you insights into your users’ motivations, behaviors, and challenges. You can then use these insights to inform your design decisions.
Another way to think like a user is to consider their journey through your product or service. This is known as the user experience (UX) design process. By understanding the different stages of the UX process, you can design your solution to meet users’ needs at each stage.
Finally, always keep user feedback in mind. This can come from formal user research studies, or simply from observing users as they interact with your product or service. User feedback can help you identify areas for improvement in your design.
5. Ask for Feedback and Iterate
After launching your design, don’t forget to get feedback from users and then use that feedback to iterate and improve the design. It's imperative to get feedback from your target audience so that you can design the best possible experience for them.
Although there are numerous ways to ask for feedback, the most effective one is user testing, as it lets you see how real users interact with your UX design. This type of feedback is invaluable since you can make changes to your design based on how actual users will use it.
Wrapping Up
There you have it! Whether you’re a web developer, blogger, marketer, or aspiring graphic designer, user experience design can help take your business to the next level. The happier your users are with your design, the more eager they are to come back for more.