What is user experience in website design?

If you have ever backed out of a website because you could not find what you needed, you have already met bad user experience. Here is what UX actually means for a business website, and which bits are worth your time.

What is user experience?

User experience, or UX, is the process of designing a website or application with the user in mind.

By understanding what makes a good user experience and designing your website accordingly, you can create a more successful website that meets the needs and expectations of your visitors.

Why is it important?

Good UX lets people use your website in an efficient and intuitive way. That keeps visitors happy, it helps them get what they came for faster, and it tends to improve enquiries and sales as a result.

The three most important factors of a good UX are usability, accessibility and desirability.

Each of these factors matters in its own way, and together they create a positive user experience. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

1. Usability
   Usability is about making sure people can easily interact with your website. That means buttons are easy to find and click, forms are easy to fill out, and everything is laid out in an organised way. The only reliable way to get there is to test your designs with real people and watch what they do.
2. Accessibility
   Accessibility is making sure everyone can use your website regardless of any disabilities they may have. That includes content that works with screen readers, forms that can be completed using assistive technology, and images and videos with proper captions and descriptions. It is worth noting that accessibility is not only for people with disabilities. Clear type, good contrast and sensible tab order make a site easier for everybody.
3. Desirability
   Desirability is about making sure your website looks good and feels appealing. That covers readable fonts, a sensible colour palette, a clean layout and well-chosen images. It also means working properly on every device, from a desktop monitor to a phone on a patchy signal.

What actually matters for a small business site

UX has a lot of vocabulary attached to it, and most of it will not help a one-man band or a local restaurant. You do not need personas, journey maps or a research budget. You need a site where the phone number is obvious on every page, the opening hours are not buried, and booking a table or asking for a quote takes a few seconds rather than a few minutes.

If you sell online, the pressure points are narrower still: product pages that answer the obvious questions, a basket that does not lose things, and a checkout that does not ask for anything it does not need. Get those right and you have done more for your user experience than any amount of theory, because on an ecommerce site every extra step costs you orders.

How to improve the user experience on your website

There are plenty of ways to go about this, but these three will tell you the most for the least effort.

• Use analytics to track user behaviour
  Analytics can tell you a lot about how people use your site. By tracking which pages they visit, how long they stay and what they do next, you get a much better picture of what is working and what needs attention. Pages where people arrive and immediately leave are the ones to look at first.
• Conduct user testing
  User testing is the quickest way to see how real people deal with your site. Tools such as Hotjar or Maze let you watch recordings of visitors moving through your pages. You do not have to pay for anything, though: sitting five customers in front of your site, giving them a task and staying quiet while they try it will expose most of the problems.
• Get feedback from users
  Sometimes the simplest route is to ask. A short survey, a poll, or a question at the end of a phone call will all turn up things you would never have guessed. Listen to what people say and act on it, because they are the ones actually using the site.

Usability, accessibility and desirability are worth keeping in mind together. A site that gets all three roughly right will outperform a prettier site that only gets one. It is also worth remembering that a good experience and good search performance pull in the same direction, so it is worth reading up on how to improve your website’s SEO alongside this.

Examples of good and bad UX design

There are some clear examples of both out there. Here are a few.

Good examples

• LinkedIn: the interface is straightforward to get around, with a search function that behaves predictably and well-organised tabs. It also reads cleanly, with plain type and colours that are easy on the eye.
• Apple: Apple is known for designs that are both attractive and easy to use. Menus and buttons are where you expect them to be, which makes moving around their products close to effortless.
• Amazon: Amazon consistently puts the task first. The site is easy to navigate, the menus are well organised and the search bar is always within reach, which matters when a catalogue runs to millions of items.

Bad examples

• MySpace: once one of the biggest social networks in the world, MySpace lost ground to competitors like Facebook, and poor UX was a large part of why. There were too many features and options, which made it hard for people to find anything, and the cluttered layout made the site confusing to move around.
• Healthcare.gov: the 2013 launch is one of the most-cited UX failures there is. The site struggled badly on release, and an interface that made it difficult for people to find what they needed was one of the reasons so few could finish signing up. It has since been rebuilt and works far better, which is a useful reminder that these problems are fixable.

FAQ

What is the difference between UX and UI design?

UI design is the part you can see: the buttons, colours, type and spacing. UX is the thinking behind it, covering how someone moves through the site and whether they can finish what they started. A site can look smart and still be frustrating to use, and that is usually a UX problem rather than a UI one.

Does a small business website really need UX design?

It needs the thinking, not the jargon. A plumber or a dentist does not need a research programme, but they do need a site where the phone number is obvious, the opening hours are easy to find and a booking takes seconds. That is UX. For most small sites it comes down to a handful of clear decisions.

How do I know if my website has a UX problem?

Look at where people give up. Analytics will show pages with high exit rates, forms that get started but never finished, and searches that return nothing useful. Then ask five customers to complete a task on your site while you watch and say nothing. The places they hesitate are the places to fix first.

Do I need a full redesign to improve the user experience?

Often not. Many UX problems come down to navigation labels, page structure, form length or slow loading, and those can usually be fixed on the site you already have. A full rebuild makes sense when the platform or the underlying code is holding you back, but it is worth ruling out the cheaper fixes first.

Getting it right on your own site

A positive user experience is essential for any website. To create a good one you need to understand how people actually use your site and what they are trying to get done, then make it as easy as possible for them to do it. Test your decisions with real users rather than trusting your own familiarity with the site.

If you would rather not work through all of that on your own, that is what we do. We are a small studio in Sale, and we design websites for businesses across Manchester that are built to be used, not just looked at. Get in touch and tell us where your site is letting people down.