With many companies increasingly turning to technology to reach their customers, generating positive user experience platforms is becoming more crucial every day. With so many options available in today’s market, one bad experience could be all it takes to drive a potential customer from your business to a competitor’s. Take these concepts into consideration when designing your user experience to create advantageous outcomes for your business.
Curb Appeal
One of the first things anyone accessing your website or mobile application will notice is how it looks. Never underestimate the power of this first impression over user experience, or UX. If your site looks outdated with tired graphics, an overly basic layout, or fusty fonts, it can come across as unprofessional or untrustworthy.
A modern design will help keep potential customers engaged once they’ve landed on your home page. When working on your visuals, consider what kind of aesthetic best fits your business. Color palettes, typography, and the kinds of images you include in the site should all be part of your design conversations, as should the tone of any copy you plan on putting on the site.
If you’re including images of products or team members, consistency is key. Photos should be uploaded in high resolution with carefully considered composition and should all maintain a similar style; images with significant style variations are often hallmarks of disreputable websites.
Navigability
There’s little worse than landing on the homepage of a website only to find that it’s a labyrinthine challenge to find information on specific products or services a business offers.
Dividing your website into easy-to-navigate pages that can be easily located in a centralized menu is a great place to start. Consider having an obvious “Home” button that will return visitors to the homepage from any other page they might navigate to. Ideally, this button will be in the same place, such as a header, on every page. Including a menu in the same place is another way to help people move around your site with ease.
Cross-Platform Functionality
While some people may access your website from desktop computers, many more will likely access it on their smartphones or tablets. When testing your site before launching, take time to check that it works as smoothly in a mobile format as it does in a desktop one. Specific issues to look for are whether pages load in full when a phone or tablet is in portrait orientation and if any pop-up features open and close correctly.
Having a good user experience is the first step in engaging and maintaining customers. These basic considerations will get you started in the process of creating your own positive UX.