The User Experience

Often referred to as UX for short, this is where your site works exactly the way it needs to for your customer. Like a great shopping or service experience in the real world, good user experience online so often goes unnoticed, and that’s fine; it’s expected. Unfortunately, a bad experience is hard to forget and can so often put off users ever visiting again… So how can you avoid being remembered for all the wrong reasons?

Keep it simple

Think how your site works and how many steps make up a customers journey to where they want to get to. Are there an unnecessary amount of pages to navigate through before placing an order? can the journey be condensed or simplified into fewer pages? Or if its a form to fill in are you asking more questions than you need to? Rewording your text to only say what’s really needed can help your customers understand your messaging and get to where they want to go more quickly.

If you make your site user experience quick and seamless your customers are more likely to place an order, make it complex and slow and they might be turned off making a purchase.

Build a site fit for your audience

Think of your site homepage as your shop front, if it doesn’t appear clear what you do or sell at first glance then visitors aren’t going to come inside. Display the information that tells your visitor who you are and entice them with eye-catching imagery and copy.

At this point you need to consider which browser or device your customers are using; if your shop window isn’t looking great on their phone or tablet it’s going to put them off. If you don’t know which browser or device they are using, there’s a quicker way to find out than asking them all individually. Try setting up a Google Analytics account, it’s free and you can see which devices and browsers are being used the most under the Audience category.

Here’s also where you can make your site responsive, users could be looking for a very specific thing when browsing on their phone to browsing at home on their PC. So why show the rest? Sites on phones can very quickly look cluttered, so if you know your mobile users are looking at your site differently to your desktop based users – give them a view that suits just them.

How we can help

At Web Engineer, we consider user experience within every site or application we build. With 20 years in the bag developing web solutions for businesses big and small, we know the importance of taking the time to understand who your customers are and then build a solution designed to serve their needs and your businesses goals. Do you have a site or app that needs a UX rethink? then why not get in touch and see if we can help.