The competition in online businesses is more challenging than ever, and there are millions of websites where users can get their desired information, services, and products. So, stepping into the arena with so much competition isn’t always the easiest thing, especially if you don’t have the right resources.
Nowadays, your business website is the first interaction platform between you and your clients. And since thousands of website builder tools exist, developing a website has become remarkably simpler.
So, there is no reason you cannot develop a website that is both functionally efficient and user-friendly. And once you create a user-friendly website, it can help you in several ways, such as:
- Improving your SEO score and ranking on search engines
- Attracting new visitors
- Retaining your existing visitors
- Getting a better ROI on your web development practices
A user-friendly website combines engaging visuals, CTAs (Calls to Action), informative content, and more. Moreover, it’s easy to navigate and provides an intuitive interface for the visitor. Of course, it also guarantees thorough protection for your visitors, protecting them from any cybersecurity threats while they visit your website.
So, to develop a user-friendly website for your business, what essential areas do you need to focus on? Here are some key pointers to help you design the perfect website for your visitors.
1. Research Your Audience
Understanding your audience is the first step in designing a user-friendly website. Of course, you must know who you are talking to, and only then can you design something that intrigues them. It means you must know your demographics and understand the needs of your potential audience.
Once you know their needs, you must engage with your potential audience via forms and possibly face-to-face contact. Ask questions that help you improve the design and intuitiveness of your website.
Simply put, understanding your audience means knowing them in and out. When you figure out what they need, it can be easier to develop designs that they like.
2. Analyze How Your Interface Will be Used
With the abundance of mobile and desktop platforms, modern website designers face a challenge regarding how users interact with the website. For instance, consider Tinder and how easy it is for users to take the necessary action with just one swipe.
Does your website have the same creativity and intuitiveness? Do you need people to tap on specific buttons to complete an action?
Typically, user interactions are of two types such as:
- Direct Interactions
- Indirect Interactions
Examples of direct interaction include drag and drop, tapping a button, and swiping a card. These actions are instant and don’t require navigation to different pages.
On the other hand, indirect interactions include using keyboard commands, filling forms, pointing and clicking, and drawing on a Wacom tablet.
If you compare the two types of interaction, there is a noticeable difference in speed and ease of use. You can pick any of the interface types based on your website’s nature. However, think about the users and how they might interact. For instance, senior users will likely need help swiping or tapping the right button. So, your website should be considerate of the potential mistakes.
3. Simplified Designs Always Work Best
Users prefer explicit and easy-on-the-eye content while surfing the web. So, creating a simple and elegant website design makes more sense as it provides a simple layout for the users to work with.
When your webpage has simple navigation tools, it’s easier to understand, and users can conveniently move between different pages. On the other hand, if you stuff in too much information on one screen, it can overwhelm the users and eventually force them to leave the page.
4. Pick the Right Colors
While it’s easy to get carried away with the choice of colors, a quality website design incorporates clever use of color. Your website must be visually pleasing, meaning the colors must complement each other.
It’s, therefore, ideal to set a design theme and use only the relevant colors and various instances. Each color has an emotion, and it must remain consistent with the emotion it represents. For instance, if you’re making a jewelry website, you can put in lighter tones of gray combined with whites. It gives an elegant feel to the website that directly relates to your jewelry.
On the other hand, if you’re making a website for tech gadgets and gaming devices, you can use more vibrant and flashy colors with darker themes that usually represent tech and gaming-oriented individuals.
Moreover, make sure that your color contrasts are on point and that each color is easily distinguishable. That’s how you can make your graphical and text-based content more visible and accessible for people to read on your website.
5. Look for Professional Services
While modern web builder tools can be pretty easy and intriguing, seeking professional help for your business website is always a good idea. For instance, you can find quality professionals for website design in Plano to ensure that your website has all the ingredients that make it stand out from its competitors.
Moreover, professional services provide practical consultancy and advice to ensure better user engagement and user-friendly pages in the long run.
6. Make Room for Mistakes
A user-friendly website anticipates mistakes that users can make, incredibly, when filling in any details or forms. For instance, the user may enter the wrong spelling for their name, feed in the wrong address, etc. However, they shouldn’t face the consequences of entering incorrect information.
For instance, you can always ask the user to recheck the information or add spell-check integrations to prevent spelling mistakes. Likewise, use conditionals to prevent the user from entering letters in a field for numbers.
It’s all about anticipating potential mistakes and how you can help evade them instantly. This way, the user can enter the correct information, making your web page more intuitive to the mistakes that the user might make.
7. Use Feedback Tools
For every action the user performs on the website, there must be a feedback element that guides the user about each stage of their visit to the website. For instance, if the user presses a button, you can add a loading animation that indicates to the user what’s next.
On many websites, having no feedback tools makes it harder for users to understand the reaction to their actions. Eventually, they leave the website without completing any transactions or forms.
8. Easy Navigation and CTAs are Critical
A user-friendly website is always easy to navigate. So, your webpage should feature intuitive tools and indicators about navigating to the product page, blogs, or checkout pages. Typically, most popular websites have a navigation pane that allows users to navigate between different pages seamlessly.
Likewise, using the CTA buttons effectively makes it easier for the users to take necessary action on the webpage. For instance, if the user sees a product they would want to buy, an immediate CTA must let them add the item to the cart.
A poor user experience, in this case, would mean that the user must first navigate to the product pages and then probably scroll down to find a ‘Buy Now’ button. This is where you can potentially lose a customer.
9. Make it Mobile Compatible
According to some stats, nearly 59% of the traffic comes from mobile devices. Optimizing your webpage for mobile devices should be one of your top priorities. As more users interact with websites through tablets and smartphones, providing them with an intuitive interface can increase the chances of converting users into customers.
10. Quick Loading
Nothing kills the mood like a slow-loading webpage. It’s the biggest reason for a low interaction time on the website. Faster load times are critical for SEO scores and search engine rankings.
Users will likely remain on your website and complete the transactions when your pages load faster. On the other hand, a slow, lagging website can quickly put off a customer and leads to losing visitors.
You can optimize loading speed by minimizing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files. Moreover, enabling browser caching and image optimization also helps you improve your website’s loading speed and functionality.
Conclusion
A user-friendly website is all about enhancing the user experience. It has steps and design considerations that make your website stand out. By implementing these simple but effective techniques, you can create intriguing website designs that provide better user engagement, ultimately helping you attain better investment returns.
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