There has been a great deal of talk in the tech community in recent years about UX, or user experience and what this means. This is a phrase which is used to discuss the quality of a business’ website and how easy the experience is for the customer. The reason why user experience is such a hot topic of debate is because we are living in a world where people want things quickly and they want to find what they are looking for with ease. So what exactly do users want with regards to their experience on your website?
Aesthetically Pleasing
Remember that you only get one chance to make a good first impression and that is why with regards to aesthetics, you need to get your color scheme right. Contrary to what you may believe your website doesn’t have to be a work of art, but it shouldn’t be a hodge-podge of wacky colors which distract from what you are trying to achieve. Take this site which sells best bid bonds as an example, light colors, simplistic design, easy to understand. Welcome your visitors with a sensible color scheme and layout.
Page Loading Time
Page load time is really essential because the reality is that people don’t want to hang around when it comes to waiting for your site to stop buffering. The average speed which people expect is a site that loads pages within 3/4 seconds, any longer than this and you may find that people go elsewhere as they don’t want to wait. Many believe that huge amounts of media slows down the site but that isn’t the case, it is usually down to outdated plug-ins, broken links and poor quality servers. Take this site from veilad.co as an example, packed with beautiful images of its products and with rapid page load time.
Simple Navigation
There is a reason why people have come to your site and it is up to you to make it as easy as you possibly can for them to navigate your site. This means that menus should be simple and helpful, internal links should be aplenty and featured on sidebars and headers, and the flow of the site should make sense. Adding an internal link for a best pressure transducer on a blog post about a turbine flow meter doesn’t make much sense and will not enhance the users experience in the slightest.
Calls To Action
Adding calls to action such as asking the user to sign up for a newsletter can be helpful for you to build a great looking email list, but it is important that these don’t become bothersome. Instead of bombarding the user as soon as they hit the site, leave it 3 or 4 page loads before you ask them to sign up, by this time you will have gained their attention rather than pouncing on them as soon as they hit your website.
This is what user experience should be about, give your website an audit and be sure that it ticks all the boxes.
