Looking to enhance your brand online and generate more leads? Try these website UX makeover ideas
User experience (UX) is the key to any successful website design, with 88% of online consumers stating they wouldn’t return to a website if the experience is sub-par.
Yet, website UX testing and improvements remain largely overlooked by many small businesses. In fact, recent research reveals that only 55% of companies perform UX testing.
So, what’s the solution?
As a small business, we know your time is precious. That’s why we’ve outlined a simple guide below, telling you everything you need to know about website UX makeovers.
How to achieve effective website UX makeovers?
To achieve a successful website UX makeover, we first need to understand what’s involved in UX.
During website UX makeovers, web developers must keep the user and their experience in mind. This isn’t always easy when coding, especially without a handle on the demographic of the target audience.
So, the first step remains knowing your user and the features they need to have a great experience.
The 7 qualities of UX
According to Peter Morville and his UX honeycomb diagram, we can divide UX into seven qualities:
1. Useful – What purpose does it serve?
2. Usable – Can your user use it effectively?
3. Findable – How easily can your user find what they’re looking for?
4. Credible – Can your user trust your brand to offer quality?
5. Accessible – Is your website inclusive of a full range of abilities?
6. Desirable – Do all your features add worth to the website?
7. Valuable – Does your website provide value to the user?
UX is achieved during website design and development when every aspect or feature is directed towards the same goal. Website designers and developers must maintain clarity of the overall ideal of the website and not become lost in amplifying smaller aspects if they don’t serve the defined greater purpose.
With this in mind, here are some simple ways to realign your existing site closer to the seven qualities of UX.
5 ways to give your website a UX makeover
After learning the necessary UX qualities and identifying our target audience, we now begin to apply the functionality to achieve a successful UX website makeover.
1. Overall design
We live in a visual world where digital stimulation across social media platforms and the online world dominates the landscape. In 0.05 seconds, users form an opinion of your website, often determining whether they stay or bounce.
Website visuals are vital to deciding the consumer experience, as 75% of users judge a website’s credibility on aesthetics.
If they instantly like what they see, they’re more likely to continue exploring your website.
After this first visual test, we achieve UX with clarity and simplicity in your website design. And remember, your user will likely be scanning, not reading the text.
But the website design should also focus on how the user experiences the website, not just what it looks like.
For example, answer these questions to help your UX website makeover design process:
• Can they find what they need to find quickly?
• Are they encouraged to scroll down the website?
• Does the design incorporate and encourage your user to act?
Remember, the website design incorporates graphics, layout, text, and any interactive features. Ultimately, a website’s visuals can decide the credibility of your brand in the eyes of your user.
The human factor of perceiving objects as a whole entity works into the design factor, whereby we receive the composition as one unit. As a web designer, aligning both human and design factors ensures your website UX makeover works to exceed the expectations and demands of your user.
2. Loading times
Now, it’s all well and good having a great design in place, but what if it takes too long to load? And by “too long”, we’re talking about two-to-three seconds tops. The UX expectation on loading times reveals a 32% increase in bounce rate if consumers wait more than three seconds.
Measure your page speed through a tool, such as GTmetix or Pingdom Website Speed Test. If your website takes longer than three seconds, we recommend implementing the following procedures as a UX website makeover:
• Select a performance-optimised hosting solution
• Compress images
• Limit your redirects
• Cache webpages
• Introduce browser caching
Often loading times can be a quick fix for a big problem. Supplying your user with the speed they need can be the difference between a conversion and total abandonment.
3. Advanced cursor interactions
Now beyond design and speed, we begin to become more technical. As our digital online world has developed, so has the way we interact with our cursor.
Advanced cursor interactions can generate distinctive engagement for the user, such as paradox scrolling, 3D cursor interactions, and hover interactions. These types of advanced cursor interactions offer depth and movement when revealing additional content or visual stimulation.
4. Let’s make it personal
Website UX is becoming so advanced it can adapt to whoever is using it. For example, your website can recommend a product, service or function to your user based on their previous experience and preferences. You can even use data to display a specific homepage design suited to their interests.
5. Responsive design
While your website might work well for desktops, does the UX translate across all devices? Ensuring your website functions appropriately across all devices is achieved with a mobile-first or responsive design approach.
Responsive design enables your website to adjust its layout according to the screen size.
50% of web traffic comes from mobile phones, so to avoid missing half of all users, you should ensure you invest in a responsive design for your website UX makeover.
Website UX makeovers: Should I stick or twist?
With so many features required to optimise the website UX across all devices, you might prefer to invest in a new site altogether. It all depends on your budget, your developer, your needs and the current state of your site.
At Design in the Shires, we offer web design and development services that prioritise UX through design and performance. Understanding you and your business help us determine the needs of your target consumer before we apply our skills to deliver an optimal UX website makeover.
Not only will your website enhance the user experience, but advanced UX will reward your website receives higher SERPs rankings through SEO. So, if you’re keen for your brand to receive a quality website UX makeover, get in touch.
