Creating a high-quality, attractive website is a process that takes time and skill. The best web designers in the world have years of experience, and they share one thing in common – they prioritize constant learning as a way to keep up with a rapidly evolving and changing industry.
As the digital landscape changes, so do the best web design principles and practices. Industry standards are constantly evolving, and things that were important in the past just aren’t relevant anymore.
With this in mind, we’ve put together a short collection of things you need to know about web design, the user experience (UX), and how the two are related.
Why Is it Important to Prioritize the User Experience?
The UX is one of the most important considerations when designing a new website. If your site isn’t user friendly, people simply won’t want to visit it, and you will see high bounce rates and negative performance stats.
By prioritising the UX, it becomes increasingly easy to encourage visitors to stay and browse your website. At the end of the day, this should be your main goal. Not only will it result in more leads and a higher conversion rate, but things like high visitor retention times and low bounce rates are positively correlated with improved search engine rankings.
Remember That People Scan Websites
In a perfect world, people would have the time and motivation to stop and read everything on your website. But this is a pure dream, and it’s really never going to happen. Instead, most people tend to scan websites and their content rather than spending the time to read them properly.
With this in mind, designing your content and page layouts with scanning in mind is crucial. Use large headings and media to break up large walls of text. Ensure all headings and subheadings are informational, and spend a little time bolding or italicizing text that’s important.
Focus on Clarity
If visitors to your website have to go out of their way to find the information they’re looking for, a large percentage of them are going to leave immediately. People are lazy, so you need to make things easy for them.
For starters, ensure your overall design is easy to navigate and very clear. Once again, use headings and short links to break up content and to help people find the things they’re looking for. And above all, don’t clutter pages or posts with useless graphics or content, no matter how tempting it may be to do so.
Use a Tried and Tested Design
Continuing on from the last post, it’s not often a great idea to try and create your own new design. Sure, a little creativity may work for you, but as the old saying goes, there’s no point in trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, spend some time looking at existing high-performing websites and taking note of the design principles they follow. Try and implement some of these in your own design if possible.
Final Word
If there’s one thing you should have got out of this article, it’s that the user experience is a crucial consideration when designing a new website. You need to spend some time while putting your site together to ensure the UX is going to be good, or else you just won’t achieve the results you’re expecting.