The satisfaction we feel, largely subconsciously, when we’ve effortlessly navigated our way through a service interaction online, or found just the right piece of information we were looking for on a website, almost without trying, speaks volumes about the importance of effective design. So why do so many sites get it wrong?
It can be difficult to navigate a successful path through something that puts the ‘user’ at the heart of it, when we as users are all different. What one user considers to be a great design feature might irritate another beyond reason.
UX designers almost need a sixth sense of how and why users will use a service, almost pre-empting what they need before they know they need it. And to do that, a designer must have a complete understanding of the product or service they are designing for, to truly understand what the requirements are.
So rule number one is to make sure your discovery stage is as thorough as you can possibly make it….
A great design solves a problem or satisfies a need. It gives the user control over how they interact with a site and ensures a sense of achievement. The end result should be a customer leaving your site having done exactly what they arrived to do, in as few steps as possible. So knowing as much as possible about your user and their needs is crucial.
At a fundamental level, good UX will keep customers coming back, boosting loyalty to the site and brand. Good design needs to be intuitive in order to increase the level of interaction the customer has with the site. The longer they stay on your site, the deeper their interest in your company becomes and the higher their engagement. But make no mistake, you don’t want them lingering on your site because they simply can’t find the path they need to get their task done, which leads me to my second rule which is to keep things simple…
Overdone design can clutter a space, too much animation can create a feeling of noise…simplicity of layout improves usability and increases interaction. You want your visitors to arrive and find what they need quickly. If they linger, it should be because you’ve designed your pages to lead the eye through the site from one point of interest to the next. The more a user is digesting the information on your site should increase their appetite for more, keeping them reading and increasing their feeling that the visit has added value to their day.
What are your thoughts? What do you look for in good UX design?