When User Experience Design Goes Wrong
We have three quick questions for you:
Have you ever landed on a website and immediately felt overwhelmed?
Have you ever not been able to find the content you were looking for on a page?
If so, then you’ve been a victim of poor user experience design, and the owner of that website potentially missed out on a sale. As for the third question:
Does your website fall into this category?
User Experience 101
Our modern lives have evolved into almost constant interaction with user design. You can see examples in your smartphone’s interface, in the way that Netflix previews movies and shows if you hover over them for too long, and in social media companies that display related content to keep you on their site longer. In short, user experience (often referred to as UX/UI) is the study and implementation of the way a user engages with your interactive media. For your website, user experience can be analyzed by looking at how easy it is to check out on your website and any obstacles that may be in the way, how your landing pages convert into sales, or how long users stay on your site.
What is Bounce Rate?
Poor UI/UX results in an increased bounce rate for your site, meaning a user landed on your website and didn’t find the content they needed, so they quickly clicked away to another search or another site. A high bounce rate will negatively impact your google search ranking, making it harder for users to find your website and services. HubSpot suggests that the two main causes of a high bounce rate are:
Visitors can’t easily find sought after content or information
Web page is too difficult to use.
Strategic, intentional user experience design solves both of these issues.
The Key to a Profitable Website: User Experience Design
It is imperative to start a website design by deciding what key action you want the user to take — often referred to as the call to action — upon entering your website.
For some businesses, you may want the user to contact you in order to schedule your services or a consultation. Other businesses may want their user to purchase an item and complete the checkout process online. Or, as in the example we discussed above, many companies in the entertainment and social media space want users to stay on their platform as long as possible because it generates more ad revenue for their company.
Whatever your goal, you want to develop a funnel for users who land on your website so that they complete the call to action instead of bouncing.
Building a User Experience Design Path
When developing a funnel that guides users to a designated space where they can complete the call-to-action, you want to ensure this path is clearly defined and available throughout the website. It should also be as easy as possible to complete so the user doesn’t get discouraged or frustrated, ending in a lost sale.
Once you’ve conceptualized the path, you’ll use photos, buttons, colors, and a multitude of other design elements to ensure users find the path you’ve laid out for them and follow that path until they complete the desired action.
That’s Where Brand Mark Digital Can Help
In our website designs, we incorporate industry knowledge, user experience best practices, expert copywriting, search engine optimization and innovative graphic design to ensure your website is user-friendly, productive, and profitable.
If you are interested in working with us to build a new site, or if you’d like us to look at your current website to ensure it’s performing at its optimal capacity, please contact us today.
