When considering website design, it’s easy to get caught up in aesthetic concerns. But if your website has a purpose beyond just looking pretty, it’s important to focus on more than appearances.
Here are five key ways to provide your website’s visitors with a great user experience, so that they’ll stick around instead of leaving in frustration.
1. Simplicity
The way your website looks is important, but most visitors are coming to your site to get something specific done—not check out how cool it looks.
To provide a good user experience, keep your design simple. Design elements that have no functional purpose just make it harder for visitors to do what they’re trying to do.
You can use simplicity to your benefit in a few different ways:
First, don’t use too many colors. The Handbook of Computer-Human Interaction suggests a maximum of five (plus or minus two) colors in your site’s design.
Second, make sure you use easily readable typefaces, and avoid using more than three typefaces in no more than three different sizes.
Third, only use graphics if they serve a specific function or help users do a specific action.
2. Visual Hierarchy
The idea of employing a visual hierarchy in your site design means organizing and arranging elements of your website to guide visitors to the most important elements first.
The trick is to lead visitors to complete the most important action on the page in a natural, enjoyable way. The position, color, and size of elements on the page all contribute to this strategy. One effective way to implement a visual hierarchy is to situate a call-to-action on the left side of the page (most people scan websites from left to right) and use a color that makes it pop out from the rest of the page.
3. Ease of Navigation
Intuitive navigation is an important part of making sure visitors can find what they’re looking for on your site. Visitors should be able to determine where they should click next almost immediately after arriving on your site. They should not have to think too hard to figure it out.
Keep your main navigation simple and near the top of the page so that it’s easy to find and understand. Include navigation elements in the footer of your site so that users don’t have to scroll back to the top. If you are using a ready-made theme, make sure it allows easy navigation across the site.
It can help to use breadcrumbs on pages other than your homepage. Breadcrumbs help visitors know how they got to their current page. A search box near the top of the page is also a great way to empower visitors to find what they’re looking for quickly.
Finally, make sure that the position of your main navigation element remains consistent across every page of your site.
4. Consistency
Navigation isn’t the only aspect of your website where it’s important to be consistent—your site’s overall look and feel should be consistent across all pages.
That doesn’t mean every page has to look exactly the same. But any set of pages with the same purpose should have the same layout. And compatible color schemes, typefaces, and tone will also help keep the site consistent and provide a better user experience.
5. Accessibility
Since 2015, mobile browsing has been more common than desktop browsing, so it’s critical to ensure that your site is compatible with all devices in order to provide the best user experience to the widest audience.
At the very least, that means using responsive design so that your content is automatically shuffled around and resized to fit the dimensions of a visitor’s device. You may even need to go as far as specifically modifying the way site elements are presented. Doing so will make sure that nothing breaks down between platforms.
If you’re responsible for designing your own website—or someone else’s—keep these five principles in mind to help make sure your site serves visitors with the best possible user experience. Skilled graphics designers can also help make sure your site strikes the right balance between being both aesthetically pleasing and functional.
Aqib Nazir
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hi Aqib,
after reading your article I seems to be a new experienced about it is so amazing tips taught by you.
and basically, its very helpfull tips in practical life we amaze it and it really works to me.
I am very thankful to you that you have shared your article and being touch with you
Nowadays user experience is playing vital role for increasing visitors and generating lead from online business website. Thank you sharing a valuable information for user experience design.
If we want to become more experienced person , so you should have a look these types of blogs,postings,articles etc to get more and more experience regards your field.
.
Thanks for the phenomenal post
Have a nice day !
Hey, Thanks for sharing the important information for website user experience its realy necessary part of website.
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Very good article for people who are starting just to do website or want to improve old ones. After reading this article did find that I have some problems with navigation on my own website and thanks to this article problem is already fixed, thanks a lot for great tips.
Great post Aqib! Website design shouldn’t just about the appearance of a website but it should also focus on improving user experience and increasing site engagement.
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Yes its important to keep website design simple. I personally experience some sites where they put Many ads in sidebar and in between contents without planning a bit. Even when we use adsense its important to keep our sites quality and we should always try to give users the best experience when they came across to our site.
Thanks a lot for sharing those valuable ideas. I really appreciate your work. Well done!
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After reading your post , I have learn a lot of things. Thank you for sharing. Love this post. keep it up. waiting for new one.
its really a nice article
i have one doubt..
my website loading very do you have any suggestions for that…
please keep me updating
Thanks for sharing five extremely practical tips Aqib!
Your strategies are simple, non techie and very straight forward.
I particularly like #’ s 3 & 4, because, practically any serious webmaster, looking
to inexpensively improve their visitors experiences, you readily apply your proven strategies,
within minutes of reading your post!
Thanks!
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First of all i really thankful for such a amazing article. But i have one doubt that some time my website will load slowly and it take much time to open it. So could you please suggest some idea that why it is happening..
Hi Rehan,
Read these posts on how to improve page load speed and tools to measure it:
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Simplicity is also vital to increasing page loading speeds – not only a ranking factor, but something your website users consider before clicking off to visit a competitor.
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Thanks for the valuable information, this article is inspiring . Website are made for using the things you want to show to people so this tips will be very useful
Simplicity is the best way to get people to your bussines or website
but i think website speed does matter in some case your website needs to be faster…
BTW nice post…
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User experience has become a very important factor in success of a website. If your website’s speed is good and users are finding what they want then will want to stay longer on your website and also come back again. In terms of Rankings also user experience is a great factor nowadays.
Thanks for the tips. Keep up the good work.
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Hi Agib,
Simplicity and purpose should top the priority list when designing a website for users.
Avoid clutter, take-aways whatever is not useful to your readers, and if an element has no tangible benefits – don’t bother leaving it there.
Color is one important factor that must be taking seriously, I have seen websites with red text on a black background color.
This is not only bad for the eyes, but not even an ideal good practices.
Thanks Agib, nice share.
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One thing I love about Google is that they have imbibed this culture of simplicity into their websites that once you visit any of their product pages, you know what it is all about. That’s exactly what I teach my student on web design.
Good and simple design with clear message equals great user experience. This post is quite excellent and great.
Thanks
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Hey Aqib,
A great user experience on our site ensures that our visitors can find everything they’re looking for with ease and speed. It’s up to us to create a content-rich, meaningfully designed site that keeps our customers and partners engaged and returning for more.
Speed matters, Every fraction of a second a visitor waits for our site to load, their frustration grows and that frustration is aimed at our brand. Images account for a significant portion of that load time. We need to make sure we’re not making our visitors download a gigantic image that’s only being used as a tiny thumbnail. Cheesy stock photography is the quickest way to turn a great site into a mediocre one. The typical user can spot a stock photo from a mile away, and it instantly devalues our website. Eventually, thanks for your wonderful thought.
With best wishes,
Amar kumar
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