3 key tips on how to make your website user-friendly
A web designer is a person of many talents. He or she is not only a combination of analytical thinking with the artistic soul. What matters in web design is also an empathy. Because a developer not only works technically, but also interpersonally. To create a user-friendly website a designer needs to fill the readers’ shoes. See our 3 key tips on how to build a website that your users will love to experience.
What is UX and why do we love it?
As web design enthusiasts we appreciate UX in particular. It stands for User Experience and poses the art of designing easy to use pages with solutions that are intuitive and seamless for users. If you want to feel what is the essence of Usability, have a look on Steve Job’s words on design:
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
The conclusion is simple then – web design should be user-centered. What does it mean? Long story short, it means making a website as easy to use as possible.
In his book, Alan Cooper writes that if you cannot handle with a machine, for example, an ATM, it is not you who is stupid. It is the machine which is not intelligent, not helpful, and not intuitive. The same principle applies to web design. And that is precisely why we love UX – thanks to it, we don’t make our users think too much, so they can enjoy their trouble-free journey on the page.
What are our 3 key tips on designing user-friendly websites?
1. Create a responsive web design
Smartphones have already replaced desktops. The research published on StatCounter website shows that until 2020 almost 60% of world’s population will be using smartphones. For this reason, it is an absolute must to design responsive layouts for your projects. A responsive web design makes your website look good on any kind of devices. So, your users can visit your page whenever they want and from wherever they are.
2. Design websites for the sake of users’ intuition
Trust in the intuitive. For example, name the main menu elements accurately to their content, place the Sign up option in the upper right corner of the page, insert Contact us tab in the footer. Why? Well, users expect these elements in specific places most.
You can also conduct a kind of UX audit for your project. To do it, fill your users’ shoes and ask yourself, for example:
- What are the reasons why your users visit your site?
- What do they hope to find there? What problem does your website solve?
- How smoothly do your readers use the page?
Thanks to understanding your target group, you will be able to create a page that will meet your potential clients’ expectations. It will be also tailored to the way your users navigate the Internet, so comfortable for them.
3. Don’t make your users wait
If your page loads slowly, your users will have no mercy and will abandon it. So, make sure there is no surplus of the page’s code – if it is too expanded, it makes your website heavier. Do you have a page set up on WordPress? If so, you can install WP Super Cache plugin, which will take care of too heavy code.
To check if your page loads fast enough, do the UX audit using tools like, for example, PageSpeeds Insights, WebPageTest or Pingdom.
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