A Few Simple Steps to Boost User Experience

Today Search Engine Optimization is all about enhancing your user experience. The main focus is to reduce the bounce rates and make sure your visitors remain on your website for a longer period of time. One alternative is to look for a good web design or an SEO agency. You can easily find one in India by running a google search on “Web Design Company India” or “SEO agency India” if that’s where you live. However, you may even do it yourself if you know how to go about it.

So, what do you have to do in order to boost the user experience on your website?

Basically you need to think like an architect. You have to build a blue print, taking into account each and every detail of the features of your site and their functionality. However, all this may not happen at one go. There are a few steps you need to take in order to deliver an interactive and incredible experience for your users:

Make sure whatever you design is for your users

Gone are those days when users were willing to learn how to interact on the websites so as to complete their tasks. Today, they have so many options that it doesn’t take much time for them to get frustrated with a website, an application or a product that seems substandard to their tastes. Your own tastes and preferences are not the ones that matter when designing your website only because those of the users might be completely different. What you need to do is to find out the intention of a user when he visits your website and help him/her achieve his/her objective in the easiest and most convenient way.

Do your homework

It is very important to observe, listen and absorb as much as you can, in order to find out the user intentions. Conversations with clients may help you in a better way. It is important to understand the goals of your clients and then do extensive research on how you can contribute to help them achieve their goals. This will give you an accurate and complete picture of what you need to do next. One more thing that you just can’t ignore here are your competitors. Find out what steps they are taking to meet their user needs and enhance the user experiences on their websites. You can learn a lot from their mistakes too.

Strike a balance between your client’s objectives and the user’s needs

Web designers often make the mistake of considering users as their clients. Well, it is not so. The people or companies whose websites you are designing are definitely your clients and it is their objectives you need to achieve. However, it is also important for your clients to understand the needs of the users who visit their websites. It becomes your responsibility to determine the users’ needs and inform the same to your clients so that you can strike a balance between your client objectives and their user needs.

Think like users

The basic focus while boosting user experience should be on what your users are trying to accomplish. Prioritize your content and structure your site according to the goals of your users. The best way to do this is to group your users into various categories.

A few of these may be:

Browsing
Comparison Shopping
Killing Time
Looking for specific content

This will give you a clear idea about why your users visit your site or use your app. You will be able to recognize their behavior patterns and design your website or app accordingly.

Minimize the tasks that you want your users to complete

Hardly any user would spend his/her valuable time on filling up lengthy forms or completing lengthy tasks on your web or app. Therefore, it is important that you get rid of the extra clutter which might confuse your user or distract your user from achieving his/her main objective. Find out what your users want to do and guide them through the entire process so that things are simpler and faster for them. Try to give them an idea about what is coming up next. This will make them happy and worry-free.

Follow the Fisher Price example

Fisher Price is one company I can think of, that actually enhanced their user experiences. By creating toys that were bulky and oversized, they made them easier to use for children. Instead of checkboxes and radio buttons, use jumbo sliders, giant input fields and bigger buttons that make things more visible and simpler for your users. This will not only improve your user interaction, it will also reduce your bounce rates. While asking for information, make sure you make it simple and cheeky so that your users get interested to complete the task. This will boost up your signups, increase your web traffic, enhance your online sales and maximize your ROI.

Think tablets and smart phones

With time, people have started changing their devices from desktops to laptops and now to tablets and smart phones. If you want to enhance your user experiences find out if your design will work on tablets and smart phones.

Design your UX in the perfect way

There are many things you need to consider while designing your UX and these include:

The visual hierarchy
Grouping of content
Spacing
Size and positioning

Try determining all these before you handover the project to a designer. Make things simple and uniform.

Collaborate with all the departments

Your design is not the only thing that will provide all the answers to your users. It is important to work together with all the departments including your clients, the users and your internal team. This will help you create an amazing user experience, while achieving your business objectives.

Test your website thoroughly

It is very important to track the performance of your website and see where users are dropping off. However, make sure this is done by a third party to make sure your website is checked thoroughly and the outcome of such a test is nothing but the truth. These learning will thoroughly help you in your next iteration.

It is not about how well you design your website; it is about the experience that it provides to the user who visits your site. Whether you want to do it yourself or go with a Internet Marketing Company India or a Web Design Company India offers you, this should be your goal at all times.