What is UX Design . . .
and how can it improve your website?
There are two main aspects of website design: UI and UX. UI stands for the user interface and refers to the screens, buttons, and toggles. Predominantly visual elements. Whereas UX stands for user experience, and refers to the interaction that visitors have with the website. UI has been the focus of many websites and apps for a long time. But in order to succeed, a website needs to have good UX and UI design. Here at POSH, we know how important user experience design is to websites, and we have a skilled team that works to help companies to perfect their website with excellent UX design.
What exactly is web UX design?
Web UX design considers every single element that will shape a visitor’s experience when visiting a website. It considers how each element will make the visitor feel. It aims to make the website easy to use, efficient, fast, relevant, and pleasant to use. The goal of a good UX designer is to ensure that each visitor leaves the webpage as satisfied as possible.
How does user experience design work?
Using product development, strategy, market research and design knowledge, user experience designers aim for an intelligent, seamless experience for the user. They allow businesses to better meet their online customers’ expectations and needs.
Generally speaking, web UX design is done in five stages. These stages include:
- Research and understanding
- Prototyping and wireframing
- Testing
- Launching
- Iterating
Research
In the first stage, UX designers will do user research, market research and historical analysis. This is done in order to understand the market and what your competitors are doing. The designers will map out the goals, as user personas, and explore previous iterations of the website. All of this research allows designers to set a clear path for the website’s design.
Prototype
The web UX design team will then create a prototype and wireframe. This outlines how the website will work. Much like a building blueprint. Usually, the prototype will be used to get feedback so that the team can hone the UX even further.
Testing
After that, testing can begin. A series of tests will be run to identify any existing or potential issues that may damage the user experience. The goal is for the web UX designers to spot anything that may be confusing, slow, or not worth further development.
Iteration
The new pages can then be launched, although often in stages. Any issues from testing can be fixed, and a soft launch or beta launch can be done for additional feedback if necessary. After the launch, the web UX design team will work on iteration, where they continue testing their work and researching ways to improve it. UX design is never just ‘done’ – it can always be improved!
Can UX design really improve your website?
It makes sense that UI can impact your website’s performance, but can UX really help to improve your website? Is it important?
The answer is yes. Web UX design is really important, and a great way to improve your website’s performance. The long-term effects of good UX are:
Improved reputation
Word-of-mouth marketing can be paramount in achieving more traffic when it comes to running a business. Whether you’re running a hotel website or an e-commerce site, the happier your visitors are when they use your webpage, the more likely they are to recommend it to their friends.
Someone who is kept waiting at loading pages. Or who stumbles across random, ill-thought-out pages when trying to navigate a web page is unlikely to praise the site to their colleagues or friends. When a page loads seamlessly, and navigation is easy and effortless, people are likely to be much happier!
A better reputation directly correlates to better traffic. Reputation is essentially free advertising, so it’s important to make the most of it!
Improved visitor loyalty
When visitors to your page know that they can trust your website to work time and time again, they are likely to return. By improving your web UX design, you can improve customer loyalty, and build a community of customers who visit your web page time and time again.
Obviously, customers prefer a website with good UX design. 66% of people are even willing to pay for a better experience. And 86% of customers would also say that the experience on a web page matters just as much as the services it hosts!
Improved conversions and ROI
Having improved reputation and loyalty, it makes sense that improved ROI conversions would follow. This is perhaps the most important effect of user experience design. So ensuring great UX design is a no-brainer.
In fact, studies have shown that good web UX design can increase conversion rates by as much as 200%. And can help a website to reach a conversion rate as high as 400%! A recent study has shown that every $1 invested into UX earns $100, a 9,900% ROI.
Where to start with UX design?
If this all sounds brilliant, but you don’t know where to begin with your website’s journey into the world of UX design, you’re in luck. At POSH, we have a wonderful team of UX designers who can help you to take your website to the next level. Give us a call to see what we can do for your site and user experience.
