Today’s users are more aware of every aspect of your product or website than ever before. Once upon a time, companies could get by with even a poorly designed website or app because there weren’t many options.
Due to the lack of alternatives, users showed patience and understanding. Today, when the site takes a long time to load or looks crooked, the user goes to competitors. He is not ready to endure it, and believes that he deserves better. Any dissatisfaction with your product can have undesirable consequences. Visitors know there are many other options and feel free to look for them, so a bad experience with your app or website could mean the end of a relationship.
What is User Experience Optimization
User experience optimization is the process of improving user satisfaction on websites and applications. To do this, improve usability, increase the availability and effectiveness of user interactions with a site or application. The task of optimization is to make a site or application convenient and useful and not confuse users. User experience development focuses on how customers use a product.
Product in this context does not refer solely to what you sell; rather it encompasses any content provided for customers as part of an overall experience that builds relationships before customers even touch your products. When designing for user experience on websites or physical products, their aim should be to introduce visitors to them while showing what’s essential about each. Depending on user needs changing over time, physical products can offer innovative solutions which might benefit more.
How to improve the user experience on the site
Research first. Some people start development by asking, “How exactly does the product function?” But in the context of user experience, the most important question is: “Who is this product for?” This is where development starts. You need to determine who will be using your site or app (and who else is in your audience) first.
To do this, you will need a research plan that will guide you through the entire project and help you better understand the key questions:
- What will users like
- Are their needs met
- Can a website or mobile app give them something they don’t get anywhere else
- What do you do better than your competitors
Before providing the ultimate user experience, do your research on your audience. No need for thousands of dollars spent on market research here: simply identify who your target market is by surveying existing customers or conducting customer interviews if applicable (ie, opening a store). If possible, focus your research efforts specifically on mobile experiences designed to complement an existing experience (web app development or physical store opening for example) since that will make designing it simpler as existing customers will already know each other; interview them as needed as well.
Give answers to common questions
One of the major obstacles site visitors face when trying to access information is finding answers about products, shipping, support or brands they need – without going back through multiple pages for answers they might prefer to move onto another website that provides better access.
To avoid such scenarios, it’s a good idea to collect all the questions your listeners frequently pose and organize them on one page using FAQ authoring tools. With an FAQ portal you can address many common problems your target audience faces as well as provide helpful resources, guides and links – which will speed up sales processes significantly while simultaneously cutting support tickets down drastically.
As an added perk, your support page can serve as an essential SEO booster, helping increase SERP rankings and draw in new visitors to your site.
Make sure your site is fast
No matter how attractive or helpful your website might be, its visitors will quickly leave due to slow loading speeds. Most people won’t even wait more than a couple seconds for a site or element of it to load properly; should that take too long on yours then users are likely to go elsewhere and never come back!
To avoid this, there are a few effective steps you can take to make your site load faster and more stable.
The best place to start is with your VPS hosting as it will have a decisive impact on how fast your site can end up being. If you’re trying to save a few bucks with cheap hosting, there’s not much you can do to get your speed above a certain threshold. Instead, look for reputable service providers that guarantee a certain level of performance and give you the flexibility to scale your hosting needs as you grow.
Another simple solution to improve website speed is to optimize larger website elements for fast loading. Compress and optimize images and other visual design elements so they require as little data to load as possible, keeping in mind your visitor’s internet connection when doing this. In general, try your best to ensure your site loads with as few bytes as possible for best performance.
Readability Priority
Your content on website pages needs to communicate information in an understandable and compelling fashion for visitors to your website, without becoming tediously long and wordy. In order to do this, it must be easy for people to browse so even complex issues can be broken down into simple ideas people can quickly comprehend. In addition to the various design elements you use on pages, consider ways you can break up text so visitors don’t have to read endless walls of words!
One effective strategy to do so is by altering sentence and paragraph lengths. Instead of producing one-sentence paragraphs that appear at random throughout your text, alternate between longer and shorter one-sentence sections instead. Bullet points or subheadings can also help highlight important details on a page.
Use multiple images and visual elements on your pages, providing more context to what you are sharing while making it easier for viewers to recall information even if they don’t read every line on each page.
Have an intuitive website structure
As the owner of a website, you must make sure that visitors to your site can quickly locate what they’re searching for – which means using FAQ pages as necessary, but also making it possible for readers to locate specific pages wherever they may end up browsing your pages.
E-commerce stores should create clear product categories so people can navigate easily between them, while product-focused pages might use hierarchical navigation structures that explore product features, use cases and pricing plans in detail.
Finally, when revamping your website structure, think carefully about your goals and where you would like your visitor to end up. Whether they want to buy products or subscribe to your list, direct them towards a page which encourages this action when appropriate.
Conclusion
Enhancing the user experience on your website is one of the best ways to gain an edge against competition. By employing these strategies, you can ensure visitors find what they’re searching for easily while making it simpler for them to understand what message(s) you intend them to act upon and taking any required actions.
