How to make the best user experience (websites UX)?
Anna Gruszczynska-Radecka
Mon Sep 09 2024
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BOOK A CALLHow can you improve your website UX? If you are wondering just answer yourself few questions:
- What is the purpose of the site?
- Why people should visit your site?
- What makes you special?
- Why the user should buy your products?
- What is the first thing a user should do on your site and what he or she has to do before leaving it?
- What should he or she pay attention to?
Got that, ok so let’s improve your user experience and check if your site does what it should to fulfill its purpose.
What is usability and how it influences the UX (User Experience)?
What is usability? In a simple word, it is an ease in use of the website and its efficiency. It contains many factors such as fast page loading. According to the research, 2s is enough loading time to satisfy an average useer.
Comprehensive information and products' presentation in appropriate places. To be in the right place at a right time you should consider getting your content adjusted to various browsers and devices (like smartphones or tablets) and finally, in the end, the site should satisfy a user with its functionality.
The website utility influences users experience. UX decides about:
- conversion - number of purchases,
- customers' contentment,
- loyalty counted in clients returns to the website.
User experience is a sum of individual clients behaviours, attitudes and emotions which refer to a particular service, product or in this case website.
Get the information in 3 steps
User experience is an important part of any application. Clearly, the best way to get people to interact with your website is by having a simple design. The investigations in user experience show that it should take maximally three steps to complete any task. It's best to use the fewest number of transitions necessary to reach your goal, but not more than three.
How does it look like on your website? Have you ever checked if your users can find what they're looking for? It's important to make sure the design is easy to navigate.
User experience in content consumption. Eye Tracking (F-pattern) and hot spots recognition.
Have you ever analyzed your site this way? You don’t really necessarily have to use expensive tools and equipment, for basic needs you can check how your eyes track your website on the printed version of it you can draw your eye track with the pencil. By checking it also with F-pattern you can point out the hottest places of your site, in these places your user attention is at its peak.
F-pattern content consumption
Eye track studies show website heat maps in F-pattern shape. It means that during reading the site users concentrate on the horizontal reading, starting from the upper left corner. Horizontal movements move down the page but the second line covers a shorter area than the first.
Generally, heat maps are showing that users go forward to vertical movements and scan the left side of the website. How fast users do vertical movement depends on the site content.
Among tools for making heat maps of your site, there is HotJar.
The rule of 3 clicks in user experience design
If we know that 'time is money we should easily know that customers want to get fast the information they need. How to achieve it? If you have answered the questions from the beginning of this article you should already know which information the users should find in 3 steps.
This process should be as smooth as it is possible. If 3 clicks are enough to find information for example about shipping, contact data or product features you're on a good way to success. To make it easy for your clients you can also implement a live chat or frequently asked questions (FAQ) area to answer every single question.
Good navigation is a goal of UX
Clients sometimes are looking for a particular product. Did you customize your service to help a user find what he or she needs? The main question is: how to do it?
First of all, you need customized layered navigation. This tool makes it easier to find not only a product he or she is interested in but also what colour, size will fit best. This utility will lead your client to the product, which he or she is exactly looking for. The customization of this tool includes not only using text but also pictures showing the colour, material, and brand.
Moreover, most sites have a search engine at the top of the site and many stores use a search by the tool on the product category pages. This tool should also be equipped with drop-down suggestions to help with the prices of searching for the right product or service.
It provides the accuracy of searching and let your user easily see what product, service is now available. Also with these suggestions, you can use the image to show a product and additionally encourage to purchase.
Product presentation for better user experience
You should be able to convince your clients that the product will solve their problems and give them a solution. You can do this by showcasing its best qualities in an engaging way, keeping it professional yet friendly at the same time so they become interested in purchasing from you instead of going somewhere else!
A product presentation is the most important part of a successful online business.
The tone in which you promote your products can make all of the difference between attracting new customers and keeping old ones around!
Think about how many times we click on an item for sale only to open it up, read some specifications from back when our screens were much smaller than they are now, then put everything down again without buying anything at all because really there wasn't enough time left after reading through text blocks three paragraphs long with no images whatsoever.
Remember that clients can't touch fabric and see every detail. To improve the user experience when choosing a product have a look at the good practices list below:
- put multiple photos of a product to show various sides,
- use 360-degree spin images on your site and in this way show every angle of your product,
- put simple video presentation,
- take advantage of the etiquettes with the content description,
- add detailed view will help when fabrics or details are important to make a purchase decision
Research shows that user prefers to purchase products with detailed information, so they surely will appreciate your effort.
If you sell electronics or technology you can also consider using compare products or your own utility test, so they know the products works.
Additionally, products often are presented in use. It can explain how to employ the product or in what kind of a life situation they take advantage of this particular product.
For instance, if I can see this summer dress on a model shotted on the beach, I can more easily imagine myself in that dress and that is how product presentation can affect positively user experience and increase conversion at the same time.
Easy checkout is a must when designing the user experience
The part of checkout is supposed to be just a formality. For many people, the most difficult is to make a decision. But when the decision is done and the customer is ready to spend the money, we should take care of the final step good experience and make it easier to finish the purchase and let the client know your checkout is secure.
First, of all, you can use the solution where your client adds a product to the carts and stays on the product page instead of going directly to the checkout, but also leave the checkout easily to be seen if he or she would like to go there.
This function encourages the customer to continue the purchase. Wrongly created shopping cart is often a cause of abandoned shopping lists.
The sites' owners like to complicate the process cause they do not use the guest account and many users feel persuaded to log which leaves a very bad user experience.
To sum up, a three or five-step check out is a nightmare for a customer. Nothing is clear and a client needs to click back if the data is incorrect. Easier is better, so we suggest the one-step checkout. It is easy to fill all data in one place and quickly accomplish a great deal. Also, the user sees all information needed to finish the purchase on one page.
From customer service to customer experience - how do you treat the customer?
Sometimes a customer needs help. On the Internet, clients cannot ask a shop assistant about the thing which preoccupies them, but also in a real store if there is nobody competent that we can turn to with a question we leave.
That is why the crucial thing is to leave contact details in a place easy to find. Clients often are looking for contact data, and they should find them in less than one minute. The great idea is to create a live chat to answer any question in a few minutes.
This way you can perfectly find out how to help your client at the time he or she is making the decision to buy or not to buy. To provide more information about the products, many online stores run blogs. It is a good place for customers who are looking for a push or more information.
Also, you can take advantage of the most frequently asked questions, that you have met over the years with client experience and put them into the FAQ section.
Building relations and loyalty - how to make a client a multi-buyer?
Newsletters are a great way of staying in touch with your clients and providing them with the latest information on their favourite topics. The clue is a personalization here. You need to recognise the individual needs of the client and provide him or her with the relevant information.
You can use pop-up windows, which appear after entering our website, or create more exclusive ones like those seen on Instagram for example! The newsletter allows you to give personalized updates about what's going at any given time; it might be something as small as sending out an email reminder every week that features only one client but also could be focused on an identified segment of clients.
This way you will build your clients database which is the most valuable way of building relations and gathering information about the individual needs of customers. Especially in the coming time without third party cookies allowing to follow the users with remarketing campaigns.
Improve shipping process and satisfy the clients
Many users are nervous about the shipping process, at a real store they buy and take what they paid for right away, it is impossible with the e-commerce based business. What is worst, sometimes the process of preparation of the product with some individual approach takes long. We can recommend a tool to calm your user down while they are waiting for their order.
"The solution is to add a form or application where your user can check their orders statuses easily and get to know about the process automatically right away. No more angry phone calls and e-mail with the question “When will I get my order”
The user is the key to your success, try to use this information you have read to make your site more user friendly, make your approach the user approach. Just ask yourself, what will fulfil my user need? What is the next step? Do it.
Panda Group as an expert in this field offers you a simple check-out of what you could improve on your site to make it more efficient and user friendly. In a simple check we will test two things:
- Are your clients finding all they should at your store?
- Is your product presentation attuned to your client's needs?
As a result of the User Experience audit, you will get a Recommendations Report with a list of changes to implement prioritized from critical issues through serious ones to least important.
The right time for user experience audit is:
- designing new e-commerce,
- redesigning an existing store,
- the necessity to improve conversion.
If you are interested just contact us and ask the Expert for a User Experience check-out. As with the mind goes the muscles, we could also provide our experienced developers to make the changes on your site right away. Check this in our Services section.