Creating and growing a successful online business heavily relies on providing an engaging and unique online user experience. If it’s not functional, it won’t take your users long to decide if they want to engage your website/app or find an alternative that suits their needs better. Boosting your sales means creating unmatched user experience that won’t make your users bounce.
There are a lot of pitfalls, common mistakes and do’s and don’ts to cover, so let’s get started:
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1. Slow loading time
This is one goes as one of the most important rules of having a successful website – it has to load fast. Nowadays, the end users expect a fast website that will deliver rich, detailed media in 3 seconds. 79% of web shoppers who have trouble with website performance say they won’t return to the site to buy again and around 44% of them would tell a friend if they had a poor experience shopping online – we can’t stress enough how important load times are. Understanding your mobile web and its load times is key also, but we’ll get to that checkpoint later. e.
2. Your navigation is too confusing
Simple and slick navigation is always the way to go. Easy web and mobile app navigation is key for user friendly experience. If it’s too difficult to navigate through your page, your users won’t have a problem with alternatives. Utilizing a simple application layout design can take you a long way towards satisfied users.
3. You’re not engaging the user enough
It’s a simple concept – when users visit your website they should feel engaged by what they see. Otherwise, they’ll look somewhere else and your site gets bounced. Make your website more interactive; embed widgets, have infinite page loads, cross link content of other sources, use web forms to make your content more interactive, etc. Use the tools you’ve been given to make your page more interesting and engageable. Don’t skip this one if you’re into eCommerce.
4. You’re not looking at the data
Everything you put on your website has to be backed by data. Every decision you make should be formed around the data you’ve gathered, it’s basically what your users are telling you. Leveraging Big Data technology can improve efficiency by 60%. Are you using Google Analytics? Run the numbers and listen to your data.
5. Your Checkout is too complicated
Having a successful online business isn’t just about making the users fall in love with your product. It’s a step-by-step process that’s supposed to run as smooth as possible. Many online retailers make a mistake – complicate the final check-out phase, that makes users abandon their shopping carts. The last step should be as quick as possible, without any complications or setbacks. Make it simple and fast.
6. You’re forgetting about mobile
Mobile browsing has taken over the world of internet. Not having a great mobile website is the biggest mistake you can make, especially when trying to improve user experience. Google reports that 90% of all mobile users use multiple screens sequentially to accomplish a task over time. If you are not taking advantage of mobile commerce then you will be missing out on a great deal of potential customers. Optimize your mobile web to the fullest. Consider the fact that mobile users often have different needs and priorities than desktop users, like being able to quickly find a map or a phone number. Design for how users want to use your mobile site instead of just assuming you should include everything from your desktop site.
7. You’re being too informative
Posts, ads, icons, social media links, email lists, and pop-ups can seriously affect the experience of a new user on the site, not to mention it can easily make them turn away and just leave the site. Carefully organize your website’s content. It has to be fresh, interesting, up-to-date content, as contrary to old, stale content that’s slowly lingering over your website and haunting your visitors.
So let’s wrap things up;
Mobile media consumption is growing faster than TV, desktop web, radio or any other media you can think of. UX is fundamentally about creating experiences that are designed for people, not for technology or large organizations. Visual appeal and back-end performance obviously play a big role in website visitors’ experiences, but it’s not the same as UX: good UX is a good functional experience. It can make the biggest difference in your new product, and will help you truly connect with the users.
Humanize your web experience, don’t make it too hard for common people to understand. The key is to make it fun, engaging, and easy for the user to navigate.
