UX Design: What Is It & How To Implement It For Business Websites?
Last update: 29 August 2023 at 01:40 pm
5.00/5The services and sales industry is shifting greatly to the digital environment. Companies are working hard to create a beautiful yet informative websites for their target clients. But does their website have both appeal and UX design for their clientele?
Are they able to meet the needs and expectations of their clients, or are they losing clients to competitors because of their website design? The role of the website is crucial to the success of the company.
The design, as well as its user-friendly capabilities, is what will bridge the gap between the company and its target clients. How can the company make a website that will make it easy for their clients to use?
This is where UX Design technology comes in very handy.
What is UX Design?
User Experience Design (UX Design) is a modern way of designing websites. In the past, companies focused on the technical aspects of their website.
They look closely at the site’s design and overall appearance and how it reflects the image the company wants to create for itself.
However, UX Design introduces a great shift in website design. It forces companies to focus on the user-friendliness of their website with their target end-user in mind.
While design and aesthetics remain essential in creating a website, companies are now working on making the website experience more friendly to their clientele.
Looking into how to learn UX designrests on the fact that the consumers’ preference is at the center of every decision made for website design. The people behind the creation of the website always consider what the clients want to see.
Yet, more importantly, they consider how fast the clients can access the information they want from the website. Their convenience and utmost pleasure are the focus of every UX website design.
The idea of the UX design can be likened to the design process of a ketchup bottle. While companies can go for a nice-looking bottle to package their product in, they could also opt for something aesthetically appealing but with more functionality.
Putting The User In Every Design
What does UX design mean? Those learning UX design would ask about the user’s role in creating a beautiful website design. The key principle in designing a UX is your knowledge of the end-user.
Ultimately, the website or app design you create is not something you do for yourself. You are doing it with a specific audience in mind. It is what UX design emphasizes.
As a website developer and business owner, you must recognize the significant role that your target clients play in the decisions that you make for the site.
Whether designing a website from scratch or improving an existing company website, you must always have your target user in mind.
To be able to do this, you must collect as much information as you can about your target clients. Make sure that the data is validated. There are various ways in which this can be done. For one, you can try conducting a usability test.
Source: Lizard Global
How is this done? Ask at least five users to do an important task using your website. The goal is for you to see if they could do the tasks on the site without asking for any help. When they come up with usability problems, then that’s when you’ll know what could go wrong.
This is where your website improvement project comes in. Knowing what could cause your end-user problems will fuel your website design.
Ultimately, you just want your users to find what they need on your site independently, without asking for outside help and without delay.
Why Is It Important To Consider The UX Design
You must have heard of UX design, and it makes you think, why is UX design important? Many who have heard about the UX design definition for the first time wondered what makes it different from what people have been used to.
Source: Canva
The company website is your online portfolio. It tells a lot about the company and what services or products you can provide. A fully functional website can greatly dent the company’s sales.
Every client who goes to your website and gets what they want with a few simple clicks are sure to come back. Studies show that more than 85% of customers return to websites with which they had a bad experience.
The interruption in their browsing experience makes them think negatively about the brand. After all, nothing is more frustrating than going on a website and not getting what you want out of it.
Did you know that further studies included that every online user only takes five seconds or less to decide whether to read on and search your website? It means that the design of your website must immediately give them an idea of who you are and what you can provide them with.
It is not just about the products or services that you can offer. More importantly, website visitors want to know the company’s values and issues they stand for.
Why Do Users Leave The Website?
What is the UX design process? The process itself examines the facts about the website and its users. Creating a website is one thing, but targeting the right group of clients is a whole different story. These two must create a union to put the website on the front.
Source: Digital Silk
And yet, no matter how aesthetically pleasing a website is, consumers will still leave it to check on another site for various reasons. Here are some of the reasons why online users just leave:
- For example, you have set up a website that works as an extension of your physical store. When customers visit your site, they use the search button to look for the item they want to buy.
When that button does not work on their first try, you can’t expect them to keep on looking. Instantly, they will leave the site and search for a competitor site for the same item. The user left without making a purchase.
At this point, your website did not only lose a possible sale, but you also lost a client. Sadly, most clients with a bad website experience do not return to try again. They simply look for another one that works when they use it.
- For example, a customer goes to your website to book an appointment. But then, they filled out forms with too many mandatory fields. Some people just don’t have the time or the patience to deal with such, so they decide to leave. Again, the company lost a potential client, and many others share their experience too.
Every website user is looking for a smooth and fast transaction through your website. When they don’t get it, for whatever reason, there may be, they simply leave and never come back. It could be bad for the business altogether.
Improving Your Usability
Improving the usability of your website comes with many advantages. One of the most evident is the increase in company sales. For the user, all they want is for you to work on improving the experience of your product, service, or brand in general.
Source: Chungi folio | Awwwards
On its own, the website will be able to generate sales for the company. With the UX design process, you can accelerate your company website’s improvement and overall development.
What does it mean for the company to invest in user-friendly website design? The cost of fixing a website problem differs at each level. For example, the repair cost for a simple glitch during the design process could be minimal to almost nothing.
However, it will cost you a bit more when you run into a problem while developing the website. But then, when you encounter the same issues when the website has already been launched and is supposed to be up and running, the cost of its repair would be a thousand times more than when it needed to be repaired during the design stage.
Now that the importance of creating a UX design has been emphasized, you must consider looking into this matter.
Tips On How To Incorporate UX Design Into Your Website
Some methods and techniques can be used individually or together within the UX design process. It all begins in the process of investigation. This is when website designers collect feedback on how a website is performing.
Source: Koox Coffee | Awwwards
The website is tested with the participation of real users to quickly get feedback and work on improving what needs to be done. The UX design process itself is made up of four different phases, each one highlighting a particular need of the consumer.
Stage 1: Discovery Phase
Source: Beagle | Awwwards
What does the user want? What is the user looking for? The end-users needs and wants are considered during this stage. The team will put effort into collecting an in-depth insight into what users are doing and why they are doing it.
Stage 2: Define Phase
This is when they synthesize the findings from what they collected in the discovery phase. This is when the designers will plot the journey of the customer and try to find solutions to pain points that have been identified. These only assume what the customers would experience as they check the website.
Stage 3: Design and Test Phase
This is when ideas are turned into something tangible with several prototypes. The ideas are quickly validated through end-user participation. Usability tests are conducted to help designers further push the boundaries of their design.
Stage 4: Care Phase
This is the stage when the actual website becomes live. At this point, testing and improving the website continues. The experience of the user has only got better and better.
What Does It Mean To Utilize UX Design?
Every stage in the design process demands a particular eye for detail. It has to consider user experience and their accessibility and comfort as they browse through the site.
What are some of the biggest trends in the UX design industry right now? It changes from time to time, depending on the needs and demands of the target clients. When you think about it, the best UX design portfolios provide comfort and ease to their clients.
