5 Key Factors that Affect your Website User Experience
The user experience of your website is impacted by 5 key factors. These are
- content,
- layout,
- usability,
- branding and
- the overall design.
If you want to make sure that your site’s UX is top-notch, you should take a look at these factors before releasing it to the public.
What is website user experience?
User experience is all about how people feel when they use your website — what emotions do you want to evoke?
Let’s look at an example.
You are looking to buy travel insurance. You are unsure where to go so you Google “travel insurance”
The search results lead you to an ecommerce site that has a banner ad with fake quotes from customers, who claim how great the company is. The company says it takes care of everything and even offers 24/7 customer support. Everything sounds wonderful — but no customer testimonials.
Why not? This is because the company pays affiliate bloggers to post fake reviews on its behalf, which it figures will increase business.
The user experience is negative in this case — you are worried that the site’s content is inaccurate and that everything it claims is a lie. You leave without making a purchase.
This site had a poor user experience because it fooled the customer into believing that its content was accurate.
Website user experience is about how your site makes people feel — good or bad. The better the UX, the more likely they will return.
What are the five factors of UX?
To put it simply — they are the content, layout, usability, branding and design of your site.
In short, these factors are what create a delightful user experience — something that will make people want to come back time after time. Let’s take a look at each one in more detail:
Content — The term “content” refers to written text (blog posts, articles), photos, graphics and videos. If your content is written well, it will increase the likelihood of people returning to read more.
Layout — Layout refers to a site’s navigation structure and how the information on a page is arranged. It affects how easy or difficult it is for visitors to find what they are looking for easily. The layout should be simple and intuitive — you don’t want people to have to guess where a link might take them.
Usability — Usability is all about the ease of use of your site. How quickly can someone find what they are looking for? How easy is it for someone to perform a task from beginning to end, without any problems? Can they use the site on their desktop, tablet or mobile device?
Usability is basically how intuitive your website is. If it takes a long time for people to find what they need, they will leave and move on. Usability affects everything from bounce rates to search engine rankings.
Branding — This refers to the emotions your site evokes. For example, does it give off a certain feeling? Is it friendly and welcoming? Or is it cold, industrial and uninviting?
People are more likely to become returning visitors if they feel connected with your brand. The branding should match the tone of your business, which in turn will affect all other factors of UX.
Design — Website design is the look and feel of your site. Is it attractive? Is it easy to read? Does it make sense?
The design of a website has more to do with how aesthetically pleasing the site is, although even this will affect usability too.
How can I improve my site’s UX?
Now that you understand the basic principles of UX, here are five important ways to use it to improve your site’s user experience.
1) Make Content Easy To Read. People will leave a site quickly if they can’t read or understand what is written there. This includes using simple language and short sentences, avoiding jargon words and keeping paragraphs short.
2) Use a Strong Call To Action. A call to action is simply an instruction to the reader, telling them what you want them to do next. For example, “click here” or “sign up today.” You should include a CTA in every blog post and article on your site, so people know exactly where to go if they want to find out more.
3) Keep Navigation Intuitive And Simple. You don’t want people to have to guess where a link might take them. This means that the design of your navigation structure should be simple and straightforward, with plenty of options for how visitors can access information on your site. A web design agency can help you with this.
4) Keep Your Site Prepared For Mobile Devices. If your site isn’t responsive, people will simply leave and go to a competitor’s site instead. You should test your site on mobile devices so that visitors can access it easily wherever they are. This factor alone will significantly improve user experience by keeping customers coming back to your site.
5) Address Popular Problems With Your Site Head On. If you know that people on a specific page on your site are having problems, don’t ignore them! Add helpful pop-ups or banners to alert people and direct them toward the solution on the page, so they can find what they need quickly and easily.
If you follow these steps, you will have a much better chance of improving other factors in user experience, such as usability and design. If you decide to work with a web design agency, they can help you to implement these changes and improve your site immediately.