You may have heard of the terms UI and UX – User Interface and User Experience. These are essential factors in establishing the effectiveness of your website design. If users can easily access the information they are seeking (UI) and are successfully prompted to take action (UX), then your website can be considered “intuitive.”
In the world of digital marketing, analyzing and designing a website to meet the needs and behaviors of targeted audiences is a dynamic and growing profession. However, if hiring a UI/UX expert is not in your budget, don’t worry. You and your team can employ a few proven design elements to create and maintain an intuitive website.
Engagement is Step 1
Focus on creating an attractive and user-friendly homepage that encourages visitors to stick around for more than 10 seconds. Intuitive design must be “invisible” effectively and passively providing engagement, flow, familiarity, and function.
Carefully select the key visual elements – images, headings, call-outs, colors, fonts, header, and footer that will entice a visitor to Stop, Scan, and Stay. A clean, simple look with compelling headings and subheadings makes scanning and comprehending quick and definitive. Too many images, colors, choices, and blocks of copy drives visitors away.
Immediately communicate your brand identity and character of the business. Potential customers are in the process of purposefully searching the internet and won’t waste their time on a site that does not immediately answer their driving questions.
Put Yourself in Their Shoes
Your website’s primary purpose is to clearly promote a product or service’s benefits by engaging your audience and compelling them to take action. Therefore, the content must speak directly to their needs and wants.
Put aside your “ego” and distance yourself from your personal relationship to the business or organization. What you might want to feature is often different from what your audience is seeking. Specific details and origin stories might be important to you, but not to the impatient consumer.
Instead, ask yourself these two critical questions and take note:
Who is my audience?
- Identify the characteristics of your specific demographic.
- Use language, tone, and vocabulary that is targeted and trending.
What are they searching for?
- Succinctly provide the ideal answer, service, or product.
- Highlight the benefits using strong and accurate adjectives.
Research Pays
It is imperative that you are aware of the look and feel of the websites of your closest competitors. Visit and navigate their sites. Identify what appeals to you as a user and what does not work. Incorporate this research into your design.
When you have a draft version, conduct test marketing. Ask individuals who might fit your potential consumer profile to visit the homepage and navigate the site. Use the feedback to go back to the drawing board until you are convinced that usability and navigation are simple and consistent, allowing them to move through the site without interruption or hesitation.
Functionality is Key
On the homepage, in plain sight, provide the functionality to respond to your users critical questions – quickly and efficiently.
76% of consumers say that the most important factor in a website’s design is that “the website makes it easy for me to find what I want.”
And yet, 50% of all users don’t buy because they can’t find what they’re looking for.
A few standard features to consider:
- Clicking on the logo should always bring users back to the homepage.
- The design of the home page should feature a navigation menu that is straightforward and familiar. It is highly recommended that the last link in the menu is
- Include graphic images such as bold CTAs and links that are visually distinguishable from regular text.
- Include Contact Information in the footer.
- The navigation menu, header, and footer’s color, location and size should be consistent on every page.
Breaking with the tried and true is tempting when you want to stand out from the crowd. However, if you don’t want to be left out, and left behind, it is vital to integrate familiarity and proven functionality into your website design. Combined with targeted content and creative and attractive graphic design, your website will be intuitive and effective, successfully converting visitors to customers.
At IMC, Interactive Media Consulting LLC, we will work with you to design a beautiful and intuitive website. Contact us today: www.imediaconsult.com
https://cxl.com/blog/intuitive-web-design-how-to-make-your-website-intuitive-to-use/