One of the most overlooked yet important aspects of a website is user experience. There are many elements of websites and they all receive varying levels of attention in the creative and technical stages of development. Unfortunately the user experience usually gets insufficient or no consideration.
So, what is user experience? Let’s not get too technical about it. In short, user experience is a combination of visual interface design, content delivery, and interactivity. Pretty simple isn’t it? Not really, and I’ll explain why.
People are on the internet for a plethora of reasons. To buy things, research, be entertained, learn, waste time…you get the idea. The one thing that they ALL have in common is they want to do stuff. They are looking for ways to do what they want to do. The internet is a tool. We have to make sure our websites flow and guide the user easily to their end goal. A fantastic visual design isn’t worth much if the user can’t find what they are looking for, do what they want to do, go where they want to go. Really cool features like animations and crazy javascript are worthless if they don’t supplement the design in a way that allows the user to achieve a goal.
What can we do to make sure we are helping the visitors of the website?
First, identify the target audience. This is crucial. In fact I’ll repeat it again. Identify the target audience! Think of all the things you can learn from this. Imagine you are designing a website for a health clinic. Splitting the user experience into the main elements, here’s a couple thing to consider: In terms of visual interface design, it would be a good idea to use a decent size font and good contrast throughout the site. For content delivery and interactivity, you could make easy to find links about the most common actions, and an FAQ. Lots of small features and flash objects would make the patient’s head hurt more than it already does.
Second, identify what the target audience wants to do. What actions can you help them with? For the health clinic example, some actions the website user might want to do would be to refill prescriptions or make an appointment. In this example, you might consider making the links or information about those actions larger than the other global links, and maybe even in a different font or accompanied by icons or relevant images. You can’t predict what every site visitor wants to do, but in this case you can assume that many of them care more about their prescriptions and appointments than learning when the clinic was founded.
A Third thing you can do is learn to think like the user. Consider what websites you like (or don’t like) and why, and identify specific actions that you perform and what kind of things you appreciate that help you accomplish those goals. As you design and develop, constantly ask yourself questions like: Is this going to complicate things for the user? Is it going to guide them? Does this feature mesh well with the target audience’s goals? What can I add or take away from the design to streamline the flow? And, of course, if I was the the target audience, what features would I like and dislike?
Remember, people go to websites to perform actions. Help them accomplish these goals. Also, don’t think that your designs must be limited or less attractive- they can still look great, but should flow and aid the user in their experience.
