Great website user interface (UI) design is the deciding factor in whether a client makes a purchase or requests your services when shopping online. It is important when creating your business’s website you take the correct steps in the design and development process. Here are 5 common mistakes that businesses make when creating their website:
1. Lack of Proper Research
It is important to understand the needs, experiences, and behavior of your target users. Not only is your product or service solving their problem, but your website is too. You need to know their likes, dislikes, bad experiences, good experiences, and more. Create user personas that embody your target audience. This will make it easier to focus on the most likely person to buy your product or services and not stray into accommodating people that don’t need what you are selling. Research successful competitors and create a swot analysis of the strengths and weakness you have compared to them.
2. Missing Key UI Fundamentals
Contrast, color, size, alignment, intuitive calls-to-action, typography, mobile responsiveness, and much more are some of the core fundamental principles of UI design. Missing any of these key elements can hurt client interaction with your website and in the extreme circumstances, make your business look like a scam and turn off the client completely. Take the time to at least learn about the basics, there are free YouTube videos or low-cost course online, but if your time is finite, go straight to hiring professionals. They have years of experience to where these fundamentals are already baked into their design plans and processes.
3. Prioritizing Trends Over Usability
Design trends can be fun, but if compromise the usability of your website ignore them. If you look at some of the most successful platforms and products on the market, you’ll notice that “trendy” designs are rarely used. That is because they fade and change quickly. Trends should be used more for social media marketing or to upgrade non-essential imagery. Trends are attention grabbers, but if you want a user to stay on your website longer, than you need to create design that can last. The previous point should help with that.
4. Forgetting Accessibility
Blind, color blind, and visually impaired individuals need to be able to use your website as well as individuals without these barriers. Start with designing in black and white, then pick a color pallet that has high contrast, then use this link to check to see if colorblind individuals can see your colors: https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis-color-blindness-simulator/ . Those hard on hearing also need to be considered. E-readers for computers scan alt tags and meta descriptions of images and read back what is going on. Label your photos with short and accurate descriptions. This will also help your website SEO, considering Google, Bing, and other search engines are prioritizing accessibility.
5. Not Seeking & Applying Feedback
Listen to professionals, co-workers, and most importantly your audience. If possible, have beta-testers check the design and functionality of your website to see if it accomplishes your goal. Listen to feedback and suggestions. You don’t have to adhere to all of them, but any of them that are useful to improve the quality of the client relationship, implement them. This might unfortunately come in the form of a complaint. Resist the urge to ignore or dismiss the negative commenter as a “hater”. Ask questions for details on why their experience is bad. If you can fix it, do so. If it something you think they are confusing you with, you may need to fix the marketing copywrite or design of your product, service, or website.
Let us help you with correcting these mistakes or avoiding them all together. Call 248.528.360