The user experience (UX) of your website isn’t just important; it’s central to how prospective customers interact with your business. If you’ve ever tried to navigate around a hopelessly clunky website and eventually gave up in frustration, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about.
Websites designed with user experience best practices in mind deliver intuitive, seamless interfaces that make it easy for visitors to find the information they need. They’re an accelerator for your brand, multiplying the effectiveness of your marketing and sales efforts by dramatically improving conversion rates.
There’s no shortage of evidence to back this up. Eighty-eight percent of people report they’d be less likely to return to a website after experiencing a bad user experience, and 48% say that a website’s design is the single most important factor in determining a brand’s credibility. Some studies even show that every dollar spent on website UX delivers an ROI of up to $100.
Mastering your website’s UX is undeniably important. That’s why we’ve compiled five of the most important UX design best practices, plus real-world examples of each that illustrate how top brands are harnessing these UX design principles to unlock improved performance.
5 UX Best Practices (+Real-World Examples)
Some UX design best practices are well-established rules of web design, whereas others emerge and fade as trends change. Keeping an up-to-date understanding of the latest UX design principles ensures you can make design choices that continually improve the performance of your website.
In 2024, adopting the UX best practices outlined below will ensure your website delivers a seamless, intuitive user experience that leaves prospective customers with an extremely positive impression of your business.
1. Design For Your Target Audience
One of the key principles to bear in mind when designing a website is that you’re not designing the website for yourself, or even for your business; you’re designing it for your target audience.
Determining the right target audience and inferring their needs, wants, and preferences is key to creating an intuitive user experience that’s highly relevant to your target buyers. Creating brand personas is a helpful exercise to bring your target audience to life.
Let’s take a look at how the first of our UX design examples, Klaviyo, a marketing automation tool primarily used by eCommerce brands for email and SMS marketing, tailors the UX of their site to their target audience.
Klaviyo’s target customers are digitally savvy marketers, executives, and founders looking for a sophisticated digital marketing tool. The website’s sleek, minimalistic design is a good fit for these busy, goal-oriented professionals, directly communicating the platform’s key features, sharing screenshots, and explaining the value proposition Klaviyo offers.
(Image: Klaviyo.com)
2. Avoid Overcomplicating Your Website
When it comes to UX design principles, less is often more. Minimalist, simple designs ensure your website doesn’t overwhelm users. It’s a rule that holds true for all kinds of users. Studies have found that 75% of Baby Boomers and 78% of Millennials favor minimalist UX designs.
So, what does this streamlined design look like in practice? Keep your site free of visual clutter, and include ample spacing between different design elements of your page. Focus on creating clearly defined experiences that make it easy for users to find the information they need.
Uber’s website is a great example of this. Today, Uber offers all kinds of services: food delivery, rental cars, courier services for packages, and more. Despite all that, the company knows that what most people want is a way of getting from A to B, and that’s exactly what’s displayed on the home page website.
(Image: Uber.com)
3. Make It Easy for Users to Navigate Your Site
If your business sells a range of different products and services, making it easy for consumers to navigate to the pages that contain the information they’re looking for is crucial. You can bet that if customers can’t find what they’re looking for on your website, they’ll go looking for it on your competitor’s website instead.
To avoid this happening, adopt these UX best practices to improve the navigability of your website:
- Create a simple, uncluttered menu bar with a limited number of options
- Incorporate summaries of important features on your homepage and provide options for users to click through to learn more
- Ensure all products are categorized into easily navigable categories
- Organize resources such as blog posts under clearly defined topics
- Include a search bar
One website that embodies all of these qualities is HubSpot. HubSpot is an extremely complex product, but you wouldn’t know that from the simplicity of their website’s menu bar and homepage. Instead of just labeling the key products that make up the HubSpot Customer Platform, the navigation bar also includes a brief explanation of each feature, making it easier for users to find the right product for their needs.
(Image: HubSpot.com)
4. Streamline Conversion Processes
One of the keys to success in website design is making user experiences as seamless as possible. Adding friction to user experiences has a significant negative impact on conversion rates, harming your business’s ability to generate leads and generate online sales.
Exactly what a streamlined conversion process looks like depends on the nature of your business. If you run an eCommerce website, your checkout process should be as quick and easy as possible. If you’re a B2B service business, your contact forms should be short and to the point, only asking users for necessary information.
One platform that uses technology to significantly streamline conversion processes is Shopify. Whenever a user checks out on one of Shopify’s millions of stores, if the system recognizes their email address, it auto-populates all of their details: their name, shipping address, payment information, and more. This system, known as Shop Pay, saves users significant time and boosts conversions by as much as 50% compared to traditional guest checkout workflows.
(Image: Shopify.com)
5. Embrace Self-Selection Tools
In recent years, self-selection tools have emerged as a popular trend in UX design. These tools, often displayed prominently on a website’s homepage, encourage visitors to describe themselves and what they’re looking for. From there, the user is routed to a directed user experience that presents content that speaks directly to their needs.
Consider the example of Monday.com: a popular project management tool. On landing on the site, users are asked what they’d like to use Monday.com for: work management, a sales CRM, or a dev management tool. Users can also select the types of tasks they would like to use the product for, and then are immediately routed into a user experience that’s tailored to the preferences they just expressed.
Self-selection tools give users access to the information they’re looking for, fast, while also offering increased personalization that results in improved conversion rates. Keep the principles we discussed previously in mind: don’t overwhelm users with questions – just ask them to make a few simple choices to unlock a better user experience.
(Image: Monday.com)
Looking for more user experience best practices and inspiration? Check out the best places to find UX design inspiration.
UX Design Best Practices: Key Takeaways
Great UX design is central to the success of your business’s online channels. It’s often the difference between a prospect becoming a qualified lead or leaving your site for a competitor, and plays a vital role in helping users find the information they need.
Begin with your target audience front of mind and focus on creating elegant UX solutions that help them quickly find solutions to their problems. Improving your UX design is a long-term process: there’s plenty of scope for experimentation and iteration to help you find the best solution for your business.
If you need guidance redesigning your website, get in touch with the web design professionals at GoDelta. With experience spanning development, design, and creative services, our expert professionals will work closely with you to create a captivating website UX that moves your business forward.
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