Why is website user experience important?

From ordering takeaways and personalised gifts to fitness, learning and bike rentals, there’s a website or app for everything these days. As these digital interactions have grown, we’ve become more and more accustomed to seamless user experiences, which means the need for you to offer an intuitive, engaging, and user-centred interface has soared.

This is where UX design comes into play. But what is UX design and how does it help your business? Read on to learn more about what UX design is, why it’s important for your website, and what our UX designers do.

What does UX stand for and what is UX design?

UX stands for ‘user experience,’ which means that UX design is all about shaping the overall experience of your website. It’s the process designers go through to create a solid blueprint for a site that’s usable, makes sense, functions as expected and is user friendly in every sense. It’s all about asking whether your visitors can accomplish what they came to do, and was it easy?

As for what’s involved, UX focuses on the interplay of all the elements that make up your website. This means your UX designer needs to consider everything from accessibility and information architecture to navigation, usability and the overall user flow. Since it’s all about shaping a positive experience, it’s also important to research your users’ needs, pain points and goals to develop an effective strategy.

Is UI part of UX?

You might have also heard of UI (User Interface) design, which is an integral part of UX by designing user interactions that support the overall experience. However, while the two terms are often used together and both are essential for growing your business, UI is only one small part of UX.

Essentially, UI design focuses on the visual and interactive elements of a website – this is everything users see and interact with, like buttons, typography and colour schemes. On the other hand, UX design is a much broader term that focuses on the bigger picture when it comes to the user journey and leaving a positive impression.

So while UI is an important part of UX, UX extends to a whole range of other elements that play a role in shaping a website’s experience.

Why is user experience important?

User experience is the first of the three fundamental pillars for a strong website, giving it the foundations you need to accelerate your business growth. How? By helping you win and retain customers for greater ROI on your website and digital marketing efforts. Here are just a few of the different ways UX drives digital business growth.

• Reduces bounce rates

The key difference between good UX vs bad UX is that a confusing, complicated and frustrating design will cause people to leave, while a well-planned design will keep your visitors engaged. By anticipating their needs and creating a delightful experience that people enjoy, you can help increase the amount of time they spend exploring your website and what you have to offer.

• Increases conversions

From intuitive navigation and eliminating points of friction to clearly presenting your value proposition and using a visual hierarchy to inspire actions, UX shapes an engaging user journey that guides your visitors towards their goals. Paired with usability testing to identify any areas that could be holding your website back, UX is fundamental to increasing your website conversions.

• Supports your SEO efforts

Search Engine Optimisaiton (SEO) makes your website easily discoverable within relevant search results, driving organic traffic and quality leads. UX can support those efforts by improving the overall user experience of your website, which is actually one of Google’s key ranking factors. This means that a great UX will lead to more people finding your website, without spending extra on advertising.

• Grows brand awareness

Since UX is about shaping the overall feel of the website, your design can have a big impact on your brand by expressing your brand narrative and evoking certain emotions that align with your brand image. Whether you want to be fresh and playful or familiar and professional, this experience helps to build deeper emotional connections with visitors while making a positive and memorable impression. Even the tiniest details of your website can help grow your brand awareness.

• Nurtures customer loyalty

Creating a positive interaction that prioritises your user’s needs will also help establish customer loyalty. If your website is accessible, user-friendly, and delivers a personalised experience that makes users feel understood, then they’ll be more likely to return and develop into loyal customers. As a bonus, they’ll also be more likely to recommend you to others, further supporting your business through word-of-mouth marketing.

What is the UX design process?

So, user experience is important because it plays an integral role in optimising your website for conversions, reducing your bounce rate, and ultimately winning new customers. To give you a clearer idea of what our UX designers do to achieve this, here’s an overview of our UX design process.

1. Research

Like most things involving your audience, research is key to the UX design process. We want to know about everything from your audience’s pain points, motivations and goals to their emotions and what they’ll be doing when they visit your website. Someone who’s regularly off mountain biking will be looking for a very different experience from someone who’s working from a desk.

2. Content

We’ll then work with you to decide what content your website needs to deliver a positive user experience. This ensures that your design takes into account all the information you need to convey about your products or services, answering your audience’s questions so that they have what they need to make decisions. That way, we can make sure none of the essential info gets missed out or compromised.

3. Site architecture

Once we know what pages you need to effectively communicate with your audience, we’ll set to work on the overall structure of your site. This will form the basis for your site navigation, outlining where various pages will sit within the website and how they all connect. This will keep everything where your audience would expect to find it, while also designing multiple different user journeys.

4. Page structure

Each page will then be built up to create your wireframe, which is essentially a prototype of your website. This will outline the placement of different elements like CTA buttons, menus and content, allowing you to visualise the flow of the user journey and how the pages connect. This stage also helps make sure users have everything they need at the right time to keep them moving in the right direction.

5. Design, test & refine

When your wireframes are ready, the UI designers will take over and add all the branded visual elements to the skeleton of your website. But that’s not the end for the UX design process.

Once live, it’s important to continue testing and analysing the overall user experience of your website. By watching how users travel around your site and interact with it, you can continue to refine and elevate your website’s user experience. While different to conversion rate optimisation (CRO), this can support your CRO efforts for an even greater boost in conversions.

User experiences that drive growth

So, what is UX design? It’s the steps we go through to ensure your website is intuitive, user-friendly and easy to use, delivering a great user experience designed to grow your business.

Want to hear more about how we do it? Our Shrewsbury web design and marketing agency focuses on the UX of your website for tangible business growth. Speak to our UX designers and learn more about how we can help.