Learn How your Website Design can Impact your Customer’s Online Experience

Customer experience, so what do a customer feels when he’s using your website? You should think that way before you design your website. There are a lot of ways that a website design impacts a customer when he is out online trying to find some usefulness from your website.

It’s not just any experience, it’s the digital experience. A lot of significant factors come into the picture, the website usability, aesthetics, visual appeal and much more and in this post we will each one of those in detail and see how they can be improved.

1. Engaging Appearance
   • Love at first sight??? Errrrr, not restricted to only humans you see, you can expect anything in this digital landscape. Is it worth to stop by your shop? Will I find something new, exciting? People think like this when they browse.
   • And the first encounter with your website should say it all.
   • Those first few seconds when they land on your web page, they don’t just start reading your content or nor they start looking for the product, but they see how different is your website or what new experience they can expect from your digital store.
   • Few points you should keep in mind,
     • Your brand should always have center focus. So use the layout that is clean, uncluttered and projects a powerful brand image.
     • Do understand color psychology, before you lock colors for your website. Choose typography that supports good readability.
     • Visuals are powerful. Use images and videos that best depicts your brand story.
     • Make sure whatever the designs you are going to keep, it’s responsive.
   • A website design on whole includes a lot of things, but the homepage makes the first point of contact, so keep it simple, beautiful, and yet powerful, enough to keep a visitor engaged.
   • It’s a half battle if a visitor finds your website design attractive.

2. Professionalism
   • Are you reputable?
   • Even before they read about you visitors should feel a sense of trust using your service. Certain website elements adding which, project your brand as modern and trustworthy and they are,
   • A Culture Page
     • What is your (work) culture? How different do your employees feel working at your organization? A yearly trip for employees?
     • Or how do you make work fun for your employees?
     • Your visitors will get more associated with you if they learn about your brand and organization at more personal level.
3. • Staff Photos
     • Adding team photos will make your website look friendly and approachable. If you are a service providing company, your customer’s will feel at ease taking your assistance.
4. • Customer Testimonials/Reviews
     • Do you really value what your customers say? Then include customer testimonials and reviews, so others would feel the same.

3. Navigation
   • Your customers should have a good clarity navigating your website. The information or the products, the customers should find them with a less number of clicks. The way you design your website navigation is how you can make it work.
   • The prominent navigation styles used are,
   • Drop-down Menu
     • The website will have a menu title with different categories. Customers, if they hover over the title, can visit any of the categories or a product page in a jiffy.
4. • Breadcrumb
     • This navigation system gives the user a view of his location on the website. Suppose you are in homepage and click to the product page, the previous page(s) will be automatically added to the navigation bar.
     • Navigation is the fundamental of a functional website. Your website navigation system should be a map or compass to them. They should not feel lost or exhausted experiencing your site.
     • And one more important thing, do not forget to add a search feature, I mean a search box. It will be much more convenient for your customers to reach a product than using the navigation system.
     • It’s not an option, but a feature, an important element for your website.

4. Loading Time
   • As reported in Crazyegg,
   • A one second delay in page load time results in,
     • 11% fewer page views
     • 16% decrease in customer satisfaction
     • 7% loss in conversions
   • Speed kills, we have read this, but in the digital market, a slow website kills the conversions.
   • How far do you think you can make a customer wait to see your website load?
   • No more than 2 seconds.
   • Maile Ohye from Google cited “2 seconds is the threshold for e-commerce website acceptability. At Google, we aim for under a half second.”
   • Its understood viewers expect a website to load no less than 2 seconds, beyond that they would start looking for other websites.
   • Your website design greatly influences page load time.
   • In simple words, I can only say keep your website light. Tips to do that? Read this.
     • Optimize the images ( use the right format)
     • Minimize the number of HTTP requests your website makes.
     • Remove unneeded whitespace, formatting, and code – minifying the file.
     • CSS and JavaScript files, load them asynchronously.
     • Set up browser caching

5. Conversions
   • We go all this trouble and design a website, just for one thing, conversions.
   • If your website design is giving customers a good experience, it means you will have good conversions. In the context of a website design, here I have listed the three most important factors that consumer’s view of your website.
     • Color
       • Whatever the color scheme you are going to use on your website, it should be contrasting to the color used for CTAs. People must effortlessly find the conversion button and do the action.
   • • KISS Principle
       • KISS as defined as Keep It Simple, Stupid. Modern website designs will be simple, uncluttered, and attractive, so let your website be the same.
   • • Faces
       • Whether you are using hero images or banners, make use of pictures that has a human face(s).
       • Human faces affect user experience in web design. UX designer Aarron Walter has clearly explained in his book ‘Designing for Emotion’, why human faces are so much appreciated. He says the familiarity of seeing a human face, give customers a sense of comfort and reassurance.