20 Jul What is User Experience (UX) Web Design?
User experience (UX) design is a multi-stage design process that puts the end user, or your target market, first. (If that sentence made you walk away with question marks, read this article on how to define your target market.) UX design comes down to encouraging conversion.
When you’re designing a website, you have to think about the purpose behind each page, section, and sentence on your customer’s journey towards a purchase. Placements and icons mean different things and signal behaviors for your user. So if you want to create a clear path towards conversion (email signups, contact form submission, add-to-cart), you need UX design.
Why use UX design?
As a business owner, your goal is to appeal to your target audience, or your ideal clients. UX design makes sense for small business owners because your customers are at the core of the design process. And why would you put customers anywhere else but at the core of your business?
Every sentence and icon is specifically added to your website to ensure your ideal customer can check out or contact you in the most streamlined and intuitive way possible. If you’re an e-commerce business, UX means making your website easy to shop, search and check out. For a service-based business, it means making information available about who you are, what you do, and how to get in touch.
The Process
The process of designing a website with UX in mind starts with strategy and ends with testing. Once you define what your ideal customers want from your website, the next step is to design it. After an initial draft of the website design is complete, test the flow of your content and website functionality. You don’t have to get design right on the first try, but you do have to make updates so that your customers understand what they need to do and take the desired action. This iterative process happens over time as new information and more content are added to your website, always with the goal of conversion.
Here are some questions to get started
- Are there questions customers tend to ask over the phone (or in person) that you can answer on your website?
- What are your customers trying to accomplish by using your website?
- Are there places they get caught up or confused on the website?
- Are your customer’s goals easy to complete using your current website?
What UX design looks like
In the before and after images pictured below, we walked our client through our web design process – from the redesign goals and mood board through final design and CMS training. The original website was outdated and the navigation was difficult to use. When customers can’t find what they’re looking for, they tend to leave your website and search for it elsewhere. Fixing the navigation to keep customers on the site was a top priority, along with updating the aesthetic and user flow from the homepage through booking. The newly redesigned website showcases the calm, peaceful atmosphere of the spa with clear navigation and links to book. View the full project here.
Before
After