How A Web Designer Can Apply User Experience?

There are certain principles you should follow when you are going to design any website. User interface and user experience are two different but very closely related topics. They are applied simultaneously when you are talking about web designing. Frist let us understand what exactly user experience is.

What Is User Experience?

To understand what is user experience first you have to become a user visiting a website. For example if you are visiting a website for news then obviously the color combination and size of fonts matters a lot. And you can visit the same page from many devices like tablet, mobile phones, phablets, laptop or desktop. If you are looking for something else on website and if you did not found it instantly or you did not found how to go from home page then it will become frustrating to you. A website you visit should be loading very fast. What is any link appears on a website but it does not work? What is that website have to many unwanted things which are not related to a particular context? All these things need to be covered when it comes to user experience. A web designer has to implement each and every thing very carefully.

Now let us see what should a web designer should do to create a good user experience. Let’s start:

1. Provide Similar Experience Regardless Of Device

Your user can be coming to your website from any device. The device may be desktop, laptop, tablet, phablets, mobile and even from wrist watch. It is our responsibility that he feels same when he comes from any device.

This means that from no matter which device he comes to your website, he should be able to search and get everything easily. This is the main responsibility of a web designer.

1. Provide Instantly Recognizable And Easy-To-Use Navigation

This is the other key factor to be considered. You must understand that the user comes to your website because he want to read some important content. He wants some information and therefor he comes to your site.

So this is your responsibility that as a web designer you should provide an easy to use and easy navigable content to your site. A user should not have any problem while he is going to navigate at your website. This is your responsibility that from home page a user can be easily gets a location where he wants to go in minimum time and minimum clicks.

1. Make Important Things On Screen

When a user comes to your website he might be looking at important points. So at first he will analyze the whole screen. Therefore he will find a complete task or content on the screen.

You can help them by placing the most important things on screen itself. You should put the important things as per visual hierarchy means what thing will he be able to see first and then second. In this way user will be able to find important thing right away.

1. Ensure All Links And Buttons Function As They Should

It is very frustrating when you come to purchase something at grocery shop for dinner and the thing is out of stock at grocery shop. A user feels same when he click a link which is clickable as usual but after clicking he finds that the link is not clickable and he gets frustrated.

So it is the responsibility of web designer that a user should not get error of 404 or every link or button should work as it should.

1. Let User Control Their Browsing Experience

A recent search has shown that the things like auto-play videos has irritated the users a lot. Or some time users open a link and it opens in new window automatically. These things should be given in hands of users. They should be able to handle on their own. This will bring a fantastic user experience to a web designer.

So all the above point where what you should do to increase good experience of user to your site. Now we will discuss that what you should not do to increase user experience. We call them don’ts. So let’s start.

1. Don’t Let The Design Of Site Hinder The Site’s Readability

This is the first point which you should not do. Your site’s color combination should be such that the readability of your site’s content should not decrease. This includes the color combination of your site. This also includes specially background color of your site. So this point have to be taken care while you design your site. As a web designer this is your responsibility. A white background can increase the readability of content. Look at the following image the content is clearly readable.

1. Don’t Hinder The Visitor’s Ability To Scan The Screen

This is the another point that as a web designer you should take care. Every user before settling down in any website to read its content first sees the pictures, buttons or blocks. As a web designer this is your responsibility to add enough pictures, buttons and blocks in your website. Don’t unnecessarily remove them.

1. Don’t Fill The Screen With Unrelated Things

Every user feels good when he finds only what he came to your website. He is not interested in any advertisement on the screen. This will really get user away from your website. So as a web designer it is his responsibility to fill the screen with useful information.

1. Don’t Keep Wait Your Users To Load The Site

Almost every user have a little patient when he came to your site. When your site takes too much time to load, user of yours will get frustrated and likely to leave your site. Too much animation of jquery in site may take too much time to site to load. So as a web designer your responsibility is that you should take a proper technology and should decide a proper animation to be shown on your site so that it can take less time.

1. Don’t Have Several Things To Compete For Attention

This is the same point like not having much nonrelated content on you site. You should also not have the several things on your site which compete for the attention of user. This will really make user nervous and confuse to which thing he should prefer. Instead of this you should help the user and you should apply the call to actions to your site, you should keep animation at minimum and you should also keep relocating ads minimum.

Conclusion

If you honestly apply all the dos and don’ts in your website, a user will really love your website. And user engagement will really increase in your website. As a web designer it is your responsibility to test the website when it is in designing phase. You can also give your website to your potential customers for testing purpose.

(Source : https://www.alphansotech.com/blogs/ux-for-designers-how-a-web-designer-can-apply-user-experience/ )