7 Best Practices For Creating User-Friendly Websites

Since the internet was invented, numerous web forums are always debating what makes up a good user interface design. Of course, there are various interpretations of a design idea, most of which are subjective. However, it’s easy enough to cut through these interpretations and come up with an objective opinion.

What actually makes sense to people? Note that web design is only made up of 50% technology, and the other half is made up of cognitive neuroscience, human psychology, and bits of sociology, especially when you examine conventional standards that everyone has been trained to accept. With the best web design, you can count on more visitors and more customers.

Even better, Google, among other search engines, demands the best web designs. Currently, Google is pushing towards Core Web Vitals. These are a set of standards that are not entirely concerned with SEO content and keywords. However, the main focus is how the images, buttons, and links on a web page behave. 

Core Web Vitals also focus on the speed of a website and its efficiency for the mobile user. If you have a well-designed website with a user-friendly design, you should be able to attract more visitors, get higher rankings and reduce your bounce rate. Note that bounce rate refers to the number of people who visit your page and leave immediately. Here are the top 7 habits of the most effective websites that you should know. 

Speed

None of your site visitors wants to wait for the website to load. Everyone is digitally plugged in, and there are so many other things to do, such as checking social media feeds, buying things online, emailing coworkers and Zoom meetings to attend. With years of improvement in overall web performance, there is an increased expectation of loading time for any website. 

Visit Google Page Speed Insights to check your website. When you take some fudge factors into consideration, your page speed score should be more than or equal to 80. If your website has various versions for AMP, don’t forget to check those versions too. Note that this tool measures only one page.

Therefore, you need to test multiple pages within your site rather than the entire website. By analyzing the performance of different pages such as the product page, blog posts and home page, you should be able to identify the issues you need to fix. 

Responsive Design Is A Smart Choice 

With responsive design, your website should work equally across various devices, whether desktops, tablets, laptops or mobile phones. Your website should also work well when a user turns a phone or tablet from landscape to portrait mode. It should also account for various platforms and browsers on Firefox, Chrome and Edge as well as Android, Apple or Windows. 

The web design should be fluid on each of these options and take the shape of whatever device is being used. The interface needs to be clearly visible and very easy to use. Site visitors shouldn’t have to scroll endlessly through the website or struggle to tap something on the site. Fortunately, most of the default web design templates come with responsive design inbuilt. 

Therefore, your site should meet Core Web Vitals standards or use AMP for mobile visitors. Other details include setting viewports for images, removing fixed-width interaction elements, among other back-end website developer issues. You need to continuously test your website to make sure there are no new issues that would frustrate users. 

Mobile Is Mandatory 

Remember, more than 90% of your site visitors are on mobile devices. When you spend a lot of time on desktops or laptops with keyboards and big monitors, it’s easy enough to forget about the mobile experience. When you are looking at everything through a laptop screen, it’s easy enough to forget about people using mobile devices. Remember, you will eventually use your smartphone to access the internet. 

Therefore, when launching a new website, you need to make sure that it caters to mobile users. Even better, some of the features should be paramount for mobile devices. That’s why you need to look for ways to include these and many more features in your mobile design. Yes, it might be tough to optimize a site for laptop and mobile users.

That’s where AMP comes in handy. Previously, most sites had a special mobile version where there was an ‘m’ in the URL to cater to mobile users. Take a look at the Wikipedia AMP listing and the mobile version. Well, the same idea has been included with AMP. With Core Web Vitals, mobile-first design should be the default. 

Information Is Useless If You Can’t Find It 

Personal portfolios and small retailers have it easy since they can create websites with a few pages, a shopping cart app and a blog. By simply adding a privacy policy and about us in the footer, you can actually call it a day. However, for larger organizations, you will have a huge challenge providing a lot of information and organizing it properly, so it is easy to navigate. 

Be Considerate Of The User’s Time And Attention 

Consider customers who found a link to your site anywhere online and ended up there. Well, they are about to become a sales lead. You should treat them properly and accommodate them when they finally get to your website. Yes, as a website owner, you would probably love it if everyone was patient enough to digest all the content on your website and listen to what you have to offer. 

However, most of the visitors will not have a lot of time on their hands. Also, they might be distracted or not adept with modern technology. They might not be completely familiar with your particular industries and their complexities. You shouldn’t expect your website visitors to function at the top of their cognitive abilities every second. They are most likely looking for a way to get through the process within the shortest time possible. 

Conservative Layouts Sell More 

Yes, everyone loves a creative and wild person. However, you can’t put such people in control of the most important niches. When it comes to your online business, you should consider using bold and original designs in your website design. Most site visitors expect a logo in the upper left corner as well as a search feature in the upper right corner. Also, the navigation menu bar should be at the top, while the site policy and about us pages should be at the footer. 

There should be a sidebar to the right showing more navigation elements. Also, there should be more buttons for actions such as call, buy, schedule an appointment or subscribe. Don’t throw away such a simple layout. Rather, it would help if you used it to your advantage. Make sure your users have everything they need when it comes to the best user experience. 

Business Websites Should Be For Everyone 

Every business website should be inclusive and follow WCAG (web content accessibility guidelines). It means that every business should accommodate persons with disabilities, especially the deaf, without vision and those who are hard of hearing whenever applicable. Make sure you look for all opportunities and use features to accommodate people with different levels of ability. 

Final Thoughts 

Your website should blend with your SEO strategy effortlessly. Make sure that your site is useful to visitors to meet Google’s algorithms. Simply put, if you want to get higher rankings or build credibility using your website, your main focus should be UX. Always design your website with your site visitors in mind.