A lot of people come to us wanting a brilliant user experience on their website. They want it to be easy to use. They don’t want to have endless scrolling. They don’t want to have people clicking all over the place to try and find things.
They want it to be an amazing user experience and brand experience for their patients, for their board, for the news, for the community, for everyone that they need to reach. And a lot of times they have no idea how to do that.
So, how do you build a website like that? Here’s five practical tips to create a website that puts users first.
1. Know Your Heroes (Your Users)
Your users are the heroes of their own stories, and you’re their guide. Your website should be geared toward showing them why your guidance is vital for helping them achieve their goals.
Start by identifying who your users are (”personas” in marketing speak). Are they patients looking to pay a bill? Reporters seeking a press kit? Board members needing meeting minutes?
List their top two or three goals and make those tasks easy to hit in as few clicks as possible. We know it’s tempting to throw everything and the kitchen sink on your home page, but the best way to serve your audience is to limit what they have to sift through to find what they need to solve their problems.
2. Don’t Make Them Think
Steve Krug’s classic book on website design still has the best advice: “Don’t Make Me Think.” You should do your best to make things simple and easy to understand for every person landing on your website.
Use clear, familiar language that matches your audience’s needs. Resist the urge to come up with a really fancy way of saying “Contact Us.” When you use jargon that’s not familiar to your audience, you make it harder for them to find what they need.
Keep it simple, keep it clear. Don’t make them think.
3. Prioritize Mobile Usability
Over half of web traffic in general comes from mobile devices. And those users are very easily frustrated.
More than 50% of users have said they will not come back to a site that’s hard to use on their phones—even if they love the brand.*
Always double-check your site on the devices your audience is likely to use. What looks like a short paragraph on a desktop computer can turn into an intimidating wall of text on a phone. A button that’s easy to click with a mouse might not be large enough to tap with your finger.
Create a great experience for your most important users on the devices they use most often.
4. Stick to Basic Web Conventions
Remember Jacob’s Law: people spend most of their time on websites that are not yours. They know where the navigation should be. They know how headings work. They know if they tap or click the website logo, it should take them back to the home page.
Keep those conventions in mind when you’re building out your website. Respect the fact that they only spend a fraction of their online time on your site. The more you can make it look and feel like all the things that they have encountered out there in the digital world, the better.
5. Make It Accessible
Accessibility makes your site easier to read and understand . Make sure your text is large enough to read easily. Keep contrast ratios in mind when you’re picking colors. If you have a light background, make sure your text is dark. For a dark background, your text should be light.
Your calls to action—Contact Us, Pay Your Bill, Ask a Question—should be very high contrast, standing out from the rest of your site. Your images should have alt text describing them, especially if you have an older audience that might be using screen readers to interact with your content.
And any key action your audience needs to take should be live text, not dependent on an image. What if your images don’t load because someone’s on a limited connection?
The more accessible your site is, the easier it will be for all your users to use it.
Make Your Users the Center of Your Website
Building a great user experience on your website and across all your digital platforms requires you to serve your users well, from first impression to final click. Keep your users’ stories in mind, and they’ll trust you to guide them.
Ready to Elevate Your Website Experience?
We’d love to hear your story. Contact us and let’s talk about how to improve your website experience and marketing to help your organization grow.
