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How User Experience Can Make Or Break Your Website

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User experience, or UX, refers to the overall experience that a user has while interacting with a website. It encompasses everything from the website’s layout and design to its functionality, responsiveness, and ease of use.

Navigating a website without a lot of effort or difficulty. No fuss, no muss. That’s an exceptional user experience. 

In this blog post, we’ll explore what user experience is, why a great user experience is important in web development, and what you should do to get right.

What is User Experience?

User experience is all about creating a positive experience for the user. It involves designing a website that is easy to navigate, has a clear and intuitive layout, and provides users with the information they need. 

Good user experience goes beyond just giving customers what you think they want. According to Nielsen Norman Group, world leaders in research-based user experience, to achieve high-quality user experience, there must be a seamless merging of engineering, marketing, graphical and industrial design, and interface design. 

Additionally, a website that prioritizes user experience can help to build trust, increase customer loyalty, and ultimately drive sales.

How Does a Poor User Experience Impact a Website Visitor?

Simply put, poor user experience will make visitors leave. If a website is difficult to use, slow to load, or doesn’t provide users with the information they need, visitors are likely to leave and look for alternatives. 

According to a recent study shared by Medium, 46% of website users studied will leave a website if they cannot immediately determine what the company does. Being unable to find the company’s contact information was the second reason website users abandoned a site, followed by poor design and navigation. 

Poor user experience can and will damage a company’s brand perception and reputation. Thus leading to a loss of potential customers and revenue.

How to get User Experience right? 

A study by Forrester Research determined that with a great user experience, a website can achieve conversion rates of up to 400%! The following factors are crucial to get right for a great user experience on a website:

  1. Navigation – A website’s navigation should be clear, easy to understand, and intuitive. Users should be able to find the information they need quickly and easily.
  2. Content – Content should be well-written, easy to understand, and relevant to the user’s needs. It should also be presented in a way that is visually appealing and easy to read.
  3. Load Time – A website should load quickly to provide users with a seamless experience. Slow load times can lead to frustration and cause users to leave the site. Here are a few tips for improving website speed.  
  4. Responsiveness – This means ensuring that the website scales on different browser sizes and looks great on different devices. Mobile devices are now beating out desktop users, accounting for 52% of global website traffic.   
  5. Accessability – A website should be usable by everyone, including those with disabilities. This involves having proper tagging and descriptions on elements and compatibility with assistive browsing devices. Accessible designs lend benefits to everyone, for example, subtitles on a video help those watching in loud spaces. Here’s an article that covers more detail on website accessibility. 

How can Atlantic BT help improve website user experience? 

Every single project at Atlantic BT begins with what we call the discovery phase. Here we’re focused on the problems that need to be solved, which leads naturally to understanding your users and their needs. The discovery phase is led by members of our team who hold masters degrees in user experience, and have years of practical experience to back up their training. 

Our discovery phase includes a very strategic process for ensuring we get the overall user experience right. We conduct stakeholder interviews and user interviews to best understand the needs of both the company and their target audience. The user alignment process helps us to visualize the commonality between stakeholders and their users. 

We then develop user personas, the most crucial part of the UX research process. User personas will help our team empathize and plan for a range of user needs and preferences. With a clear understanding of the users, our designer and developers will create a user experience that maximizes engagement and satisfaction. 

The work we did with the North Carolina Department of Revenue is a great example of how Atlantic BT helps organizations to improve their website’s user experience.  

The NCDOR offered 13,000 PDFs of documentation on their website in an effort to assist citizens with understanding their tax requirements. However, their office was overburdened with phone calls from citizens asking for this exact information the agency had available online. The problem was poor user experience. Without good information architecture, navigation and searchability, the average citizen couldn’t find the information they were looking for. 

Once we launched their new website, the NCDOR noticed an instant impact. Call volume reduced, web usage increased and users began to prefer filing their taxes electronically. Read the full case study

The Bottom Line: Website User Experience will Impact a Company’s Bottom Line

In conclusion, user experience is an essential component of a website’s success. By prioritizing user experience, businesses can create a website that not only looks good but also meets the needs and expectations of its users. 

A great user experience can help to increase customer satisfaction, encourage repeat visits, and ultimately drive business growth. According to the same study from Forrester Research mentioned above, every single dollar invested in UX returns an average of $100 to the bottom line overtime. 

Contact Atlantic BT

The North Carolina Department of Revenue is just one of many examples of the positive “bottom line” impacts Atlantic BT’s efforts have achieved for our clients. We have over 20 years of experience and a multidisciplinary team of experts ready to help you to achieve the same results. 

Send us a message to schedule some time to chat with our experts. 

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