If you are designing a website for a small business, then the main purpose of the site would be to improve conversions. While a well-optimized site with the help of enterprise SEO can attract more audience to the page, if the website is not designed for a good user experience then the conversions may fail.
Building a user-friendly website has some basic rules to be followed but many times designers get indulged in implementing complicated designs while they forget simple design parameters hence, we have highlighted those design hacks below that cannot be skipped while designing a UX website.
1. Include Microcopy
While providing any online forms which has blank fields that need to be filled, many users do not understand the format in which it needs to be filled, hence the submission may fail. For example, if the field says ‘card number’, you would assume that the user would be aware of it but you never know who is visiting the site and may be new to this hence providing an example of how the card number looks like will help them fill-in the fields easily. Similarly, if you are asking them to fill phone number, make it clear that the field only accepts numbers and no alphabets. Instructions will make sure that users find it easy to fill the form and can go through the process smoothly.
2. Provide Previews
Providing the writer’s and the website owners with a preview option is just not questionable as it makes it clear how the blog post or the page will look when published. Text editor does not really give a complete idea of how the page looks until previewed hence make sure to add the preview option in your design for ease of use by the site author. If such options are not included, broken or under-optimized pages will cause negative user experience hence adding preview will help author’s edit the page after checking the preview for a better user experience.
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3. Allow Editing After Submission
Another important website design element which cannot be ignored is providing an editing option to the audience when they post a comment or submit a registration form. Users are skeptical to click on the save button as they do not wish to submit a form or comment with an error. Also, let the users know by adding it below the form that they can make the required changes in the form which will encourage them to take immediate action.
4. Re-Confirmation Before Submission
Many times you take certain actions which you may regret later, for example closing a page without saving the changes made hence in such a scenario, add double confirmation by asking questions like, ‘Are you sure you want to close the window without saving it?’, this will avoid any errors in submission.
5. Giving Submission Confirmation
A confirmation pop-up as soon as someone saves a form or subscribes is also important as, if nothing happens then the user will not know if the form got submitted or not. A confirmation will make it clear that the form has been submitted and you can also show the users some gratitude for taking the time to fill in the form.
Another important design technique is to show a message that, ‘you have already subscribed’ to the users who have filled the form previously so that they do not double submit it.
Conclusion
These design rules may seem basic, but it is something which a UX designer cannot ignore as simple solutions like these will make accessing the site much smoother by the users and that is what you intend in the first place.
