Whether you’re a novice or an expert in web design, it’s important to
remember your website is not for you. Your website should be designed
for someone who knows very little, if anything, about the business or
brand. To have a useful website, you should assume the following about
people who will be using it.
Users Hate the “Back” Button
Do you know anyone who enjoys getting lost? Me neither. If you have
external links on your website, make sure they open a new tab. Not only
is it counterproductive to direct your customers to leave your website,
users don’t like to hit the “back” button or an even worse scenario,
they may not even think of it and never return.
The same goes for making the information available on more than one
page. For example, a page that goes in depth about a particular product
or service should also include internal links to other suggested
products or an easy way to get back to a complete list of the products
and/or services. Users don’t want to hit the back button or try to
figure out where they started. Make it easy to get back to that
all-encompassing page.
Users Have Short Attention Spans
Get to the point. Although those four paragraphs about your business
are accurate, make sure you highlight the most important parts first.
Unfortunately, not everyone is as interested in your business as much as
you are. So make sure to grab their attention at the beginning of your
pages so you don’t lose the interest of potential customers.
Users Will Give Up Easily
If users get lost or a feature is taking too long, they are likely to
close out and move on to another website. They aren’t the type of
person that’s going to give you the benefit of the doubt. They don’t
know you or your business and have no reason to be patient or figure out
how to use your website.
Load times, pictures and simplicity become a very important part of
the usability of your website. If done correctly, you can actually guide
users to the pages you want them to go. One easy way to do this is to
make sure useful internal links are available on every page. Think of it
as a call to action on every page of your site. What do you want them
to do next?
What do you recommend doing to increase the usability of websites? Let me know in the comments!
Source: http://www.semrush.com/blog/3-ways-to-improve-the-user-experience-on-your-website/
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