8 UX Design Tips to Take Your Site From Good to Great

Research shows that if it takes a user longer than 10 seconds to find what they’re looking for on your website, they will give up and abandon the page entirely. Chances of that person coming back to your site are slim to none—in fact, poor UX design can cost you valuable customers.

Your site’s ability to point users to the right content, products, and services quickly is paramount to success in 2015. In addition, your user experience design needs to be flawless and transparent across all digital properties to present a consistent brand experience.

A heuristic evaluation, or usability inspection, is a great way to rate your site’s user experience. Here are eight of our top 16 UX tips, based on industry standards and usability best practices that will ensure your site presents the best customer experience possible:

1. 1. Aesthetic & Minimalistic Design:
      All irrelevant information should be left out. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with relevant units of information; and, therefore, diminishes their relative visibility.
   2. User-Centered Design and Navigation:
      Content structuring and presentation based on the user’s mental model of the content leads them faster to the content than navigation based on the organization chart of the company.
   3. Efficiency:
      Successful sites lead users to the desired content as fast and seamlessly as possible.
   4. Orientation:
      Successful sites always let the users know where they currently are on the site.
   5. Flexibility & Ease of Use:
      Accelerators—unseen by the novice user—may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
   6. User Control and Emergency Exits:
      Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.
   7. Recognition, Not Recall:
      Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
   8. Clear Error Messages:
      Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.