When thinking about your website – think about your users/target audience.
Some questions to ask:
– What type of device is your end-user searching on – desktop, tablet, smartphone?
– What do they want to do when they arrive at your page?
– How do you capture & maintain their attention?
– What about next steps for them?
In the ever-changing world of web design, adaptability is imperative to ensure usability.
User experience is a key component when building and designing your website. Remember, your website is not for you – it’s for your users.
Tried and true practices that assure your website is delivering your brand message efficiently and effectively.
Responsive Web Design: It is critical that your website is responsive – remember screens come in all sizes. Your website must respond and adapt to the user’s device, whether that be a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. This can mean the difference between losing and gaining a client – 40% of users will move onto a different search result if yours isn’t mobile friendly.
As a user, there is nothing worse than jumbled content, impossible navigation and long load times. Consider the goals of your user. Is your typical customer making purchases on their tablet? Or are you trying to deliver impactful content to commuters using their smartphones? First, is assuring navigation buttons are visible and easy to interact with – think clicking a mouse or tapping a fingertip. When it comes to mobile, high load times scare users away – almost half of users expect a load time of two seconds or less. On that note, considering your image and video specs is imperative. If you need to have them on your mobile page at all, keep them compressed and manageable – this will help the speed and performance of your website.
Long Scroll: People are scrolling. With approximately 50% of end users on mobile devices, be it a tablet or a smartphone – easy, scrolling navigation has been proven in the market. Implementing a long scrolling website creates a platform for storytelling and visual experience. If you look at social platforms, the constant updated feed from Facebook, Twitter, and Pintrest utilize an efficient and pleasing long scroll format. It has become second nature for users to scroll through a web page.
There are important components to consider when implementing long scroll. For instance, sticky navigation, keeping your navigation bar in view while content scrolls below, assures that users can control the page at their own pace without getting lost.
Creating cohesion by changing backgrounds in order to emulate the appearance of a single page is important to consider. This breaks up the content and helps walk your user through the site.
When implementing long scroll you also need to think differently about how you analyze your SEO.
It may appear that clicks aren’t as high, however the session duration time has gone up. This is due to the amount of homepage content and information that is available and scrollable to users.
Responsive web design and long scroll are surely combatting old conventions, like the above-the-fold concept. The seamless load of a responsive webpage on any device, and the ease in which users scroll through a web page, will lead to a superior user experience – it has been tried & true.
To review your current website & to explore ways to enhance your end-user experience call Debbie at Radsick Ad Group 727.866.9365