Are your bounce rates consistently high? Is the average amount of time spent on your pages relatively low? Here is a quick checklist that can significantly boost these metrics if not implemented already.
Shorten the Scroll Length
Nobody wants to scroll more than 2-3 times. Users are expecting bite-size pieces, especially mobile users. We know you are eager to share everything on your site, but not everything applies to every user. The best thing is to let the users be in charge of what they want to see. You give them this power by breaking topics down in a logical hierarchical order until everything is bite-size and giving them the navigation tools to sift through it. But avoid breaking it down needlessly to where users get lost. They shouldn’t need a map to navigate through your content.
A Strong Visual Narrative
Reading text on a screen takes work. It’s a highly focused behavior that easily tires out the eyes. Be easy on the eyes by incorporating visuals to help tell your story or highlight your key points. This will help your user grasp your message much faster and avoid losing their interest. Visually stimulating images also trigger the imagination in a much stronger way than words. They can really rope your user in and inspire them to discover more.
Easy to Find Contact Choices
There is nothing more frustrating than having a question as a consumer and having to navigate through pages of your site just to find out how to contact you. Make your contact icon stand out and always include a “Contact” link at the bottom of the page because most consumers know that they can find it there. Some sites have you navigate through their FAQs page before displaying their phone number. There is value in providing consumers the option to skim the FAQs, however, some consumers require personal communication. Be sure to make your contact information available in 1 click, 2 tops.
Simple and Consistent look and feel
Stick to a theme and keep it simple. Make sure you have a proper balance of white space throughout. Use the same fonts, colors, design styles across your site. Users want to know that with every click that they are still in the same space and didn’t leave. The only thing that should change is your content from page to page. This puts more emphasis on the content and gets the user used to where to look on each page, giving them the feeling like they are getting to know you. Users don’t need to be over-stimulated, they already are since our screen-time hours are at record numbers. You don’t want to tire them out on your page, but rather light them up with inspiration.
Device Agnostic
Your content should be able to pull up and display on any device. In order to achieve this, you want to make sure to test the page layout on all devices and click around to ensure that it is navigable. If you have a different version of your site for smaller screen devices, be sure to mirror the same style as your large screen device version to stay consistent. For smaller screens, either shorten the content, break it up into more sub-headings or click-through paths, or eliminate it if it is not relevant to the mobile user.
By addressing these key experiences, you should see an increase in your viewing and engagement metrics. To get more ideas on good UX design, check out these websites who won the coveted International Webby and People’s Voice Awards last year for good design.
Best User Experience
Best Home/Welcome Page And Best Practices
Best Navigation/Structure
Best Use of Animation/Motion Graphics
Best Use of Photography
SOURCES
http://webbyawards.com/winners/2015/
