Web Design

User Experience Over Functionality?

Author
Ben Kershaw
Published
29th May 2022
Length
3 minute read

Features and functionality don’t win over customers – a solid user experience (UX) does. If a user can easily navigate your site and find what they need, they are more likely to return in future. An enjoyable, pleasant experience over a complex one.

The planning stage of website design is crucial in ensuring that your target market needs are met and you don’t try to implement too many unnecessary features. Pairing your business goals with user requirements will result in the ideal balance between the two, hopefully satisfying at both ends. The following are a few things we think are worth considering to optimise your UX:

 

Be Straightforward With It

Try to put yourself in a first time user’s shoes, how easy is your website to navigate? Can you find everything they might be interested in? Its important to populate your page with a purpose, use featured text to define each section and obvious CTAs to direct to each subject matter.

Overdoing the functionality can make your page too complex and confusing to use that it might increase your bounce rate and put off potential customers. Making your products and services harder to find will obviously effect the amount of enquiries and purchases you get, so keep it basic but attractive.

 

Define UX for Your Market

A general definition of User Experience surrounds the criteria of; ease of use, accessibility and convenience. Building your own definition around these criteria, during the planning stage, based on your target audience can significantly improve their experience on your site. Think about what features your demographic might like to see, what kind of interests they have or additional information they might need and make it happen.

Tailor Your Content

Having defined what your UX should include, its time to tailor any following content to said guidelines. There would be no point to taking the time to determine what your audience would need and then doing something completely different. Don’t go too overboard with features and swanky extras on your first release, you can actually improve your customer experience by going basic and then acting on any feedback for additional features once its live.

Knowing your audience is important in the process for a better UX, by optimising your service for the users that actually visit your site and interact with your content, you can build a relationship with your customers and reputation for caring about those investing in your services. Understand what features are relevant and should be included, instead of mindlessly adding all the cool functionality and overloading your site, increasing loading times and reducing accessibility. You can read all about How to Make Your Website as User-Friendly as Possible in terms of User Interface in the Sleeky blog!

 

The Wrap Up

There is no need to have a flashy website if it doesn’t do its job and satisfy the user.  Why not have us help in the design process? We’re somewhat experienced in the field!

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