Practical Tips on How to Improve the UI/UX Design of Your Website
Every modern business requires a website. In addition to providing easy access to all information, websites can also drive sales. However, simply creating a website is not enough. If your website is shabby or slow, it will be of no use to your customers. If you want to improve your consumers’ overall browsing experience, it is imperative to improve the UI/UX of your website.
Conduct UX Audit to Improve UI UX
Yes, by Conducting a UX Audit is a way to pinpoint less-than-perfect areas of a website. If you know that your user experience is not up to the mark, a UX audit will help you create a short-term roadmap. This roadmap will eventually help you figure out how to enhance onboarding, why conversions are low and other issues you’re currently experiencing. Not only that, but a well-conducted UX audit will also help you better understand who is using your product, so there will be a fundamental shift in what you know about the people using your product once the audit is complete. If you want your UX audit to be successful, you need to understand your target users and set clearly defined goals. Once the UX audit has been completed and you’ve caught the glitches of your website, the User Interface Design Process then begins!
Great user experience means more conversion. Remember, people will forget what you did but will never forget how you made them feel.
The UI Design Process
The UI design is the process of making interfaces in software or computerized devices with a focus on looks or style. Ask any designer and he will tell you that his main aim is to create a website that users will find attractive and easy to use. Successful UI designers build a deep understanding of their customers before they commence work. By conducting and participating in continuous research activities, a designer can learn what motivates website users, what problems they’re trying to solve and what solutions make the most sense. Sometimes, you may have to abandon some ideas. But UI design is not strictly about aesthetics, it’s about making a website successful.
How to enhance user experience that leads to improved ROI? Get your UI/UX Design on point!
How We Can Create a Successful Website Design?
Fortunately for designers, there are several tools available today that can fit almost every design process and meet your creative requirements. There is a solution to every problem out there and the possibilities are endless. There are hundreds of UX design tools available on the web. But of course, one doesn’t need all of them. With the following UX Design Tools, you will be able to test the product throughout the production process and make improvements to create a fabulous user experience for your target audience.
There are a variety of drawing and prototyping tools you can make use of. Some of the best ones are-
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator was developed alongside Adobe Photoshop as a companion product. It is used for creating graphics, logos, cartoons, and fonts for the photo-realistic layouts of Photoshop. It is a graphic driven software that is primarily used for creating vector graphics. Currently, the updated software has new features such as three-dimensional applications and realistic brushes.
Adobe XD
Under the Adobe Creative Cloud collection of design tools, Adobe XD offers the best environment for digital projects. The software is available for macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. Adobe XD supports vector design and website wireframing and creating simple interactive click-through prototypes.
Marvel
When it comes to producing quick ideas and refining an interface, Marvel is a great choice. As with other similar applications, Marvel enables you to simulate your design through a prototype and also offers a really neat way of building pages. Thanks to some wonderful integrations that are available in Marvel, you can insert your designs into your project workflow.
Sketch
A digital app from Mac, you can use Sketch for UI, mobile, web and even icon design. Have you been using Photoshop for these requirements? If yes, Sketch is a very capable replacement. The sketch is a vector-based app which means that every shape you draw can be resized to any dimension without losing sharpness. So, your designs will look great, even on a retina or very high DPI screen.
Figma
Even though Figma is browser-based, there is a desktop version for both Windows and Mac OS. Figma gives you all the tools you need for the design phase of the project, including vector tools which are capable of fully-fledged illustration, as well as prototyping capabilities, and code generation for the hand-off. The best part? Figma allows for live, real-time collaboration. That means you and your team members can all log into a design at once and simultaneously make changes to it.
Zeplin
Zeplin might not be a prototyping tool, but it fits in that post-design and pre-development stage alongside prototyping. You can upload your Photoshop, Sketch, Adobe XD and Figma files to Zeplin and it will create an environment for developers and designers to hand over the project, without the tedious task of creating guidelines.
Flinto
Flinto is a simple and easy-to-use design tool that enables you to create unique interactions within your designs. You can utilize several gestures and create easy transitions by designing the before and after states. Flinto simply works out the differences and then animates it for you.
Framer-X
Framer X is an exciting new design tool that defines a look for experienced UI designers who want more from their tools. Prototyping and creating interactions is simple with Framer-X. Besides being a great tool, there’s a strong community of designers behind Framer X offering UI assets and kits.
InVision
The InVision is a prototyping tool created for designers, by designers. It allows designers to quickly and easily create interactive mockups for your designs. Once ready, you can share these mockups with your clients or teams. It makes presenting your designs a breeze and is much more effective than sending out a PDF or screenshots. You can discuss the mockups right inside the app by leaving comments.
Axure-RP
Axure-RP has always been one of the best wireframing tools and is great for more complex projects that require dynamic data. With Axure, you can focus on mocking up projects that are more technical and require extra attention when it comes to data and structure.
Mockplus
Mockplus is a fast-growing start-up on a mission to improve the user experience of prototyping. It focuses on developing rapid prototyping tools for UX/UI designers, developers, project managers, and other IT professionals. With a singular goal to make the complex simple, Mockplus has become the undisputed king of prototyping, with more and more international users turning into happy & loyal customers.
UXPin
Described as the ‘end-to-end’ UX platform, UXPin is a design tool but with a potent ability to create design systems. UXPin serves larger design teams that need to work off the same styles and guides, saving time with product development when collaboration plays a huge role.
Now that we’ve taken a look at some of the best drawing and prototyping tools, let’s take a look at a few planning tools.
Planning Tools
Balsamiq
When designing something new, you know it’s never going to be one-and-done. With Balsamiq, you can create prototypes, wireframes, and mockups, and keep track of all versions and commentary on each version all in one place.
MockFlow
MockFlow provides a one-stop solution for all UI planning needs that includes UI design mockups, sitemap, documentation and design approvals. MockFlow follows an agile development model to bring frequent updates to the platform and conduct regular security audits to safeguard user’s data.
ProtoPie
ProtoPie is a prototyping tool for smart devices. ProtoPie makes elaborate prototypes possible without any coding, and these prototypes can be tested on actual devices. Instead of programming, ProtoPie’s concept model is based on how objects move in the world.
Proto.io
Motion plays an important role in many of today’s most popular mobile apps. InProto.io, the new ‘State Transitions’ feature makes it simple for anyone with no design or coding skills to create beautiful animations in no time. You can now preview animations right in the editor as you craft your motion design.
RapidUI
Created for designers, RapidUI uses AI and machine learning to turn Sketch and Photoshop designs to interactive and responsive web interfaces. RapidUI is fully compatible with Sketch and Photoshop files. Its responsive toolkit makes it easy to fit designs to every screen size.
Without testing tools, it would be impossible for designers to know for certain how their design has turned out. Keeping that in mind, here are a few testing tools that you can consider.
Testing Tools
Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg is a click-based user experience tool. It can be used for a free 30-day trial, after which it will cost $9 a month. By paying for the app, you will have access to The Heatmap. The Heatmap will allow you to see where each visitor has clicked on your website. The Scrollmap will show you how far down on the page a visitor has typically scrolled. And the Confetti will provide insights regarding search terms, visitor sources, and other elements. There is also the Overlay which will break down the number of clicks per page element.
Optimizely
This A/B testing platform is known to be user-friendly, allowing its users to track visits as well as conversions. The tool offers a plethora of features including mobile website testing, cross-browser testing, visitor segmentation, geotargeting and multivariate testing. It is free for users to use the basic plan, but some extra features are only available on the enterprise plan, which is paid for.
Visual Website Optimizer
Visual Website Optimizer is a testing and optimization tool that allows product managers, marketers and analysts to create A/B tests and geo-behavioral targeting campaigns without having any sort of technical or HTML knowledge.
UserTesting
UserTesting is a platform for getting rapid customer feedback on almost any customer experience you can imagine. This includes websites, prototypes, mobile apps, and real-world experiences.
Loop-11
This tool is a bit unique. It allows for unmoderated remote usability testing utilizing real users. A researcher will provide a simple task for a user, and then track their interaction. The data is then presented through a report that entails the common fail pages, task completion rate, paths, time on task, and comprehensive path analysis for every user. There is no need to load software on to the website, and the results are accurate.
Appsee
Appsee is an advanced visual mobile analytics platform that enables app developers and publishers to measure, understand and improve the user experience (UX) in their mobile app.
While all these tools will help you accomplish a set purpose, website conversions depend on a whole lot of things.
Want to enhance the user experience for a better conversion rate?
Go through below must-have technical factors regarding a webpage.
Improved Navigation for Better Conversion Rate
Talk to any user and he/she will tell you that a poor experience with navigation is enough of an annoyance to make them leave a site completely. As a designer, it is best to keep the navigation simple yet effective. If you keep a website’s navigation easy, it is guaranteed that your conversion rate will hit the roof!
If your visitors are unable to use the website and navigate around to find what they are looking for; you lose the game and that’s a big NO.
White Space Increases Conversion Rate
White space is the area between design elements. Unfortunately, most clients view it as wasted space. It has been observed that users respond better to a website when there is a considerable amount of white space. After all, it is easier on the eye and helps create breathing space between two elements.
White space is a valuable element. It can transform not only your design but also your business.
Persuasive CTA for Improved Conversion
On websites, CTAs are usually in the form of buttons. Your CTAs tell your users what action they need to take on your website and so these buttons need to be highly persuasive. If a website doesn’t have a clear CTA, users will be left wondering about the action they need to take. The color of your CTA button must contrast the background color. This will help users find the button easily.
CTA is a mighty button. Because you are inviting a response!
Improved Page Speed for Better Conversion
If your website takes longer than 3–4 seconds to load, your users will leave your website and you will have an unusually high bounce rate. If you want to improve your user experience, you need to improve page speed. So even if you have some great products and deals to offer, your customers will never be able to see them because of the slow page speed.
Slow speed kills conversion-2 second delay in page load time and bounce rate up by more than 100%!
Bulleted Points to Improve Conversion
Bullet points can help business writers organize and emphasize information quickly and effectively. The effective use of bullet points in business writing can help highlight important information, direct the reader to themed lists, and improve a document’s overall readability.
High-Quality Images to Improve Conversion
Images grab a person’s attention more than written content. Having visual content makes people engage straightaway. Images help users connect with your content. They humanize your website and urge users to stay on your website for longer.
Some basic psychology: ‘Such a good quality image on site! The product they offer could be of high quality as well. Let me click’. There; your conversion rate goes soring!
Persuasive Headlines to Improve Conversion
Use keywords in your headlines wherever you can to target your message and attract the right audience. Search engines give headlines more weight as compared to other content. Also, headlines guide users through the site, helping them find the content they are looking for. So, well-designed headlines can improve your website conversion rate.
On an average 8 out of 10 will just read the Headline. The better your headline, the more your conversion rate.
Noticeable Hyperlink differentiation for Improved Conversion
If you want users to click on the links on your website, make sure they are easily identifiable by visual cues. When hyperlinking, try to link long titles as opposed to single words. For instance, ‘Click here to check out our latest fashion line’ is easier to identify than ‘Check out our latest fashion line here’.
Website page consistency
Website page consistency is a golden-rule in design. To provide a quality experience to your users you must be consistent in both the design and content of your websites. Consistency is the biggest factor that separates a negative experience from a positive one.
Focus on consistent formatting. It is the key to maximize viewers’ experience on a web-page.
Motion and animation
The animation is important because it enables us to tell stories and communicate emotions and ideas in a unique, easy-to-perceive way that both small children and adults can understand. Animation has helped connect people throughout the world in a way that sometimes writing and live-action films cannot.
Nearly 50% of Internet users look for videos related to product or service before purchasing. Tell your story via animation. Do the magic that sometimes writing and live-action films can’t do.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as we enjoyed writing it! We listed the tools and website design advice that will help your website stand out from the crowd. Have more to add to this list? We’d love to know in the comments below!
Higher conversion rate means a greater return of investment. And the roadmap to this is user experience.
