8 Useful Tips to Improve the Usability of Your Website or App
As a university student with an interest in user experience (UX) design, I have observed many design approaches that can significantly improve the usability of websites and apps. To make your interface stand out from competitors it’s important to ensure that the user is getting the best experience possible for the short period that they are interacting with your site or app. Here are eight ways to improve usability.
1. Be Consistent with the Design Elements You Use
Consistent design throughout the website does not mean your website will look dull or unoriginal. Consistency keeps the design looking professional and sleek; and it makes the content on your website easy to follow and navigate through, which ensures that it is communicating its intended message. When there is a lack of consistency within design elements such as fonts, graphics, colors and imagery, users will get confused and might leave the website.
While the Ling’s Cars website (see screenshot below) is certainly eye-catching, the inconsistent design presents a challenge to users who will not know where to look first to find what they are looking for.
2. Help Users Remember What to Do
When people use websites or apps a common cause of struggle is that they forget information from a previous step that is needed at a later step. People forget information because the user interfaces require them to use more memory than their brains can hold. Don’t force people to use more memory than they have to! Suggesting different options that users may need later on or reminding them to complete a certain task will help minimize confusion and help more users complete actions on the website.
A useful function of Netflix is its “Continue Watching” category, which allows users to go back to the show or film they were watching. This approach helps reduce the use of user-memory.
3. Use Contrasting Colours to Make Your Website Easy to View
People often use low contrast color and text combinations to add prominence to a certain element within their design. An example of a low contrast color combination is adjacent colors like orange and yellow; orange and blue, on the other hand, is a high contrast color combination. Design elements with low contrast make it harder for users to detect them on the website and make the website less accessible.. There are plenty of free tools that will check if color combinations have sufficient contrast, such as WebAim and Contrast Checker.
Amazon is one of the most successful companies in the world, and a lot of their success has to do with their branding and user experience. The colour scheme and fonts that Amazon chose for their website (see screenshot below) are great examples of how contrast can make words and images stand out on the screen.
4. Help Users Avoid Making Errors
Everybody makes mistakes — and users might make mistakes when they are using your website or app. Your interface must have a marked exit for users to leave any unwanted action without having to go through a long process. Providing the user with appropriate suggestions and notifications when needed is a great way to avoid possible errors. When more research is put into understanding the user’s goals and expectations, fewer errors and mistakes will occur.
When you send an email in Gmail and intend to attach something, but forget to do that — Gmail will alert you to it so you can attach the file before you send the email:
5. Keep the design clean and minimalistic
It’s important to give users exactly what they want to see by avoiding loading the website with irrelevant information. Every extra piece of information in an interface diminishes the visibility of what is relevant to the user. Google is the perfect example of minimalism and usability. People use it to search, so the design consists of the Google logo (or the Google Doodle of the day) and the search bar. Simple, aesthetic — and effective.
6. Make sure your website is readable
If your website or app has readability issues, it is very likely that most visitors will get annoyed and move on. Some elements often used to make websites more readable are:
- A lot of white space (remember the Google example?)
- Short paragraphs rather than long blocks of text
- Bullet points for lists
Additionally, you can explore different design elements such as sidebars and text boxes in a way that does not distract the user from the relevant information.
The Hubspot website does a good job of presenting information in short, clear paragraphs and bullet points where needed.
7. Use familiar words and icons
Your design should be easily digestible to the user. To make interaction smoother between users and the product, it’s important to use components that are familiar to them. Using real-world systems gives the user an experience that feels more intuitive.
The Hubspot example above exemplifies this, too — with buttons giving users clear instructions and using easy to understand language like “Get started”.
8. Establish a hierarchy for the text on your website
It is important to establish a hierarchy of importance within a website’s design, especially when it comes to text. For example, using a larger font for headlines and a smaller font for body text. A successful visual hierarchy helps to emphasize the importance of certain words or imagery, and helps guiding the audience through an entire message. On the New Yorker website, the hierarchy makes it is easy to distinguish between the articles’ headlines, their descriptions, the authors, and other text like the menus and the promo — making it easier for users to find what they are looking for:
These eight tips listed above cover the main areas where you can improve the usability of your website or app. The rule of thumb here is to always put yourself in your users’ shoes when making decisions about design. Applying these changes could significantly improve users’ experience, resulting in better performance of your website — whether it is longer time spent on it or more actions completed by users.
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