This is the dawning of the age of user experience. Well, technically it started with Donald Norman at Apple in the 90s, but we’ve gotten to a point where UX has come to rule the world. Businesses that aren’t investing in UX design aren’t investing in their futures, or at least the UX design experts at Savvior’s Pittsburgh office think so. UX encompasses all aspects of the way businesses do business in the modern age. From customer service to store layout; from local commercials to local PR, and especially from the landing page of your website to all the content you rest there.
While UX is all encompassing, one aspect of it can be tricky for business owners to get right: that is UX web design. We all know how to make a storefront look nice and how to design a floor plan that’s best for the customer, but when asked how to optimize UX online many business owners are left stumped.
The UX design experts at Pittsburgh’s Savvior are here to help give you an idea of what makes for thoughtful UX design. Take a look at our 3 easy steps and the next time a web design team asks what you’re looking for in a site you’ll have more to say than “I don’t know; just make it look good”.
Your landing page is your front door
Screen capture taken from PA.gov
Your landing page is your first impression. Think of it like the front door to your house. We know what makes front doors nice and what makes them plane — what makes you want to knock and come inside and what makes you want to turn tail and run.
We’ve all also seen great landing pages and some that could use a little work. Take for example, almost any government website. Take for specific example, the PA.gov landing page. We’ve included it for your convenience above. As far as most government sites go, this is actually a pretty good effort. It isn’t too busy up front, and you know exactly what you’re doing there when you arrive. It’s not very exciting though. You can tell someone tried because of the multiple fonts in the header, but other than being confusing and a little ugly, this doesn’t accomplish what we need from a landing page.
GIF taken from Webchirpy
Now, take this landing page for example. This is what you want to aim for. It’s interesting with its use of animation — something very on trend in UX design according to our experts in Pittsburgh. The tagline lets you know exactly what it is you’re doing there, and there’s a simple navigation bar at the top to take you to the substance.
Our UX design experts in Pittsburgh want to point out this last bit. The use of a simple navigation bar is vital to a successful landing page. This allows your landing page to be only the front door — not the main event. Save the content for later; don’t try to cram it onto the front door. Your landing page is to make a good first impression only. Some interesting art — or animation — a short but powerful heading and a navigation bar should be the only things users see up front.
Dumb it down — but not too dumb
Graphic taken from Canva.com
When creating the content that will fill your site, you’re trying to hit the sweet spot between too much and too little. The UX design experts at Pittsburgh’s Savvior understand that sounds impossible, but it’s all about understanding and respecting the experiences of your customers.
Understand and respect that your users are busy people; they don’t have time to be reading university level dissertations on the latest stock trends — or whatever your web content is about. At the same time, however, they’re intelligent adults and won’t tolerate it if they feel they’re being treated like anything but intelligent adults. A great way to meet this middle is with content hierarchy. It’s an old trick, but it’s effective.
Start with a headline that’ll grab them. It doesn’t have to have very much information, but it should represent well what they’ll find if they dive deeper.
Next, the subheading. This should have more information. If we’re being honest, this is probably as far as most readers will go. Again, respect that they’re busy people and don’t have time to get to the actual meat of the content. Take the article above. Just from the heading and subheading you get the gist: people went to the moon. Now, we move on.
If your heading and subheading do the trick, and a user has the time for it, we have the actual text for them. Here is where you put the meat. Here you’ll want to foster a voice for your business. In 2019 corporations are oft-thought of as personalities, just like individuals. The exerts at Savvior’s Pittsburgh office suggest you want to build that image through your UX design and content voice. Be congenial, whittie, personable. Or be rigid and business-like. Honestly, it’s up to you what you want the UX to be, but whatever you choose be consistent.
Pop ups are dicey
Graphic taken from Hubspot.com
Pop ups are this year’s pink — unless you’re going for frustrating and ugly, don’t use them. Unless the information in your pop up is really relevant and you’re out of other options to present it, the UX design experts at Pittsburgh’s Savvior warn against their use. The only thing a pop up has ever accomplished was making a user frantically search for the tiny ‘x’ that would make it go away, especially if it’s asking for money. The last time Wikipedia asked me for $3 in a pop up I threw my whole phone out the car window.
If you insist on a pop up, at the very least follow these basic rules from Hubspot:
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Offer something relevant and valuable
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Think about the way users engage with your page — think about when and how they pop up
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Use language that’s simple, actionable and human
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Don’t ruin the mobile experience
By following these 3 simple rules, you’ll be building thoughtful UX design for your online presence in no time. For more information and a consultation on how to build your online business and get ahead in the online market contact the UX design experts at Savvior’s Pittsburgh office. With two decades of UX design experience, they’re who you turn to when you want things done right.
