Is Your Website Managing Customer Experience?

Bouncer to Customer in Less Than Five Seconds

The world is connecting to the internet. Among the thousands of websites and apps that your customers browse through every day, it’s tough competition to stand out and make an impression. Whoever said “the first impression is the last impression” definitely had UX design on his mind. In the virtual world, the first impression, which is built in less than five seconds, is your saving grace to gain or lose a customer. Let’s take a look at some ways in which you can impress your customer and create a lasting impact:

1 – Creating a Bridge:

Your website should be able to create a link between pieces of information, people and devices. The purpose of a website today has gone beyond just being an information portal. Your website should not only offer knowledge but should also engage your users and give them options to keep following you through apps on their mobile devices. The information should be relative that helps the user connect with your brand or its familiar aspects.

The website for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is an excellent example of translating relative information to the web. The site offers an experience through animated visuals which tell you a little about the movie itself. There are also links to immediately let you buy the movie on Bluray and DVD. Further, the website design is optimised for mobile devices.

2 – The First Look:

The first impression of your website comes from its home page or landing page. You barely have seconds to retain your customer. The “mood” of your website should be obvious through your design. You should give the viewers one big focal point to rest their eyes on. This could be a call to action, an idea or the humorous side of your brand – depending upon your brand’s persona. Avoid cluttering the home page with too much information and maintain visual hierarchy through colours and negative spaces.

Taylor Swift’s website instantly grabs the viewer’s attention and gives an immediate call to action in the first image. The image markets the popularity of the singer while the play of colours and text looks appealing to the eye. The home page draws the viewer into the website and makes them feel that they can become a part of the star’s journey.

3 – Sailing Through:

The navigation on your website should be smooth and slick. Users shouldn’t waste time fishing around for useful links. Usually websites use headers and footers to display the most important links but there are no set rules in the world of design. Your website structure should be easy to follow and breadcrumbs on each page should inform the user where he is on your site.

J. K. Rowling’s official website incorporates a unique navigation system. Unlike conventional websites where you have to hop to different pages to see news about different subjects, the website has a “filter” option at the bottom. Checking off an item such as “Casual Vacancy” will automatically remove news about the book release from the web page.

4 – Winning the Battle Between Design & Content:

When it comes to combining a lot of information with appealing design, web designers face a dilemma. Too much text can be overbearing while a lot of design elements waste precious space. You should be able to balance the two and tell a story through your visuals. If you want to judge whether your design is communicating well, simply hide all the text information. Then gauge if you can still figure out what your website is trying to say. If you can’t, chances are your viewer won’t either.

Every Last Drop is a website that helps viewers become aware about their water consumption and how they can conserve this precious resource. The single page scroll is an ingenious 2D animation that takes you through the day of an average UK resident. The animation perfectly amalgamates content and design without overwhelming the reader with statistics.

5 – Keep Your Eyes and Ears Open:

Take feedback from visitors and analyse the data to find out which parts of your website are garnering the most views and clicks. This works just like social media insights on Facebook or Google+. Finding out which content is gaining the most attention is crucial for your content developers. This will also help you decipher which pages you need to optimise better for search engines and which page is making your customers turn away.

The New Yorker has a web portal which allows visitors to see the most trending articles and recently read items as well. This not only helps the readers but also makes valuable data available to The New Yorker. They can then analyse what kind of content to reproduce to grab their readers’ attention.

6 – Taking it Across Platforms:

Pete Cashmore called 2013 the “Year of Responsive Design”. Responsive design simply means a design that adapts itself according to the screen size it is being viewed on. This has gained more and more popularity because of the increasing number of people that are accessing the Internet from their smartphones and tablets.

The Future of Web Design has a simple grid but one that is easily transferrable to mobile devices. When you view the website on your smartphone, you can still view it in its familiar grid format or even turn your device to the side for the screen to adjust to horizontal or vertical widths.

CONCLUSION:

A web developer should think like a designer and a designer should see it from the developer’s perspective. Ideally, your development and design teams should sit together and come up with a layout that grabs your visitor’s attention from the get-go, lets him navigate through your website smoothly, and sift through your content without getting dizzy reading all the information. The website should not only be appealing for the viewer but should also have functional tools to help the website manager monitor its reputation, customer response and feedback. Lastly, your website should always be optimised for mobile devices. If you have queries about responsive design and how to make your website compatible across multiple platforms, let us know and we’d be happy to help you out.