Redesigning Interface for Better UX
If the layout of your website or app seems to be good but you’re still experiencing high abandon rates, then it may be time to look at your user interface. Having a confusing UI can confuse users and dissuade them from exploring your website. At first glance, it may seem like your UI design is okay but you have to understand that it goes beyond just how it looks. Here are some ideas for redesigning your UI as part of your UX design goals.
Idea #1: Make Clarity the Main Goal
Think about how the user sees the interface design. Does it make sense to the user as much as it makes sense to you? To be effective with your interface design, users must recognize how it works, get value out of it, and understand what it’s doing for them. If they can quickly grasp these ideas, they’ll get gratification from using it and it will become second nature to interact with your site.
Idea #2: Organize Your Interface
Big websites tend to have multiple categories which makes it difficult to present all the possible options in a simple manner. It’s very important to organize your pages into clear categories that your users want to search into. Organizing the interface design isn’t just dumping pages into one category. You have to research your audience and figure out what they actually care about. If they cannot quickly see what they came to your website for, they’ll naturally think that your website does not have what they came for.
Idea #3: Make the Next Step Obvious
One interaction will always lead to another. That’s why you want to make it natural to transition into the next action. Being able to anticipate what the user will likely do next and providing the next step will create huge boosts in your engagement and response rates. The challenge here lies in figuring out what the user would likely want to do. Sometimes it’s obvious (checking out to a shopping cart) and sometimes it’s not (they’ve just finished reading an article).
Idea #4: Create a Visual Hierarchy
A clear visual hierarchy will help make your UI design and interface design. By bringing attention to where you want your users to focus first, you set your UI for success. A good example of visual hierarchy is using a bold color on the UI to help it stand out from all the other elements. The other elements would be lighter, making it a secondary focus for the user. Of course, it can also be done the other way so that the UI is the secondary focus. This idea will also work on a broader level for UX design.
Idea #5: Limit the Number of Options
If you’ve made your interface design clear and have organized it in an intuitive way, the next thing you can do is limit the number of options available for the user. For example, rather than list a category and multiple sub-categories underneath. You can just list the main category and have it link to a page that lists all the important sub-categories. While this requires additional action from the user, it removes the clutter and makes it clear what the user needs to do.
