Why Web Usability Matters More Than Ever

September 3, 2013In Web4 Minutes

It’s easy to brush off usability or user experience as a new buzz word in the world of web design. After all, most companies these days have a fairly well designed and neatly organized website. But usability is not about having an attractive website or about having an organized site. Yes, those elements are important and do have an impact on the performance of your website, but it only scratches the surface of web usability.

Obviously, you want your website to deliver a great experience to your web visitors. However, usability is more than simply providing great user experience. It’s about maximizing the effectiveness of your website. And by maximizing your site’s effectiveness, you are increasing the conversions and profits of all your online marketing efforts. That’s why usability matters. There are many examples of websites missing important aspects of web usability. In one example, an eCommerce store did have a great design but lost sales because visitors couldn’t find what they were looking for or simply because it took too many clicks to get to find the product they were interested in. Another example is where a publishing site that monetized their content with ads had trouble building a following because the formatting of their content and placement of ads made it difficult for readers to consume the content. These aspects of usability are subtle but make a big impact in conversions, the average time spent on a page, page abandon rates, and ultimately profits. The web design and online marketing industry have become conscious of the impact that usability has and that’s why there’s been a growing conversation about the topic. The industry is focusing on an aspect of web design that is often ignored.

How we at my web design firm help companies improve usability for their websites?While one of the goals is to come up with a great looking design, we go beyond that and focus on multiple aspect s of usability. To make the right changes, we’ll look at your web analytics and your traffic data to study the behavior of your web visitors. From there, we can test various website elements to figure out what results in the more desired action.

For instance, we may rearrange your navigation menu to better accommodate your visitors in finding what they’re looking for. We can also help bridge the gap between delivering what visitors want with getting visitors to take your desired action whether it’s sharing content, subscribing to your newsletter, or making a purchase. We may also test different design layouts, reduce loading time, or change the organization/formatting of your content to name a few other things.

The main point here is that usability matters, especially in a digital atmosphere where multiple platforms and devices are being used to access your website. We’ve helped many companies go beyond design and get their website to perform to their maximum potential.

Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels

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