Did you know that poor user experience can cause shoppers to leave your website prematurely without making any purchase? In order to create a great user experience, you will first need to improve the user interface on your website. User interface, or UI, is the experience that occurs when a person interacts with your site, which includes elements like scrolling speed, layout, display, links, and other interactive experiences. The design of your website will play a large role in determining the success or failure of your online store. Therefore, learning how to improve UI design is of paramount importance.
All good user interface design principles serve to make your website easier to use. This means making it seamless for visitors to find what they are looking for — or even better, predict what they are looking for even before they start searching. Then make the site easy to navigate, browse and make a purchase.
Improving your website’s user interface and experience
The benefits of good user interface design on e-commerce stores are plenty and cannot be overstated, as it can be reflected in the rate of conversions. With a good user interface, your online store will appear to be more trustworthy, and more welcoming to new visitors, which are key factors to increasing sales. It will also be easier for repeat customers to navigate, which will help you to retain them. Since they are also more inclined to stay on the site, you’ll also be improving your website’s bounce rate.
The best user interfaces are not complex or over-designed. They require planning and research to make the most of your time and effort. Read on for some useful tips on how to improve your website’s user interface.
1. Conduct user research
Kurt Lewin, a German-American social psychologist known for his theory that human behaviour is a function of our environment, said it best: “No research without action, no action without research”.
Always start user interface design with user research. Find out as much as you can about who your customers are, what they do online, and why. You will then have a better idea of how to design a website that will meet their needs.
2. Eliminate unnecessary components
If you really want to increase sales with user experience, keep your layout or design simple and to the point. Customers are simply not interested in navigating a site for hours to find what they are looking for. Instead, they might get frustrated and leave your website within minutes. The intent of each page you create should be clear and immediately understandable.
Start by eliminating large graphics and only use them on special occasions when they are needed to communicate a message or add emphasis to important call-to-actions such as sign-up and login buttons. Two to three colours per page would be more than enough, but be sure to make use of white space to segment content. With regards to fonts, keep it at a maximum of two per page for headers and sub-headers. Any additional visual content such as “you might like this” recommendations should only be added at the bottom of the page to reduce clutter and increase conversions.
3. Make visual elements distinct
With unique design elements, users will be able to find what they're looking for with minimal effort or confusion. To aid user experience, consider adding a search box for easy navigation, or ensure that customers know their location on the website at all times by naming pages accurately. Headings should be obvious, and the links should stand out. You can do this by muting background colours, using different font sizes, styles, as well as through the use of bold text.
Blue is mostly reserved for text links, while red works great for highlighting important items, usually disclaimers. Calls-to-action should be highlighted in a different hue that stands out from other content for visibility.
Start decluttering your site for a better user interface and experience now
Once user interface and experience are improved on your website, you are bound to see an increase in sales or conversion rates on your e-commerce platform. With the many benefits that come with investing time and effort into creating great user experiences, it is high time e-commerce businesses place their focus on learning the how-tos in improving website performance.
