5 common misconceptions about user-experience design

Whether you’re designing a new website for your business or you’re launching an app for your employees, user experience design should be your primary focus.

Of course, keeping other things in mind, like monetisation, conversions and branding is important, but it’s essential that you concentrate on the needs and experiences of your users before anything else.

If your design doesn’t meet the exacting needs of your users, you’ll no doubt suffer from a lack of engagement and adoption, low customer satisfaction, and your website or app might even damage the reputation of your business.

Below, we’ve put together some common UX misconceptions to help you get your project right the first time.

Accessibility is too much hard work

Making sure that your website or app is accessible to as wide an audience as possible provides you with a wide number of benefits, not least more satisfied customers.

By incorporating the idea of accessibility into the early stages of your design, you’ll be able to cater to disabled users without adding to development costs – and your users will thank you for doing so in the long run.

What’s more, new regulation comes into play in the United Kingdom next year, meaning that all new websites must be accessible to all users.

By 2020, existing websites must be accessible, too, and by June 2021, mobile apps will also be required to be accessible to all users.

The more features, the better

Functionality is important in your smartphone app or website redesign, but going down the path of an ‘all bells and whistles’ project can sometimes lead you astray.

Giving your users choice is always a good thing, but too many choices and unnecessary functionality can make it harder for users to navigate your website, and make it harder for developers to maintain your site’s code.

Research suggests that offering too much choice and functionality increases the time it takes to make a decision, so that piece of interactive content might be slowing your users down rather than converting them into customers.

Think smart, and don’t overdo it when adding new features.

Every design has to be unique

While it’s true that your website or app needs to look different from the rest if you want to stand out, adapting conventional user interface design patterns is often the more sensible idea than trying to ‘reinvent the wheel’ or do something entirely different from the rest.

Users understand that a left swipe will allow them to go back to the last page and that a pinch will zoom, so don’t tear up the rule book and invent your own language. Stick to conventional patterns.

Those patterns, like Google’s Material Design, for example, are in place because they’re understood by users as the norm, and they’re often available for free under open source for developers to use as they wish.

Utilising these resources will not only make your app or website more free-flowing and natural, but it’ll cost less than designing your own UX language.

You need a new website every couple of years

As a business owner, you’ll no doubt always be scrutinising your website as you compare it to the competition and balance the latest trends against your ageing design.

But the whole purpose of a website is to convert, attract new customers or make it easier for your users to navigate or find information, so redesigning for redesigning’s sake is bad user experience.

If your website is converting well, attracts new visitors and is accessible and easy to use, then the chances are that you don’t need a new one just yet.

Wait until you’ve got a problem to solve, and use data to analyse and determine a redesign rather than doing it through eye alone.

You are your target audience

When you’re working on a new project, it’s easy to assume that you are your own target audience.

After all, you know your products and services inside out, and you’ve got a good grasp of your customer base, right?

Wrong.

This naivety can cause you to make decisions that lead to inefficient design and overall poor user experience, so step back from the project.

The key to improving the user experience of your project is to speak to the people who really use your service.

For app developers, use data from Google Analytics or Localytics to determine how and why your customers are using your app, and make changes accordingly.

For a new website design or launch, speak with your target audience to get a feel for the site they’d like to see, and follow best industry practices to ensure user-experience is a key element of the design.

While you no doubt know your customer base better than anyone else, getting the user experience right can be hard work. At Zudu, our app development and web design services are designed with your users in mind. Get in touch today on 01382 690080 to find out more.