Creating Great Online User Experience

There are few components of a website more important than user experience. Generally speaking 'user experience' refers to a website's ease-of-use. More than function and flow, user experience also considers the look and feel of the site, its information architecture, and interactivity.

If well planned out, user experience can increase website conversion, increase adoption, enhance customer satisfaction and act as a key differentiator between you and your competitors.

The look and feel of a website is important because it speaks to first impressions. Every website should speak to its brand. If you're a counselling facility for people with cancer, you'll want your website to be calming, welcoming and reassuring. You'll want visitors to associate your organisation with a feeling of safety. If you're a new nightclub that just opened, you'll want your website to reflect all of what makes your environment different. Maybe you have burlesque dancers or topless bartenders- whatever it may be you'll want that ambiance and feeling to be projected through your website.

Information architecture has to do with how information is laid out and how easily the required task can be achieved. Information architecture is of significant importance to ecommerce websites. Customers want to be able to easily navigate their way through products, colours, sizes and styles without losing sight of what they've already selected or where they've already browsed. From there they'll want to know exactly how to check out, make any changes to their order, pay and leave. The easier the path-to-purchase, the lower the rate of cart abandonment.

Interactivity refers to using the technology available to help deliver the right information in the most effective way. On a blog that might be a blog roll, for an online publication it might be a list of links to additional resources, on an ecommerce site it might be a review or commenting section. Whatever features you think will help add value to your website and enhance the user experience of your customers, should be included.

The first and most important step of creating a seamless user experience is focus. Every page of your website should have an objective. The copy that you write, and the navigation that you build around it should all be focused on that objective being achieved.

Building strong user experience takes a few different types of talent. It takes someone with strong consumer insight, it takes a copywriter with an ability to speak to visitors' needs and it takes a designer who can create a stimulating visual experience.


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Adaptive Consultancy is a London-based digital agency specialising in web development, design, ecommerce and internet marketing. Services include SEO, paid search, email and social media marketing. More on web marketing London visit http://www.adaptiveconsultancy.com/