Have you ever wondered what it takes to get positive user experience? As business owners in the digital marketing century, having a website is almost imperative to have a successful business, although offering a positive user experience can apply to your business as a whole, not just the website.
When starting the process of designing a website, one must think of the user experience right away. Not having positive user experience or accessible website can potentially affect your marketing tactics and the business potential customers want to do with you.
Follow along to learn tips on how to think like your user and offer them a great experience doing business with you!
Understanding the User Experience
What is ‘User Experience’ or UX? There’s a technical definition as it applies to design and development, but as a business owner, you need to understand the basic premise. In essence, ‘User Experience’, is just that: the experience anyone (customer, employee, vendor, etc.) has when they interact with your business. How do they find you? What do they do? How do they do it? And in what context? What do they think and feel before during and after? That is User Experience.
If you’ve ever been to an Anthropology store, think of the way the store smells when you walk in. The way the window displays build your expectations, and the way all of their wares perfectly jive with the chic, industrial vibe. What’s amazing is that every store is like that. That’s a great example of one part of a great ‘User Experience’ in retail.
When thinking about UX for your business, you need to be able to put yourself in your user’s shoes and imagine what they must be thinking, feeling, smelling, tasting, and experiencing as they transact with your business.
Essentially, the user experience you provide either positively or negatively impacts that person’s perception of your business.
UX can be expanded to encompass just about any facet of your business. For the sake of this post, we’ll share a few ideas on how you can open your UX eyes and get new ideas on how they might apply to your website.
Try to Gain a Fresh Perspective
As business owners, we’re often too close to our business or organization, which results in losing focus on the user’s wants, needs, and experience. Everything showcased on our website or about our business makes sense to us, but that is almost certainly never the case with your users.
They don’t know your industry, your services, or your experiences. They have a problem and they’ve found you as a potential solution, but they don’t know how or why you’re going to help them. Clarifying how your business is going to help them is essential to have in the UX design.
Talk to your customers. Ask them questions about what they’re thinking or understand about your business. This gives you a fresh perspective on what exactly you need to clarify to better help your customers and provide a positive experience for them.
Keep Your Eyes Open to the World Around You
Remember to keep your eyes open to the world around you. What new ways are businesses catching your attention with their marketing and advertising strategies?
You experience and observe these messages all the time, whether you know it or not. Every time you google something, find a new business, do research, and engage with them, take a step back to think about how it’s all happening, what’s communicated clearly and what isn’t. How could this apply to your business?
I recently discovered a great design tip this way after signing up for a service for my daughter. As I went through the checkout experience, I answered several questions, provided the necessary details, and when I got to the credit card details, they had testimonials showing directly underneath.
The testimonials relieved the hesitation everyone has right before they enter their card details. It was very well executed. The credit card fields were a little finicky because it erased the card number after I entered the expiration date (ugh). A mistake like that can often cost the sale, but the testimonials gave me the extra boost needed to fill out the card details a second time.
This is a great example of observing daily interactions with the world around you as a customer and seeing how what works for you and what doesn’t could be applied to your business. Learn from your own user experiences and interactions by keeping your eyes open to the ever-evolving marketing world around you.
Hire An Objective Expert
If you’re looking to rebuild or revamp your website, hiring the right agency can bring an objective set of fresh eyes to your project.
In fact, that’s often the difference between a ho-hum website and one that actually improves ROI. But not just any agency can do that. The majority of website designers and developers simply take orders and do them, without much thought. In order to provide insight, advice, and a coherent finished product, the agency needs to have experience in marketing, advertising, and running a business. And they also need the backbone to challenge your ideas and thoughts (in these cases, the customer isn’t always right).
One of the primary reasons our clients love working with Made Right Media is for that very reason. We know how to take orders on certain things, but our clients are also expecting an objective, fresh strategy behind each recommendation.
How to apply all of this to your website
It’s important to have a great UX design when implementing a website for your business. The reason is simple: it’s often the first touch point any user has with you. And first impressions mean a lot.
In order to design your website and your entire experience, you have to think like your user. As business owners or people who work in the business or organization, our perspective is from the inside looking out.
However, we often discover we’re too close to our business to clearly see what’s missing for the user. Understanding the user experience, gaining new perspectives, and keeping your eyes open to the world around you is highly beneficial to creating a positive user experience for your website.
Made Right Media specializes in helping small businesses with their websites, marketing, and branding. If you need more help, feel free to contact us today or request a no-obligation consultation here.
