User experience is imperative in 2021. Having a good online presence is as important as having a clean and tidy showroom; a business website is its face. Today, users are savvier than ever about web design, not to mention they expect a certain level of sophistication.
As the bar reaches higher grounds, many brands, especially new ones, can feel overpowered by expectations to provide a well-fashioned website UX.
UX is the future – but in order to provide your users with unique browsing experiences, you should always wear a pair of UX glasses geared to optimize your website with users as the main consideration. That said, improving your website’s UX is not as tough as it may seem; even a small effort can turn into a huge gain.
UX professionals have noted that improving user experience can lead to more business leads through elevated search rankings, and increased revenue – and here’s how you can start.
Responsive and Mobile-friendly
Smartphones are driving considerable traffic to a wide range of websites. This makes it essential for your website to be a responsive one. In order to serve the browsing needs of smartphone users, going mobile-friendly is now the fastest way for website owners to ensure better visibility. While website responsiveness can be detected via formative testing, that doesn’t mean you can’t work on your site’s responsiveness after you’ve discovered key issues. After all, UX optimization it’s an incessant process whether or not you like it. What’s more, the lack of errors plus a responsive element will ensure an outstanding experience for the users.
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Page Loading Time
Page loading matters much when we refer to web design and also when you’re proving an outstanding UX to the clients. When the loading speed of your site is way too slow, it will irritate the users and will ultimately hinder the conversions.
And that’s not all. Page loading time also plays an integral role in helping clients decide on whether they are going to further visit your website. When users are underserved in terms of experience for the very first time, there are brighter chances they will skip your website for future reference as well.
If your website is WordPress, then you can find various guides that will get you through the process of speeding up your site. What most brands don’t know is that the web hosting server plays a very big role in speed.
Website Security
Want your users to build trust in you? Well, they will if you have an assurance of the safety of their payment details saved on your site.
Having reliable site security will guarantee an outstanding browsing experience to your users. A security seal is going to bring more users and to your website, more conversion, and thus more revenue for your brand.
Using Bullets
Oftentimes the most intelligible way of presenting information is in a bullet list. Why? Because they attract attention, shorten the text, support scanning, and reveal the features of the services and products in which your brand deals. That said, considering this particular website design trend will help you engage users at a whole new scale.
Using bullet points will help you generate and include numerous images to help the users better understand what has been described in the bullets. In turn, this will make your website more enticing to the users.
Color in UX
Colors have more to say than meets the eye. As the main ingredient of the visual language, color guides attention, highlights, and unifies elements. When it comes to user experience, colors reinforce both the aesthetics and functional qualities of a product. Colors have many faces, or, as many would say, colors wear many hats.
In 2021, branding sees color as perception and mood. While UX designers see colors as a consistent system across the platform. As a whole, the color remains a versatile tool in conveying different types of information. Difference colors imply different messages. Thus, think of the message you want to send to your users while choosing a color for your website.
Motion and Animation
Animations and motions have their own share of advantages. In 2021, it’s a big no to use such elements in titles and paragraphs as well.
On the other hand, the subtle animation can help in enticing the users towards a call to action or in case you need to display various notifications on your site. Use motions and animations in order to attract people’s attention.
Hamburger Menu
Hamburgers look tasty even in a web page format. You can use them to indicate to users that there is something they cannot see. In turn, this will initiate their urge to find out more about the features and functionality of the site they’re using. What’s more, the hamburger button is also imperative; it indicates there are more key features hidden to be discovered by the user.
Consider Adding Videos
In website design, there is no proper UX without high-quality images. But, videos are what keeps their attention engaged for longer. Modern users trust the things that look more realistic, and thus, implementing videos can play their part extremely well.
For instance, if a website is displaying the launch of a new service, it will get difficult to showcase all the features through the content only. While video content, on the other hand, can easily make users understand the service’s features.
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Enticing Headlines
Your website headlines should establish a connection with potential customers. It needs to be content that your customers are looking for. While generating proper headlines, remember to include the keywords for targeting the message to the right audience. Having the right keywords not only matters for attracting prospects but also helps websites rank higher in the SERPs.
In 2021, headlines are given more interest by Google. Thus, including the right keywords in the same could help any website rank higher.
Bonus Tip: Consistency in Websites
Improving your website’s UX means matching everything in such a way so that it looks and works perfectly regardless of your audience. Right from the loading time, headline choice and button style, and coloring, everything should be themed to improve the user experience.
What UX Trends Will Dominate 2021?
Designers are Empowered to Drive Ethical Changes
Ethical design is and has been the locus of web designers in the past few years. But later this year, there has been a lot of talk about this and what makes users happier. In 2021, we’re going to see a huge boom in how web developers approach ethics in their discipline.
Ethical design is more connected with personal data, and how can developers provide unique experiences on a website or in an app, but without making the users ask themselves: “why do they need so much from me?”
Oftentimes, marketers, designers, and business owners ignore this aspect of ethics when developing an app or a website. But in 2021, that’s something that is slowly changing. Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, data is becoming more valuable. Many say that personal data will become completely controllable by the users, which is truly impressive for the near future. What does that mean?
Well, this simply requires web designers to encourage this movement and provide a safe space for the user when using the website they build. With that said, a fitting example of how you can make your app or website more ethical can be found on WebMD’s symptoms checker. WebMD clarifies what kind of information they might gather; they provide users with complete transparency and control on what data they want to share with them.
Subtle Use of 3D elements
In 2020 we’ve witnessed a transition from flat 3D elements; with neomorphic gaining notoriety, more and more websites and apps plan to incorporate more 3D elements in their design. This can be particularly useful for storytelling purposes or when showcasing a product. Take Revolut; they did a fantastic job with 3D interactive details in Revolut Gifts and when showcasing their awesome and colorful cards. That, in turn, makes the users more comfortable ordering the product once they had a look from all sides and angles.
With 3D graphics on the rise in 2020, 2021, it’s expected to bring more value to the message your business sends and the user’s interaction within your website more meaningful.
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More Accent on Storytelling & UX Writing
In 2021 it is expected that good storytelling combined with top-notch UX writing can help skyrocket user’s experience using your website or app.
Since both complement each other, web designers can create even more memorable and meaningful experiences in a digital product. Since most corporations are choosing the digital path, UX writing is even more prevalent; we talk about the rate of adoption amongst people who have been familiar with using this particular service in person. UX writing is dressing the personal touch through human language rather than a more technical language also making the interactions between users and user interface and your product more secluded and less tumultuous.
Web developer and SEO specialist with 20+ years of experience in open-source web development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions (RSWEBSOLS)".
