User experience design or “UX” is understanding the needs and goals of users and creating interfaces that meet those needs in the most effective and efficient way possible.
Good User Experience
- Anticipates the needs of the user.
- Keeps the user aware of where they are on the site.
- Makes it easy to find and understand content.
- Provides a consistent experience across pages and screen sizes.
Bad User Experience
- Makes people feel like they are working to get what they want.
- Does not visually respond to the actions users take.
- Forces users to look at things they didn’t want to see.
- Feels incomplete or broken.
User Experience Concerns
Target Audience
Who is a website for? Knowing your audience is a very important consideration that should inform many decisions you make about design and content. This might affect the colors, tone, imagery, font size, or the complexity of navigation. What are the needs of your audience and how can you address them?
Context
It’s important for visitors to always know where they are on a website. Page titles, breadcrumbs, and current page highlighting in the navigation are common ways to achieve this. It’s equally important that users always know how to navigate to content that interests them.
Friction
Friction is anything that makes it harder for users to find what they are looking for or do something on a website. Does a form have too many fields? Does it take too many clicks to get to a page? Are there too many popups? Reducing friction is a critical concern when designing a site.
Legibility
Paragraph text should rarely be smaller than 14px, and 16px to 18px is common. But size is only one part of legibility. Font choice, spacing, contrast, and the needs of your audience also matter. Paragraph text should always use an easy-to-read sans-serif font. You don’t want to make people lean toward the screen or reach for reading glasses.
Accessibility
When designing and building a website, it’s important to make sure it can be used by people with disabilities. Keyboard use, image alt text, input labels, clear page structure, and good color contrast should all be considered.
Interactions
Whenever someone does something on a website, there should be visual feedback showing that something happened. Buttons should respond to hover, focus, and clicks. Forms should show when they are loading and whether they succeeded or failed. A lot of user frustration can be prevented this way.
Minimalism
Complex animations, unique design systems, and image-rich designs can be compelling and fun. But unnecessary complexity can distract or confuse anyone. It’s important to aim for a clean and simple user interface.
Consistency
Similar things on your website should look and work the same. If buttons are red on one page, they shouldn’t be blue on another. If inputs are round in one place, they shouldn’t be square elsewhere. A good design should be consistently applied across all parts of a site.
Errors
If something goes wrong on your site, you want visitors to know it. Having a clear 404 page is important. If a form doesn’t work when submitted, the error message should explain what happened and what the visitor can do next. If login doesn’t work, visitors shouldn’t feel confused about it.