How Do I Evaluate the User Experience of My Website?

Wait, do websites even matter anymore? Yes, they’re still a big deal—so much so that the website user experience can determine whether your business succeeds or fails. They’re also one of the best tools you have for proactively promoting your mobile apps, products, and services across multiple platforms to help them penetrate the market.

And those mobile apps you're promoting? They, too, need to offer positive UX experiences that meet people where they are on whichever device they choose.

Providing your audience with great web experiences:

• Boosts customer retention.
• Reduces future development costs.
• Increase ROI.
• Gives you a competitive edge.
  

Providing your audience with a great experience on your website helps:

• Boost customer retention.
• Reduce future development costs.
• Increase ROI.
• Give you a competitive edge.

A website user experience audit analyzes your site and pinpoints which areas disrupt the user flow and derail conversions.

Web Apps vs. Mobile Apps

Some people say that social media apps like Snapchat, Tiktok, and Instagram have made web apps irrelevant; in our humble opinion, those people are wrong.

Sure, social media is fun, and it’s great for generating brand buzz. But buzz isn’t always lasting, and it rarely goes very far in helping you establish trust with potential customers. And that’s a key distinction, because engaging and entertaining people on social media platforms is one thing, but controlling the messaging is only truly possible with your website and web apps.

Plus, custom web applications allow you to communicate more effectively and efficiently with your customers. They also help you get real-time customer feedback so you can identify issues and trends that are affecting their overall experience with your company.

Well-designed websites and web apps that offer users satisfying experiences also make it easier to keep pace with your business as it grows and changes. Finally, the dynamic experience web apps provide make people feel valued, therby increasing customer loyalty.

Undergoing a Website User Experience Audit

Why is there such a gap between what people want from a website and what developers deliver? How is it that the same elements that annoy users on one site appear so often on others? Have designers forgotten the website user experiences (UX) that annoy them?

Probably not, but what can happen is that business owners and development teams at some point in the design process begin to shift their focus from UX to workable features.

As with financial audits, a website user experience audit paves the way to achieving better results. During a UX audit, we use various tools, methods, and metrics to see where things are going right or wrong.

1. We start by diving deep into what you want your website to achieve for your business. Most companies want their sites to help them increase sales and revenues, drive more conversions, and improve customer satisfaction (a little later on, we’ll discuss why this last goal should be the first!)
2. Next up is your audience or users. Discovering who they are and what they need helps us better understand what improvements and recommendations will positively affect the UX.
3. We then move on to examining the user flow. Now that pain points have been identified, it’s time to look at how users navigate your website and which actions get them where they want to be. This can sometimes involve the site’s entire architecture being mapped out.
4. To learn why people aren’t converting, we review and analyze historical data from sales, search, social, and other traffic sources. By studying trends, patterns, and metrics, we’re able to see how well individual pages are performing, including at the top and bottom of the funnel.
5. A comprehensive direct and non-direct competitor analysis lets us see how other similar businesses have applied website solutions for problems like yours.
6. Evaluating a website’s user interface (UI) helps identify inconsistencies and flaws in the site’s visual design. We talk about the synchronicity between UX and UI in the next section.
7. A good website audit also looks at accessibility features that make a website easy to use regardless of disabilities or special needs.

The final step is looking at your website’s speed and performance, which is a huge factor in whether people hang around long enough to discover what makes your brand so awesome. eCommerce websites really need to be on top of speed, as users tend to drop out of the funnel if product or checkout pages take longer than three seconds to load.

How to Improve Website User Experience

“The customer experience begins with user experience” is something most businesses say they agree with yet rarely take to heart. How else can you explain the number of horrendous websites out there making people frustrated and annoyed?

As we alluded earlier, the website user experience should be your top priority. Still, far too often, owners, developers, and other stakeholders develop shiny object syndrome, where they hyper-focus on things like fonts, colors, and images. Not that your site doesn’t need those elements, but functionality, smooth navigation, and usability are what keep people staying long enough to discover who you are and what you offer.

It's a simple concept that can be difficult to master: The easier your website is to use, the more people will use it. And to do that, you need to make navigation intuitive, like placing “Contact” buttons up in the right-hand corner.

To illustrate what happens when you try to be, as they say, too clever by half:

Have you ever rushed up to a door and given it a hearty push, only to realize you were supposed to pull? Have you LOLed when you’ve seen someone else do it? That’s what’s known as the “Norman door” effect, where design elements give users indications to do one thing, but the result is not what was expected—like doors that, based on experience, signal push but don’t budge.

So, how do you ensure your website delivers experiences people actually enjoy?

Begin by making sure UX and UI work together. It’s not good enough to only know the user and what they want from a website experience; you must also help them navigate and complete their goals with the use of visual design.

User Experience Website Checklist

Average Cost for UX Website Design

Like most things, what you pay for UX website design depends on things like the scope of your project, how much testing’s involved, and the designer’s expertise. That means, in most cases, timelines, benchmarks, and costs are estimated. Working with a highly experienced website design company can eliminate much of the guesswork, but there are still variables that can impact your final price.

The thing to know is that quality UX website design can be time-consuming. But when you consider what the final product does, such as engage users, drive conversions, and deliver a remarkable ROI, it’s nearly always worth the investment.

The bottom line? The cost of UX website design may be steep, but quality UX is priceless. Ready to learn more? Schedule a meeting with us today.