User Experience: How Does Your Website Feel?
UX (which stands for “user experience”) is more than a set of standards to apply to building and deploying websites, apps, or other environments through the use of digital user interfaces. It is an important perspective, among several, to use when creating and managing these environments.
Perspectives and Trends
Any given perspectives are often different from others. And very often—even after years of development—there are different preferences among professional developers. Some have merit that can be easily articulated. Some just feel right or wrong.
And, of course, thoughtful UI/UX (“user interface”/”user experience”) is often affected by trends as well. What was considered an effective CTA (“call to action”) a couple years ago may be very different today. For a while, almost every button you encountered had some neat hover effect. Whether those aided or possibly distracted the user journey is another thing to consider. We focus on the user’s engagement and experience when he or she uses the website.
We're still seeing the fallout from the “tiny type” trend of years ago—where some felt tiny type on a website sort of created a sophisticated, professional feel. Today, readability is considered to be much more important—even before SEO (“search engine optimizations”) and ADA (“Americans with Disabilities Act”) considerations are applied.
Changes
An important thing to consider about website UX is that it may change—and maybe a lot—based on content. If you need to apply a couple of short paragraphs to explain a set of services, as an example, a small area with plenty of padding may work/look/read the best. But if the content runs longer, or is structured unusually, different treatments really should be considered.
Behavior
UI/UX really is the study of how your website behaves. Think about the popular adage: “They may not remember what you said, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.” And while it’s difficult to maintain attention to these kinds of sensibilities as website content gets continually changed, replaced, reformatted, redesigned and re-promoted—we remain consultative, and advocate for the best UX in every new page, section, media, CTA, promotion, image, and interaction.
It’s true: Content is king. But “fit and finish” is the kingdom. Your web presence is precious. It represents instantaneous engagement and has the power to create potential relationships of all kinds. A deliberately positive experience that accompanies your web page means a lot.
Care to give a refresh to the web presence of your brand or business? Reach out to EGC to learn more.
Learn more about Brian McAlpin, Web Developer at EGC.