UX Agency Should Prioritize "Usability" in Website Users' Experience

It is significant that a UX agency must prioritize “usability” as the primary requisite when proposing a website design to customers.

Are you confused with what usually a UX agency is doing? There are various topics as to what a user experience agency must do to uplift the performance of a business website. The general topic is about “usability” because it is a big factor in providing an exceptional users’ experience. But oftentimes, it is overlooked.

If an agency is researching how usable a website is for the target audiences, it should consider several things. Is it enough to say that the website must be user-friendly? Or, is it more than that idea? Ramotion has presented some facts for you to understand well this subject matter - the usefulness of one’s website.

Usability Should Be the Main Focus of a UX Agency

What does usability mean? It’s actually a term used to describe the helpfulness of a certain product or service to the users. With respect to websites, it is how easy the users can use/access the site.
User testing is an essential component of this. You have to test the users’ taste and you have to get their impression before you’re going to launch your business site. Somehow, it’s considered as an experience design’s sub-discipline.

To some extent, it is interchanged intelligibly with UX design. But it is imperative that you arrive at an understanding regarding the clear distinction between the two. UX design is considered as the main discipline, while usability is a sub-discipline.

What Are the Determinants of Users’ Awesome Experiences?

When we say that a website is usable, it means its features have been appreciated by the users. There are several elements to determine if the site’s interface is usable enough or not.

Website’s Server

The server of your website serves as the primary element. It comes first because it is the main parameter to consider when talking about a UX-based website’s performance. A server hosts your website and without it, your website can’t run.

The sub-elements of the server are speed and downtime. Speed refers to how fast or slow a website opens pages when a visitor visits and uses it. It’s an important factor for Google ranking, an important note to mull over. If a page quickly loads, then it can be surmised that the website is usable. Otherwise, it is not.

Furthermore, downtime is another sub-element under the server aspect. There are times when a website is not accessible due to server’s maintenance, and other possible factors. It is important that part of the UX design process is to come up with a structural model that explains how efficient and effective a server is in addressing downtime-related site problems. Once it’s incorporated in the design, then the users will appreciate the performance of the website with the help of a UX agency, like UX Planet.

Website’s HTML

Having great HTMLs is a way to have an awesome user experience. At present, mobile-based sites are the only ones that are benefiting from UX-based ranking on the different search engines, like Google. But it can’t be argued that in the future, it can also benefit the other available platforms.

When creating the right HTML, there are processes to do. First, you should start with the ALT tags. Use images when applying ALT tags. The said tags can help the internal performance of your website images.
Second, don’t forget to address 404 pages. These are the “error pages”, so to speak. Usually, you will see 404 Not Found Pages. It happens when the links are broken. Kindly check your links if they are still properly placed or not. Check if the external links are still live or not. And avoid using a default 404 page because in any way, it can’t really help your website’s ranking.

Website’s Visualization

Visuals are essential elements that you should not take for granted. Visual aspects play a very crucial role while exerting effort to provide a great experience to the users of your website. And take note that it is the most controllable aspect of all the elements of users’ experience. Why? The web design and UX team has full control over the images that are going to be used for the website.

When choosing the right visuals, for instance, images, you should consider the color and font size. Make sure that the typography aspect is okay. The texts should be readable. As well, the color should be friendly to the eyes of the users. Make fonts as large as possible.

Moreover, the company logo should be relative to the promise of the brand. Logo and branding must work together in this regard. When placing your logo at your website, supposedly, it must be at the top-left corner. The reason behind this is that, that portion of your website is the most visible place every user can directly see when opening your homepage.
Content is also part of the visuals of your website. You have to see to it that the content pages are clear enough, well-created, shareable, and engaging. Of course, a website copy is part of the content of your site. Use tools when displaying the design elements pertinent to the content. Those tools can help your business a lot.

Website Tools

It is important for you to know that there are tools that can help improve the level of your website’s usability. There are free ones but there are also tools to be paid. You have to choose those which suitably work for your site.

Using tools can increase the usership factor. It’s a good thing to ponder and it must be part of the UX design plan - what tools are needed for your website’s performance to become favorable to the users? Usually, tools are initially used during site testing so that sets of information and data relevant to the users’ realities can be gathered. There are also tools that can help increase the readability of your site content. While others are responsible in seeing to it that your site is responsive and speedy enough.

Streamlining the User’s Experience through Hick’s Law

The web design should be simple. It must not be messy. Refrain from having a lot of contents that are unnecessary. Apply Hick’s Law.
When applying the Hick’s Law, the first thing to consider is the desirability factor of your site. Will the users love the content pages that you have? It is about giving the users what they deserve to have. So, an interface design should be able to provide contents that can catch the emotional aspect. And instead of putting a lot of fluffy words, make your web copy concise yet rich and relative.

It is also part of the consideration to make your website accessible to all. The experiences of the online users may vary depending on some factors. To avoid frustration, the site must be accessible even to those physically impaired individuals.

To avoid more complexities, there has to be an undeniable credibility. The trust factor really matters in this sense. You can convince more people and you can help the users’ decide to get your offers if you’re credible enough. If not, then this factor might affect the overall performance of your UX-designed website. It is part of the credibility factor to provide online security to your customers. Therefore, it is important that there are software and tools that will protect your clients’ sensitive data and information.

In a Nutshell…

It’s not easy to please your audience. But there are a lot of ways that you can do to make people happy. The most important thing is you launch a website that is not only usable but above all, credible and trustworthy.
If you want to know more about what UX designers do, read this Forbes article.