As a product designer, creating a great user experience (UX) should be the number one priority. It doesn’t only prove that your hard work has paid off. It also means your website or app will perform well.
These UX best practices will help you create a seamless user experience. Using these tips consistently will help you improve your conversion rate, satisfy your users, and succeed as a UX designer.
First, why is it so important to follow these best practices?
Why Are UX Best Practices So Important?
Whenever someone uses an app, website, or digital product, they are engaging in a human-computer interaction. Behind the computer’s actions lies the work of a talented UX designer. Their work has made the interaction a whole lot easier for the consumer.
Have you ever visited a website and immediately closed the window because the design was so terrible? Whether it was due to the UX or the user interface (UI), this shows how important design is.
All of the design elements of a digital product come together to create an experience for the end user. If all of the design elements are consistent and easy to follow, visitors will have a more positive experience.
User-centered design can make a huge difference when it comes to the experience of a product. By following UX design best practices, design teams can ensure that their product is genuinely useful for the end consumer.
Here are ten best practices to follow.
1. Establish Your Process
Having a clear design process can save you a great deal of time and energy.
Most processes follow a similar path, beginning with research on the target audience. Next, UX designers work on designing and optimizing the product. Constant user testing ensures the product works efficiently and that the user’s journey is frictionless.
Remember, UX design is iterative, so you may need to revisit each step along the way. Regardless, having a clear process will help you make the most of your digital product.
2. Think Like a Consumer
Putting yourself in the user’s shoes is perhaps the most important best practice of all. It might seem obvious, but it’s crucial to think of your product through the eyes of your users.
As the designer, it’s easy to lose yourself in the process and lose sight of the big picture. You already know how to use your product, but your consumers don’t. Think about the user’s end goals and how your product will address their pain points. You also need to think about how your user experiences each touchpoint.
You need to work to meet user expectations at every stage of the journey. You can do that by putting yourself in their shoes.
3. Forge Clear Paths
Your digital product needs a clear visual hierarchy. It should be easy for the user to get where they need to be. Think of your product like a treasure map.
Although you have a target audience, each user will approach your product from a slightly different angle. They may have several interlinking goals, or they may have different experience levels. As a result, the ‘X’ that marks the spot might be in a different place for each user.
The challenge of your product is to meet all of these unique needs. It should be easy for each user to reach the treasure they’re looking for.
Designing clear website navigation can help your users determine:
- Where they are
- How to find what they’re looking for
- What your site contains
- How to use your product
Developing a sitemap can prevent users from getting lost. It also helps from a design perspective, helping you keep track of our pages. Furthermore, it’s useful for search engines crawling your site. It’s a win-win-win!
4. Consistency Is Key
Users who visit your site will make a decision about it in seconds. A consistent design is visually appealing, and it also shows your users that you’re clear on branding. As a result, they can be clear about your branding, too.
Design consistency helps to limit confusion, but it’s also a big contributor to branding. Make sure you consider:
- Visual consistency: Fonts, buttons, colors, images, etc.
- Functional consistency: Similar controls and functions should work the same way.
- Voice and tone: All copy should have a similar tone.
No matter what you create, it should be consistent. New users should quickly learn what to expect from your brand, and part of this is through UX. For example, let’s say you head to a website and find that everything loads slowly and is low-quality. Those are now things that you associate with the brand.
Instead, make sure your design is consistent and on point.
5. Search UX Best Practices: Browsing Begins on the Homepage
Often, the home page is the first thing users see, so the UX is particularly crucial here. The homepage should clarify your brand and product. Furthermore, the home page needs to stand out from your competitors and establish credibility.
Consider the task management platform Trello. The homepage clearly defines user goals on the homepage, making the product seem more attractive. Instantly, the user knows what this product is all about.
Your home page should also include a search bar for easy navigation. Research from Baymard found that 61% of websites’ search functions misaligned with users’ actual queries. This is not a trap you want to fall into, so try to simplify the search experience.
Some search UX best practices include:
- Making the search bar easy to find
- Offering autocomplete that aligns with user behaviors
- Providing search filters and predictive search
6. Ensure Accessibility
People with disabilities have very different experiences using digital products. Depending on their disability, they may need assistive tools to navigate technology.
Your digital product should always cater to those who have accessibility requirements. Not only is this ethical, but you’ll also miss out on business if you don’t. Furthermore, some countries have accessibility laws, which means you could end up in trouble if you don’t comply. According to some research, 94% of top-grossing sites miss out on key accessibility requirements.
Usability requirements may include:
- Larger fonts for reading accessibility
- Text-to-speech capabilities
- Easily readable fonts for those with dyslexia
Sometimes, you must factor accessibility into the overall design. 8% of men are colorblind, equating to over 26 million American men. By ensuring that your brand colors are appropriate for those with colorblindness, you can be inclusive of millions of people.
7. Don’t Forget Mobile UX Best Practices
Mobile traffic makes up a significant portion of web visits. As a result, you should optimize your product for mobile apps. If mobile users find that your site is difficult to read, slow-loading, or performs poorly on mobile, they will leave.
By following mobile UX best practices, you can ensure that your product works for everyone. At the very least, your design should be fast-loading and responsive to touch screens of all sizes. Keep in mind font size and image quality, too.
8. UX Onboarding Best Practices
When users first stumble across your product, you have a short time frame to wow them. One in four users abandon an app after the first use. Following UX onboarding best practices can help you avoid this trap.
Your design team must approach onboarding from the view of the consumer. It’s just like Best Practice #2. You need to create a frictionless experience that introduces users to the product without overwhelming them.
The overarching goal of onboarding is to give the user an “a-ha!” moment. This is when they realize that your product can address all of their pain points.
Here are some recommendations for best practices in frictionless onboarding:
- Show people the progress they have made in onboarding
- Make each step skippable in case the user does not have time to complete it
- Approach onboarding with the target audience in mind. Is it better to do a video tutorial or skip the tour and use pop-up tooltips?
- Consider how the onboarding process fits with your branding
9. UX Writing Best Practices
Users should not have to guess what you mean. It’s tempting to lose yourself in copywriting and write fun phrases that match your brand. However, if your user has no idea what you’re trying to convey, it makes the UX pointless.
As a result, the copy is one of the most important design decisions you make. If you write “See More” on a button for an e-commerce website, consumers might have questions. What are they seeing if they click the button? Is there a way to make it clearer where the button leads?
Follow UX writing best practices to make your copy accessible and easy to follow. Again, there should be a visual hierarchy where the most important information is the most obvious. Plus, your copy should be on-brand and have a consistent tone.
10. Conduct Regular User Testing
Usability testing is one of the most important tenets of UX. This is a constant, iterative process. The UX team should be constantly identifying issues and rectifying designs based on user feedback.
During the design phase, it’s crucial to carry out usability testing to ensure the product works. This saves time and money when it’s time to go to launch. The last thing you want is to launch a product just to find out it’s full of bugs.
Even after launch, make sure you gather user feedback to hone the design. You should also collect analytics on user behaviors, loading speed, and clicks. Armed with this information, you can make improvements to the UX over time.
For example, let’s say your e-commerce site has a large proportion of iPhone users. Why not add Apple Pay to your checkout options? This reduces friction for a chunk of your users, improves the UX, and makes your product better.
Make Your UX Better Than Ever With Expert Insights
With these UX best practices in mind, you can conquer the world of UX. However, best practices will only get you so far. You also need creativity, fresh ideas, and inspiration.
Page Flows is the perfect site for learning everything there is to know about UX. If you’re looking for UX inspiration, learn from proven products. Our library of resources will show you real, successful design ideas.
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