Commerce brands need sales-driven sites.
Those conversions are directly down to the quality of your site, and how your users experience it.
The best performing websites are intentionally planned so that each step your customer takes elicits a positive experience. From the moment visitors land on your URL, your site’s job is to guide them through the site with ease and present them with the information they’re looking for.
In the worst case scenario, your customers feel frustrated with the site, can’t find what they’re looking for, and decide to shop with your competitor.
We need to shorten the path and delight your customers at every touchpoint.
We spoke to our talented experience team to find out some of the biggest design mistakes they see and how to improve them.
Forgetting the user
Every design should be customer-centric. It must of course be attractive and clear but just looking good to your team isn’t going to be enough. Designs need to consider the user’s expectations based on their previous experiences with other sites and similar products.
Make sure you’re testing these designs using tools like heatmaps, user interviews and analytics. Our team facilitates these throughout the design process, which allows us to meet the real needs of their customers.
Hard to reach CTAs
The aim of any website is to get customers to take action and move through to the next stage of their buying journey. Each of these clickable actions is called a goal. For users to reach a goal, they must be able to identify it and click on it with ease.
In modern interfaces, this isn’t always clear, and customers are left feeling confused about where they need to click next.
Think about the goal of each page, and where you’d like your customers to go. Check the CTAs are clear and set apart from the rest of the page to maximise actions. In our experience, A/B testing with our client’s designs proves that even small changes can have massive impact.
Overloaded menus
The main problem with an overloaded menu is very similar to the junk drawer in your house: no one can know what you put in there. Your marketing teams may understand your site structure and why certain pages fit under each category, but your customer often doesn’t.
Keep menus simple, with minimal levels so as not to overwhelm customers.
Innovation at the expense of usability
When a user visits an online store, they expect to see a shopping cart in the upper right corner. This is a universal rule for this type of website.
If the user gets to the main storefront and doesn’t see the shopping cart in the upper right corner, your customer will be confused and may even feel discouraged from making any purchases.
The main thing to remember here is whilst innovation is critical, try not to do this on the basic elements that help users navigate quickly and habitually.
Key takeaways
Web design is more than aesthetics alone. Investing in user-centric design with the goal of increasing sales can create a strong user experience which helps your website generate more conversions.
But, translating that design to engineers who can build this for you is a tricky step. This is why our full service of designers and developers work closely to achieve the experiences your brand envisions.
If you’re looking for your next step of digital transformation, we’d love to talk to you about strategy. Drop a message to our team, let’s book in a free call.
