What is a User Experience (UX)?
The exact definition as outlined by the International Organization for Standardization, is a “Customer’s perceptions and responses resulting from the use and or anticipated use of a product, system or service.” In simpler words it is how your customer feel about every interaction they have with what’s in front of them in the moment they are using it. It refers to a customer’s behaviors, attitudes and emotions when using product or a service.
There are many factors that needs to taken into consideration when understanding a UX of a product or a service:
- A customer should be able to use it easily.
- A customer should be able to find / search what they need easily.
- A customer should be able to get the features / functionality that it is developed for.
- A customer should be able to value it, design should be able to save customer’s time and achieve their goal.
- A customer should be able to trust its authenticity and security.
Whether the product or a service is a website or a mobile app there are few general tips that applies to both:
- Get the detailed understanding of the product or the service. If you are developing it for your client then interact with them and try to understand what they exactly need.
- Social media has become a key for success; opt for integrating social networking in the product or the service. Customers can promote their business with options like “Like”, “+1” and “Share”.
- Add social login to your product or service. Nobody likes to get register everywhere to use the product or the service, as it is tiring and tedious. Allowing customer to sign in with their existing Google, Facebook or Twitter account is quick and convenient.
- Wireframe the specifications, it gives a clear visual representation of the flow of system. It will help all the involved stakeholders (including client) to give an exact pictorial representation of the whole system.
Tips for better mobile application UX:
- Users have become accustomed to using techniques provided by built-in apps of the mobile OS, this is the most important tip because if the app does not provide these techniques then it is of no use.
- App should take advantage and be aware of user’s personal condition. It should make use of user’s geolocation, usage and app settings.
- A mobile app is mainly used by users to for some specific things they are looking, so it’s very important to have ‘smart’ search feature in the app using which user can find what they want quickly.
- A majority of smartphone users operate it using one hand and mostly thumb. Hence, the interface should be designed in such a way that it supports thumb oriented gestures. Along with it the app should support multiple fingers gestures wherever necessary.
- User should be notified about the privacy and security concern, like the app will use the contacts, files etc. of the mobile.
- The app icon should be attractive and distinct. It should make the app easily recognizable.
- Use Call to Action (CTA) buttons for most important features of the app. Recommend size of buttons for different mobile OS are:
- Android 48 x 48
- Windows Phone 34 x 34
- Apple 44 x 44
- A smartphone can operate in two modes: Landscape and Portrait, the flow between these two modes in the app should be smooth and work effortlessly irrespective of the mobile mode.
- If the app is solely dependent on internet for all its functionality then it is must to give users with customization and settings dependent on connectivity like avoid heavy image download when user has 2G/3G network connection etc.
- For the contents to look simpler and cleaner, it is recommended not use lines for separating the widgets or elements, instead a proper spacing must used to between multiple widgets and elements.
- Using Flat Design approach, which makes interface looks cleaner.
- User layered (multi-layer) interface, where active widgets and information are in the front end and non-active are at back end.
- Choose simple and subtle colors which can optimize the interface and have positive impact on users.
- App should be able to recognize common gestures like swipe, pinch, zoom, shake etc. and react accordingly for better user interaction.
Tips for better website UX:
- The most important tip is browser compatibility. Check the website on different browsers and make sure that every feature of the website runs perfectly on all browsers. There are many scripts and CSS issues that vary from one browser to another.
- Another most important point in this section is the loading time. It is recommended that a website should load a page completely somewhere between 3 to 5 seconds. Otherwise it becomes frustrating for the users. In order to achieve this:
- Use optimized images as they consume a lot of time in rendering.
- Have asynchronous loading where the primary content of page is loaded and then the images and plugins.
- Avoid using too many plugins, each plugin takes some time to load and if there are many plugins on the page then it will take time for load the page.
- Website should be responsive, it should be able to recognize the device that user is using and fit accordingly. User is going to visit the website through mediums like mobile, tablet, laptop or a PC and the website should be able to support all these devices.
- Identify the audience (visitors) and have content displayed accordingly. The content / navigation and layout should be such that it focuses and attracts all types of visitors for which website has been built. For e.g. a banking site can have a average person and business person both visiting the website so it should focus on both “Personal Accounts” and “Business Accounts”.
- Website should be easy to navigate; the website menu should be intuitive. It is recommended to provide a sitemap so that user can navigate easily through website. Having breadcrumb navigation is also recommended as it allows the users to keep a complete record of their locations.
- Good typography is the foundation of decent reading experience as website contents are the key and main part of any website.
- Have the feature of undoing user actions. Users on website can unknowingly do some action and make mistakes; there should be feature of undoing user actions in important sections of website which can save a lot of hassle and stress from doing something that was not intended.
- Make sure that website has Call to Action (CTA) buttons at all main points wherever a user’s action is required. This is important because a user does not have time to read everything that is mentioned in the content and will be directly to take an action like clicking button to complete the functionality.
- Take into consideration the use of website on mobile devices where a user does not have full keyboard and mouse; they depend on small keypad and accordingly the website should react on mobile and tablet devices. For easier searching the links, features, text etc. should be in larger images.
- Most crucial information should be displayed on top and easily accessible so that if website is been operated from any device the user is able to find the most important features and information immediately.
- Website section like payment pages should be highly secure, it is recommended to use “https” protocol for such sections, it is also recommended to show the users that website is secure and protected by displaying “SSL” certificate provider logo. These things are necessary to gain the trust of user.
At LetsNurture we have a team of highly experienced UX designers / analyst and we have delivered top notch websites and mobile apps. If you are looking for creating a best product with excellent user experience then we will be happy to help you in fulfilling your ideas into a fully functional software product. Feel Free to email us on info@letsnurture.com
