Hallmarks of a good user experience

User experience serves as your plan of action. A secret sauce on your path to victory. It is integral in two scenarios – to win more business and one-up the competition. It is not enough to use user experience to keep up with the competition, instead, strive for exceptional user experience for a distinct competitive advantage.

First things first, a good user experience (UX) is one that addresses the needs of the user efficiently. And evokes an emotion of either surprise, shock, or delight when the experience exceeds expectations.

So, are you abreast with what makes for a good user experience?

Findable and Efficient

A user experience that is not complex, and that enables the user to accomplish the task at hand effortlessly, is the best. It suffers most when you have a disorganized website, full of fragmented navigation. Your users finding it difficult to quickly and accurately reach their end goals also serves as an example of a bad UX. To ensure that this does not happen, the navigation should aim to provide multiple ways to complete tasks, with clear steps and roadmaps to guide users through the experience.

However, it’s important to remember that every user is unique. Consider the various personas who may use your site and understand how each interacts with the platform.

Finally, your website should have quick load times and should be updated as time goes on. Improper navigation, coupled with content that is confusing, makes it difficult for users to find what they’re looking for. Broken links, 404 errors, and lagging load times can make or break your experience.

Credible and Understandable

Trust is priceless. Customer wants to trust the companies they do business with; B2B or B2C. Your credibility increases manifold when your digital assets generate user confidence. A website with a not-in-use phone number or old address leads to distrust. Users will be cautious to provide personal details or credit card information. Do your bit to ensure information is accurate, relevant, and timely. Your content should also be user-centric and not business-centric. Match it to your brand’s voice and tone.

A good user experience also means that there is at least one point of contact who is a real person. Providing a clear path to speak to live customer service is key.

Usable and Accessible

It’s 5X times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain a current one. It indicates that your user experience should accommodate and encourage repeat visitors. Strive to offer a consistent, personalized, intuitive, and constant experience across each interaction. Make them accustomed to your website and they will rarely make an effort to navigate others.

Design with accessibility in mind. Establish a positive user-interface experience that can cater to as many users as possible for business growth.

Functional and Aesthetically Pleasing

What does that mean?

A functional user experience is one with a clearly defined purpose and is easily translatable; works equally well on all devices. Also, functions that cut down the confusion, remove unnecessary steps, and offer a clear and intuitive roadmap are more enjoyable.

While function and beauty are mutually exclusive, the reality is that aesthetics and design are important facets of an elevated experience. They complement and enhance one another equally, and research shows that aesthetics actually impact perceived usability.

Site design should interpret your brand’s visual identity. Elements like color palette, imagery, and typography should be paid attention to create a cohesive representation of your business and brand.

Enjoyable and Exceptional

Your website should evoke a desired emotional response from your users. It should be extremely delightful urging your user to visit your site or make purchases again and again. It should leave them feeling satisfied, interested, and pleased. Additionally, it should eliminate notions of distrust, confusion, and boredom. An exceptional and satisfactory user experience goes a long way, but surprising users will set you apart from the competition. It will keep people coming back again and again.

So how do you do it? How do you create a user experience that fulfills all the features and is it even possible to match all?

Yes, it is, but reaching that level of excellence doesn’t happen overnight. Begin by taking a step back. Go back to the drawing board, and dig deep to evaluate your existing user experience.

Can you find some gaps? Is a makeover required? Where are the gaps? What are your customers really looking for?

Get answers to these questions and you are close to meeting all the parameters.

Cheers…to an exceptional user experience.