If you are coming from a web design background, then you already know that usability is one of the most important factors when it comes to your users visiting and staying on your website or web application. In reality, it goes beyond just usability in the realm of user experience. Use experience goes beyond having a website that is just usable. A true user experience includes number of components such as taxonomy, content, visual design and user feedback. This why it behooves business owners to focus on user experience guidelines as explained below.
User Experience Guidelines and Visual Design
Now, the visual design aims at optimizing the visual communication between the site and the user. This component communicates the underlying website’s structure to the user, giving out relevant information at the right time in the process. Generally, this manifests in graphic design standards and branding guidelines for a site.
On the other hand, taxonomy focuses on the harmonious classification of content, user orientation as well as navigation. Do the users know where they are at all times? Do they have ways to navigate to various areas of the site and is it clear by which clicks they can find something?
The content component reminds you that even if you have high usability and great navigation, it all does not help if you do not have relevant content. By relevant, we mean that there is everything that the users want, and that the information is helpful and meets their expectations.
Now, building great user friendly website takes more than just great usability.
This is where we illuminate the hygiene factors, so let us get into the real user experience guidelines. The difference between these two aspects is just like the difference between just liking something and having people to talk about it.
Serving the users well and delivering what they expect is usability, but the real user experience is over delivering and surpassing what the users expect is some areas. Well, to build great user experience guidelines, it is imperative that you find out what your prospects expect or really want. This can be accomplished by carrying out surveys and other qualitative studies. When clear about it, ensure that all hygiene factors are in place. After that, you can unleash your creativity in the key areas you wish to exceed your prospect’s expectations.
In regards to this, it is best to go with areas that have low user expectations, as these are the low hanging fruits where it is quite easy to over deliver. Ideally, you should go for areas that are deal breakers, areas where it is crucial that you put in more effort to come up with something really impressive.
When creating real user experience, don’t make the common mistake of just focusing on your website. User experience falls in every point of communication across all the various channels and media, between you and the users. You could think of like a web analytics system that only portrays its real value when the loop is closed and you can be able to track the users from the point of entry all the way to the product checkout section.
