Create the perfect user experience
UX stands for user experience and is how your user feels when interacting with your website. It's important to create a positive user experience that keeps customers returning to your site.
With this in mind, you need to really understand your ideal customer and learn everything about them. There are a number of steps to take to create this customer analysis:
User Personas
Fictional characters that encompass everything your ideal client is about. Age, family life, goals, fears and everything in between. Go into as much detail as possible.
How does this help my website?
You can use these little details when creating your website. Once you know all the information you can create a site that makes your customer feel instantly comfortable because you know what excites them, what they're worried about and what their end goals are.
User Interviews
As simple as it sounds, interview your ideal clients and ask them anything you are unsure of. 'The best way to directly obtain information is by studying and interacting with users.'(1)
How does this help my website?
Similar to user personas you will now have confirmed any suspicions you had and will know exactly what your clients want and expect from you. You can create your website based on this.
Wireframes
I wrote a blog post on wireframes which you can read here.
How does this help my website?
This is where you structurally design your site taking into account what your users need. You can place things where your users would expect to find them (such as the contact button at the top right).
Prototyping
A prototype is a mock version of your site, which you can use for user testing.
How does this help my website?
Prototyping is an important step, you can create a prototype quickly with all the data collected from previous steps and then get customer feedback before making the final site.
User Testing
Prepare a set of tasks for your user to complete whilst using your prototype. Then get them to rate how easy they found it and note anything they liked or disliked.
How does this help my website?
When you repeat this with a number of people you can collate the results and will see what needs changing in your prototype before developing it into a fully functioning site.
References
1) Prayag Gangadharan, The Importance of User Experience Design, May 21, 2019
