There are elements that we need to consider when we want to enhance user experience in our website.
- Graphics: When using graphic, we should know things that our website is representing. Graphics we use could reflect our personality and our website could be geared towards specific products. Graphics that we use shouldn’t be too distracting to viewers. Emphasis should be placed on improving level of comfort and increasing the degree of information transmission. During the web development process, we will need to choose our color palletes and we may need to limit our color choices. Colors should be kept congruent with one another. People who enjoy outdoors situations may choose more subtle tones, such as green, brown and beige. This is ideal if the website is associated with outdoors sports, environment conservation and other similar things. For websites geared towards business, we may use shades of black and blue with plenty of white spaces.
- Fonts: Fonts are often considered as a minor element of web design, but most of the time, people read and they don’t stare too long on our graphics elements. Twisty and overly artistic fonts will reduce user experience, because they will find it harder to read our website. Recommended fonts for our website include Arial, Verdana and Helvetica. These fonts are known for high readability and they are future-proof, unlike the boring Times New Roman. We may try other fonts, but we should always prioritize high degree of readability, because readers tend to scan, instead of reading.
- Pictures and videos: Other than text, our website will certainly include pictures and even some videos. Pictures and videos should be considered as parts of content. We shouldn’t place pictures and videos haphazardly, making them look like a scrapbook. Pictures should be placed strategically where they can increase comprehension when users read the surrounding text. Videos should also support out content. With good usages, a picture does worth a thousand words and a video a million words. Random assortments of pictures and videos could actually distract readers from text and this will ruin their focus. When incorporating videos, relevancy is often the key. Our videos should be relevant not only in topics, but also size and color schemes.
- Consistency: Consistency is essential when we want to create a website. It is important to maintain a cohesive look and feel of our webpages. In this case, viewers should be comfortable and properly oriented. As an example, our font type should be consistent across all pages. When building a successful brand, consistency is also the key. Successful brands also use consistency to improve public recognition. Amazon and Facebook have their own unique color schemes. This will allow us to associate specific elements of the design with brands. Good consistency in fonts, graphics and backgrounds will allow us achieve better conversions. In closing, we should always try to improve user experience if we want to create a killer website. This will turn random visitors into buyers and eventually loyal customers.