How to improve user experience

In this competitive and ever-changing digital landscape, organisations are striving for better online visibility and customer retention. For this having an optimised website and applications is absolutely crucial. However, it is essential to note that developing a website or a web app without acknowledging the evolving latest trends and neglecting the user experience will not lead you to favourable outcomes. 

Usability Geek’s founder, Justin Mifsud, states that 88% of online customers are less likely to return to a website after having one bad website experience. Similarly, the end users are five times likely to leave the activities if the website or web application is optimised for correct use. This statistical data itself shows the significance of improving the user experience on websites, web applications, and mobile applications. 

User experience includes different aspects of the interaction of end users with the product or services that considers its usability and reliability. To leverage those and make the website a robust tool for business growth, it is important to prioritise and improve user experience. Once you understand what elements play a role in improving user experience, you can explore user experience tools that will help you achieve your objectives. 

As per the report of Forrester, a well-designed website with a good user experience can increase the conversion rate by 200% and go as high as 400%. Clearly, user experience plays a pivotal role in the success of your website, product web app, e-commerce website, or mobile app. Hence, by enhancing the user experience, you can make it easier and more enjoyable for visitors to complete these desired actions, thus increasing the conversion rate.

Therefore, if you desire to convert your website, visitors or users, dedicating careful attention to user experience and overall web design is imperative. In this article, we will discuss the 15 different ways to improve the user experience of your website and mobile app. So let's get started. 

What is User Experience (UX)?

The term user experience was coined by Don Norman and refers to the experience of the users while interacting with a product, system, or service. User experience addresses the requirement and expectations of the end-users for the UX design. Let us take an example of a tax-paying website. If the website gives simple, user-friendly, and hassle-free filling of forms and paying tax, the user experience will be positive. Similarly, if that website is complex and problematic to navigate, with a cluttered interface, or keeps getting stuck, the user experience will be bad.

“UX is impact” - Austin Knight, senior UX designer, HubSpot

To deliver a better user experience, marketing, product, and design teams must have their end user’s pain points on their tips. They also need to continuously take feedback and monitor their behaviour to optimise the product or website. An improved user experience will ultimately lead to user satisfaction, better engagement, and higher revenue.

Here are the key points one needs to focus on to improve the user experience: 

• Design: This involves strategic planning and making robust arrangements of elements to have an appealing and good layout of your product.
• Navigation: Navigation is understood as the method which helps the users to move to different sections or pages in the products. This helps to improve the website user experience.
• Performance: This includes an effective way to monitor the loading time and perform error monitoring. These techniques to improve user experience include addressing errors to optimize the speed and functionality of the products. 
• Style: This includes the look and feel of the product. This includes the color theme, typography, button style, and design of any prominent element. Ultimately leads to enhanced user experience. 
• Content: It is referred to as the information and features that should be presented within the products. This includes any text, image, and interactive elements that provide an approach for user experience improvement. 

Now, let us understand how to improve user experience on websites and mobile apps in the next section. 

15 Ways on How to Improve the User Experience (UX)

We know from the above discussion that creating a seamless and enjoyable user experience is crucial for the success of your digital product. To understand how to improve user experience, let's take a look at the following best ways: 

1. Know your customers

In order to ensure an improved user experience, it is crucial to have a deep understanding of your customers before implementing any components. These components can be any user interface elements, features, content, design elements, or any other building blocks that contribute to the overall user experience. Conducting research to familiarise yourself with your users' habits, skills, and needs is essential for mapping out their journey.

How to know your customer? 

To know the target customers, you can use the approach of gathering and analysing data from different types of sources, such as customer interactions, surveys, user behaviour tracking, website tracking and market research. You can also seek feedback on your site or app from different customers. This will help you identify any underlying challenges that customers are facing while engaging with your website or app. Teams that know their customers create products that thrive; after all, there is a cost for ignoring your customers.

How can this information help improve user experience? 

Knowing your users better can greatly enhance your design process and knowing what to build, leading to a better user experience. Here are a few ways to understand your users can help you:

• Create a style guide: You can select a design style that aligns with the preference of customers and help give an enhanced user experience. 
• Prioritise features: You can better understand the needs of your users, which in turn helps you make informed decisions related to features prioritisation and pipeline. ‍
• Speak like your users: This will help know the user’s language, which can help optimise content like website headings, CTA text, feature names, and more.. With this, you can communicate more effectively and have an engaging user experience.

Seek feedback on your product from both current and prospective users to identify the challenges they are facing and how they would like them to be addressed.

When designing the user experience, it is important to rely on qualitative and quantitative data about your potential customers. Using session replays can help you gather information on how your users are behaving on your app or site and what’s making them drop. It’s a good idea to understand session replay in and out and even explore the session replay tools in the market. For this, you refer to the session replay guide to have a better understanding of the recording and reviewing of user sessions on a website or application.

One of the most used session replay tools is Zipy which can be used to improve website user experience.

2. Monitoring users 

Monitoring users is one of the best ways to enhance user experience across both the website and the application. Here, user data is collected and analyzed by the organization and using such data; it is easy to gain insight and information on their behaviour, preference and pain points. What is done by this information? It's simple; this information is used to make an informed decision to improve user experience to align with the user’s needs and expectations.  

Real User monitoring is a crucial part of monitoring users; it allows product managers and marketers to evaluate every action of their website visitors and existing users. This is also referred to as real user measurement, real user metrics or end-user experience monitoring (EUM). This helps in observing user behaviour and reaching real conclusions which could not be derived from data alone. To track your users you can go for a product and website monitoring tool. Let us now understand how to improve the user experience by analysing the benefits of real user monitoring. 

Here are the benefits of real user monitoring:

• User-centric insights: With real user monitoring, you can have good knowledge and understanding of website user behaviour and their interactions with products. 
• Performance optimization: You can identify the performance-related error of the product and scope to improve website user experience. This eventually could increase the speed and reliability of the product. 
• Conversion rate optimization: Real user monitoring helps the organisation to track the interaction of users with the products while in the conversion process. This allows you to make data decisions for user experience improvement.
• Product adoption: Real user monitoring gives data to the product manager, which helps them to find any barriers to adopting new strategies for user experience improvement. 
• Remove frustration issues: By monitoring user behaviour, real user monitoring allows businesses to pinpoint sources of frustration in the user experience and make necessary improvements, leading to higher user satisfaction.‍
• Proactive issue resolution: You can detect and resolve issues or errors by real user monitoring. This allows for prompt resolution before any severe impact of the error on user experience. These techniques to improve user experience are one of the most used among product managers. 

User monitoring tools like Zipy have way more to offer. It even supports error monitoring and debugging tools. So that once you identify the gaps, you can even get them fixed. Sign up for a lifetime free plan.

Zipy combines session replays and error and performance monitoring to track user behaviour on your site and product.

User monitoring tools help you: 

• Get user session replays: It gives you a recording of your user sessions on your product. These recordings show how the user navigated through the pages, their clicks, mouse flow, and scrolls. 
• Error and performance monitoring: Code errors and performance issues can easily spoil your user experience. These are also leveraged as website monitoring tools to keep a check on these errors so that you can fix them right away. 
• Analyse user behaviour data: Analyse the journey of individual users or user segments that you want to study. You can track them and find out the main reason for abandoning your website, customer churn, and more. You can also track data related to user sessions.

A user monitoring tool can be your partner in identifying gaps and getting them fixed for a super smooth user experience. 

3. Page Load Time

Undeniably, one of the most crucial factors that cannot be emphasised enough is the loading speed of a website. As reported by the 2023 Statista Survey,  a mere additional five seconds of page load time can result in a staggering 26% increase in website abandonment rate. To prevent your website from being abandoned due to a poor user experience, it is imperative to prioritise page speed optimization. Consider implementing the following measures:

• Minimise code: Reduce the size of Javascript, CSS, and HTML to minimise backend computations.‍
• Optimise images and media: The size of media files have a great impact on the page load time. It’s best to reduce their size while maintaining clarity.
• Reduce redirects: Minimize unnecessary page redirects to eliminate additional waiting time for users.
• Avoid excessive widgets and plugins, and features: Streamline your website by avoiding unnecessary elements. For example, instead of having multiple social media sharing buttons on each page, you can simplify your website by including only the relevant and most used ones.
• Track performance: Utilize tools like GTmetrix and Google's PageSpeed Insights to ensure optimal performance.
• Load time analysis: You can use Google Page Speed Insights to determine the page load time of your website.

4. Responsive design and mobile optimization

In the present day, we find ourselves surrounded by various devices with screens of different sizes. Almost everyone carries a smartphone, making mobile devices the primary means of web browsing. Neglecting mobile optimization can result in a fivefold increase in website abandonment, effectively shutting out a substantial number of potential customers. Therefore, if your website lacks responsiveness and mobile-friendliness, you risk losing a significant number of users.

You can use the following strategies to ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly: 

• Use a responsive CMS, framework, or CSS: Implement a responsive design approach so that your website is mobile-friendly. 
• Optimise images and media: You need to lower the file size of your visuals to reduce loading time.
• Optimise for readability:  Use legible fonts, appropriate font sizes, and sufficient contrast for easy reading.‍
• Touch-friendly interactions: When designing mobile layouts, prioritise one-touch interactions, accommodating users who operate their devices with one or two hands. Understanding the minimum size required for mobile touch targets is essential for achieving optimal interface goals.‍
• Test on multiple devices: You must ensure that the website is accurately tested for its functionality on different screen sizes and real devices. ‍
• Monitor and refine: You need to continuously monitor the user behaviour and gather feedback for improving the user experience.

It is essential for the design to adapt seamlessly regardless of the screen size of the device being used. Nowadays, many designers adopt a mobile-first approach in their UX design process.

5. Clear call to action (CTA)

Calls to Action (CTAs) prompt users to take particular actions that allow for easy navigation, stimulating conversion. It is crucial to have prominent CTAs on every page of the website and even within web and mobile applications.  

• Colour & style: To make CTAs more noticeable, buttons can be enhanced using suitable colours and styles as shown in the below example.

A call-to-action (CTA) directs your audience towards the next action they should take, instilling a sense of urgency. Typically presented as a clickable link or button, it guides users to the next stage of their journey, whether it involves signing up for a download, booking a demo, or making a purchase.

• Placement: Apart from how a call to action button appears, its placement plays an important role in making the user click on it. Your CTAs should occupy a prominent position on the page, like in the centre of the section.
• ‍Text: The text should include an action verb that motivates users to take action.

6. Consistent design 

Consistency refers to the harmonisation of heading sizes, colours, fonts, buttons, illustrations, and spacing throughout your website. Adopting consistent design elements ensures coherence in your website's and application’s overall appearance. Sudden and drastic design changes can confuse your visitors, while consistency helps establish brand credibility and awareness. 

By employing consistent design and messaging across all your marketing and sales channels, your brand becomes more recognizable. Here are the ways that can be used to achieve consistency in product and website design: 

• Make use of a comprehensive style guide that specifies heading typography and size, element colours, button styles, icons, and logos. 
•  Use specific templates and reusable components. 
• Set up a system design that has all the visual and interaction patterns for your website.

7. Keep your website and app bug-free 

Errors and user issues are common in tech products. However, marketing and product teams must ensure that they are fixed right away to maintain a smooth digital experience. This requires regular error monitoring and prompt bug fixes to ensure that your website and apps are fully functional.  

Error monitoring is the process of where you detect, report, analyse and debug errors found in the product. With this approach, you will be able to ensure that your software product maintains stability and quality. This image shows how error monitoring tools can track errors on your product while giving you the flexibility to filter, segment, and manage them

Here are the key components of error monitoring: 

1. Error detection: This component of error monitoring involves the identification of errors that may occur in your products per launch or post-launch stage. 
2. Error reporting: When the error is detected, it has to be reported with the user and code details to the concerned team, which usually is the product, marketing, or support team. These teams work with the engineering team to get the fixes rolling.  
3. Error analysis: The reported error is examined for code issues, by studying logs, stack traces, and user environment and behaviour.‍
4. Error debugging: The last step is to resolve the identified error, to maintain a smooth user experience. There are debugging tools for developers that they can use to resolve the issue and push out the fix.

It’s best to go for an error monitoring and debugging tool like Zipy to identify, manage, and resolve errors in your website and app. It allows you to track your users in real-time by recording their sessions, monitoring errors, and helping your development team resolve issues. It’s a complete package for end-to-end error monitoring and digital experience. And you can try Zipy for free. 

The errors captured in Zipy can be easily analysed on the basis of frequency, error type, error message, and more. To top this, your engineering team can use Zipy to debug these errors and customer-reported issues with advanced dev tools.

8. Use White Space

You can enhance the readability and clarity of your website pages and apps by simply introducing white spaces in the right places.  

While it is not imperative for the design background colour to be white, the essential aspect is that it specifies the space between elements on your website. By incorporating whitespace, you introduce simplicity and elegance to your web pages.

Here are a few techniques to leverage whitespace in order to elevate the user experience (UX) of your website and app:

• Increase the line spacing within the body text.
• Enhance the whitespace in long text blocks, focusing on the left and right margins. Research has demonstrated that this practice can improve comprehension by up to 20%.
• Avoid placing images in line with text; instead, position them either above or below text blocks.
• Employ whitespace to group and surround related objects, thereby promoting visual cohesion.

By implementing these strategies, you can effectively utilise whitespace to optimise the design and usability of your website.

9. Don’t overlook content (copy)

When considering UX design practices, one of the first things that comes to mind is its design and layout. However, it is crucial to pay attention to UX writing and clarity of written copy as well. 

Ensure that your messaging and text on CTAs are user-oriented and easily understandable. Here such content mainly includes the heading, button, CTAs, instructions and other written content. It is always advised to avoid complex words or excessive terminology that visitors or users have to search for. This will help the users to grasp the content effortlessly. But you may question, how can it be done? Here is the answer: 

• Utilise a language that is familiar to your users, and maintain a user-centric approach.
• Stay transparent in your communications. 
• Break the content into headings and subheadings. 
• You can enhance well-written content by incorporating visual elements such as images, emojis, and custom illustrations. 
• Collaborate with your team and demand high-quality material. 

10. Test & optimise 

Testing the software or application is a crucial aspect of the development process as it helps ensure its functionality and performance as per Software Required Specification (SRS). It is essential that the developed application work consistently across all the browsers and gives a seamless user experience. 

 In the initial three months of 2023, mobile devices constituted 58.33% of the total global website traffic. It is essential to test the usability of your website on both desktop and mobile devices to ensure cross-browser compatibility. Strive for a responsive website that seamlessly adapts to any screen size, which we have discussed earlier in this blog. 

Testing helps identify website and app issues early on so that you can address them promptly. It's best to test your product before pushing any changes live. 

To get testing done, normally product managers and marketers work with software testers or quality assurance teams to identify gaps in the product. The engineering team takes up the role of fixing the identified issues.  

Since company websites or blogs include fewer dynamic elements, testing them is usually easier. However, testing e-commerce websites or web or mobile apps can be more challenging. There are different types of tests designed to ensure that the different elements of the app, like usability, performance, security, and more, are working as planned. 

There are many tests out there, but for now, we are introducing you to only the prominent ones:

• Usability testing - It is the type of test that evaluates the user experience of a product by using approaches like observing and gathering feedback from customers. 
• Unit tests: Thoroughly examine each element to ensure they function as intended.
• Integration tests: Assess how different components work together by sequentially testing a group of pages.‍
• System Tests: Evaluate the software product as a whole, including stress testing, to determine its ability to handle increased load and pressure. Along with this, security and performance testing is also executed to assess the product’s security and identify vulnerabilities, and ensure the scalability and responsiveness of the product, respectively.‍
• Acceptance tests: Invite individuals to explore your website and assess their experience in navigating it.

11. Security is Key

Two out of three users abandon online purchases because a website fails to instil enough confidence in them to share their personal information. Security is a paramount consideration for any system. Even if a website employs outstanding security measures, it may still fall short of its objectives if users don't feel secure. 

You can take these steps to communicate to your users or visitors that your digital product is secure: 

• ‍Follow privacy and security guidelines and show certifications: You can also highlight any security certifications you have or guidelines you comply with like SOC 2, HIPPA, GDPR, CCPA, PCI DSS, or any other. You add your compliance details in the footer, build pages dedicated to security and privacy both on the website and in your app, and use logos wherever relevant.

• Highlight taken security measures: A UX designer can address this concern by implementing seemingly straightforward measures like incorporating lock icons or displaying security validation messages in areas where users are prompted to input sensitive data. 

Striking the right balance between security and user experience can significantly enhance trust among users. 

12. Collect user feedback

Many website and app owners do not realise that user feedback can unlock new opportunities and even disclose prominent gaps, which can affect a large user segment. User feedback can help identify bugs and uncover usability issues that might otherwise go unnoticed. This is applicable to businesses of all sizes. Furthermore, engaging with your target audience in this manner can provide invaluable firsthand insights, which can be easily overlooked.

One effective method of gathering feedback is through online surveys. Consider utilising platforms such as SurveyMonkey, Google Surveys, QuestionPro, or SurveySparrow.

However, it is crucial to maintain an open mindset and be receptive to feedback from various sources. Once you adopt this attitude, feedback can be found in abundance.

For example, by thoroughly examining comments, you might stumble upon a hidden gem that prompts a complete redesign or sprouts into a game-changing feature.

13. Addressing 404 error 

404 errors commonly occur on websites which can negatively impact the user experience. Picture this- you eagerly click on a link, hoping to land on a page where you can take action, only to be met with a discouraging "Page Not Found" message. How frustrating that would be! 404 errors not only annoy users but also disrupt their seamless journey through a website.  

If you're aiming to enhance user experience on your website, it's crucial to address your 404 errors. You can employ tools like Google Search Console to accomplish this and spare your users from encountering dead ends. It gives detailed reports on the identified URL with 404 errors and the primary sources for the broken links.

The reason for the occurrence of the 404 error could be several. For example, if the user gives the wrong or misspelt URL, the server fails to search for the corresponding page, which leads to a 404 error. In the above example, giving an incorrect URL is the main reason for the 404 error. 

However, it may also happen that sometime website owners may reorganise the site or rename the page, which makes the server return a 404 error. Further, External websites may link to pages on a site that no longer exists or has been moved. When users click on these broken links, they will encounter a 404 error.

14. User metrics

User metrics are a measurement of how users engage with your website or product and what marketing channels and strategies are working for different segments. Similar to user metrics, website metrics also measure analysing the user behaviour and effectiveness of websites. Let us learn those metrics in detail.

Typical metrics/UX Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) include:

• Conversion Rate: The significance of the conversion rate lies in its ability to gauge how effectively a website or application can prompt visitors or users to take desired actions, such as making a purchase or completing a form. Digital experience tools help both product managers and marketers optimise conversion and have happier customers.
• Time on page/session duration: This KPI tracks the average amount of time users spend on a page or within a session. It indicates the level of user engagement and the effectiveness of the website in capturing and holding the user's attention.
• Bounce rate: Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave a website after viewing only one page. This indicates the number of people who leave immediately after arriving. Analyse the pages where this is happening and explore ways to enhance them. For example, if people are leaving a particular page, it might be time to revamp or remove it.
• User retention: User retention evaluates the proportion of users who persistently utilise a product or service during a designated time frame. Product managers can reduce churn and achieve higher retention rates because it is more cost-effective to keep existing users than constantly pursuing new ones.
• Traffic source: Identify sources that are driving the traffic to your website. Determine the sources of visitors and devise strategies to increase them. You have the ability to personalise the user's journey based on the channels they come from. For instance, if you ran a recent campaign on Product Hunt (PH), you can direct them to a page featuring an exclusive discount and tailored messaging. 
• SEO: Search engine optimization is all about how your website ranks on search and how users experience it. Factors like content, website structure, page load time, engagement, and more come under its umbrella.

Fully utilise the potential of user metrics as the data they provide is invaluable. You can employ metrics to comprehend user behaviour and club it with user feedback to validate ideas and improve user experience. To find user metrics, you can leverage Google Analytics (GA), which is one of the most robust website tracking tools and analyse website or application data. GA is able to track and access different types of user metrics, which mainly include number of visitors, traffic sources, user behaviour, engagement data, and more.

15. Adhere to established conventions

In order to leverage the user's experience, it is important to follow established norms. For instance, your header logo serves as the optimal point for users to return to your homepage, acting as a guiding beacon for lost visitors. By clicking on it, they can easily start afresh.

Similarly, you can enhance user experience by focusing on other common web design standards that facilitate easy navigation and help users find what they are looking for:

• Distinctive side and navbars: Ensure that your sidebars stand out from the rest of the content by carefully managing the white space around them and preventing them from blending in.‍
• Clear and simplified text: Use straightforward button text such as 'About' or 'Contact Us.' Avoid complicating the text when guiding users around your website.
• Maintain standard navigation: Use navigation buttons or recognized icons, such as a home icon to return to the homepage, and a menu icon to access a dropdown menu, as they are easily recognizable to users. While some experimentation can be beneficial, it should not hinder readability.
• Leverage your footer: Footers serve as effective guides for lost visitors, assisting them in navigating your website. They are also a good place to demonstrate your security certificates.

Website user experience examples

Let us understand the need to improve the website user experience by taking an example of an e-commerce website. The site needs to function in a way that most sales are done.

One of the cases where user experience can be improved is the checkout process on e-commerce websites. These days the majority of online shoppers find the checkout process to be really difficult and time-consuming as they have to add much information, which can lead to frustration and cart abandonment. Here are two examples showing this issue:

• Lengthy and complicated forms: Some e-commerce websites require users to fill out long and complex forms during the checkout process, asking for excessive personal information. This can overwhelm users and dissuade them from finalising their purchase. For instance, the inclusion of unnecessary details like fax numbers or alternate shipping addresses can perplex users and raise doubts regarding the relevance of such information.

• Lack of guest checkout option: Another common issue in e-commerce sites is the absence of a guest checkout option. Requiring users to create an account before making a purchase can be a significant barrier. Users may not want to create yet another account or remember additional login credentials. By forcing registration, the checkout process becomes more tedious and time-consuming, which turns away users even before making the payment. 

From the website user experience examples explained above shows that improvements in these areas can significantly enhance user experience during the checkout process. Simplifying forms by only asking for essential information and providing a guest checkout option can streamline the process, reduce friction, and encourage more successful purchases.

Complicated forms and mandatory sign-ups don’t just impact e-commerce sites but can be applied to any website or application. The key lesson is to extract only the pertinent information and eliminate any obstacles from the user's journey.

Conclusion 

Creating an improved user experience involves ensuring that your product resonates with your users and solves the problem they are facing in a straightforward way. Essentially, a well-crafted UX guides website visitors and product users towards the information or action they need, while eliminating any obstacles in their path. Although the objective may be universally recognized, achieving it can be somewhat challenging.

If users cannot reach to something, it might as well not exist for them. Now this could be because of broken navigation or a broken form. Both compromised design and code issues lead to a compromised user experience. As business owners, managers, product managers, or marketers your goal should be to build interfaces and interactions that are intuitive and functional. 

You can use real user monitoring and error monitoring and handling tools  as a partner to fix user issues and optimise conversion rate.

The ways to improve UX we have discussed in this blog will help you uncover elements that resonate with your target audience, figure out what's not working, and make your design and navigation effective.

More resources on Improve User Experience

• 41 best user experience tools for product managers and designers
• The ultimate User Experience tool for UX Designers and PMs
• Mastering End User Experience: 9 Strategies to Elevate User Satisfaction
• Analyzing the user: Unleashing user experience analytics
• 7 strategies for end user experience monitoring
• 17 user experience mapping techniques to improve your product
• 11 key UX metrics every design team should be tracking
• SaaS UX best practices to improve user engagement
• Seamless shopping: Enhancing ecommerce UX