There are so many reasons to keep the user in mind when creating, maintaining, and adding to your website. You don’t want a donor to leave your site because they couldn’t find what they wanted before growing bored, confused, or frustrated. This can happen very quickly if you’re not paying attention to user experience.
While the name “user experience” may sound techy, it means literally what it says – the experience a user has on your website. Just like the experience they have with you in person, how a user feels while interacting with you on your website matters.
Ideally, we can utilize testing to ensure your website will help instead of frustrate or confuse your audience. Whether or not you have the budget for user-testing, we ask the following questions throughout the strategy, design, and maintenance of a website. These are helpful questions for you to consider when evaluating decisions about your website – whether updating content, adding a page, changing the navigation, or redesigning:
- Why are people coming to this page/section/site?
- What is the main thing we want people to do when they reach this page?
- Is this page fully functional in all devices, including phones?
- Is the navigation succinct and easy to understand?
- Is there any outdated or superfluous content that we can remove?
- Could we reach this page in fewer clicks?
- Are we adding alt text with photos and using other methods to make this page accessible for all users?
- Are we using colors, font-styles, and other design elements consistently?
- Are we using analytics to decide whether or not we are meeting user goals?
While we’re keeping these questions in mind throughout the web design process, it’s also important for you to keep them in mind when adding content, features, and new pages to your website. Focusing on these core usability factors will help your audience accomplish what they came to do on your website, and hopefully have a great time doing it.
