It is not too difficult to design a visually appealing website given the fact that there are a number of tools and technologies available on the market. Designers can easily use these tools and technologies to design some of the most amazing sites. However, all visually appealing sites designed by the designers are not intuitive for the end-users. This means the user experience is not as good as it should be and a non-intuitive website is one of the main reasons for website failure.
Let us take a look at some of the ways in which designers can make the website intuitive for their target users.
- Find Out What Do Your Users Need
Users visit a site to achieve a certain goal. As a designer, your job is to find out your end-users’ goals and how can they reach this goal effortlessly. There are many tasks which have to be completed by the users before they reach their ultimate goal.
Suppose their goal is to purchase a book from a site. In this case, their first and foremost task is to arrive on the home page of your site. After they complete this task, they will proceed to the next task which is to browse the titles and select the books. The final step will be to confirm the purchasing order. Hence, you must ensure that the users reach the last task and complete their goal without facing any hurdle. In short, the transition from one task to the other and finally completing the goal must be seamless.
- Make Sure That The Site Caters To Everyone
Create a user-interface which is easy to use for all the visitors who visit your site. For instance, if it is a social media site, all the visitors must be able to make an account and manage it easily, be it a 5 year-old kid or a 50 year -old woman. There shouldn’t be any confusion regarding the user-interface in any of your users’ minds.
Designing a minimalist website is the latest trend these days and trust me, it is not at all difficult designing such sites. All you have to do is zero-in on the essential components and content for your website and use them to create a simple, to-the-point website.
Keep the layout simple, minimize or do away with scrolling (vertical or horizontal) and use limited colors on the site. Not only are these sites easy to manage, but they also offer an intuitive interface to the users, irrespective of the device they use to access the site.
It is difficult for designers to find faults within their websites. Even the most experienced designers face this issue. The only way out of this problem is to approach fellow designers to test-run the website on their devices.
What I suggest is that you go to various designer forums of which you are a part of and ask the members to perform trial runs of your website and give you feedbacks. Based on these feedbacks, you will be able to make the site even better for your end-users.
In Conclusion
These were some of the must do’s for designing an intuitive website. Alternatively, you can search the web for some of the best intuitive websites and take a cue from them.