Summary
Case studies and examples to show good website user experience.
The Apple Story
A good example of a business that has created a lovely user experience and turned that into good business is Apple. Apple are a great user experience story.
- Apple nearly went out of business a long time ago.
- They spoke to their customers.
- They discovered their customers were getting frustrated with MP3 players and mobile phones and tired carrying a lot of heavy stuff around.
- Apple launched a new Internet mobile phone which played people’s personal music, made phone calls and people could use to use the Internet. The iPhone was born.
- The user experience felt more natural and easy than anything else anyone had experienced before.
- Users could create their own experience by adding Apps which anyone in the world could create.
- Apple became the biggest brand in the world.
So far, they’ve lived happily ever after. But continue to put users first to ensure they stay ahead of their competitors who are now desperately copying them to try and catch up.
This is not an isolated case
This isn’t a fairy story for big businesses like Apple. Apple didn’t wave a magic wand; they just put their users first. Everyone can do this. If you do this, your business will benefit; your website will be better.
How to do this
The key is to find out what your users need. Find out why they are visiting your site and what they expect from it. Give them a website design which they find easy and makes them feel happy about you.
What do you think?
Which websites have you used where you’ve had a lovely experience? Let me know, I’m always looking for great examples of website design.
Examples of websites with good user experience
Take a look at the following websites. This is just what I think – you may disagree. They are all different businesses or services, with different goals, and very different users.
But they all have two key things in common:
(1) good web design
(2) customer satisfaction being a main business objective.
It’s not a coincidence that these businesses are all successful. They have made user experience turn into good business.
- Flickr.com
- theonion.com
- epicurious.com
- babycentre.co.uk
- nationalgeographic.com
- dropbox.com
- box.net
- monet2010.com
- lego.com
- BBC
- BBC Good Food
- Asos
- Amazon.co.uk
- nationaltrust.org.uk
- dulux.co.uk
- Twitter.com
- WordPress.com
- johnlewis.com
- Google.com
- Apple Store
How this helps business
Competitive advantage. In only a click your potential customers can go elsewhere. Browsing on the internet is a lot quicker and easier than browsing shops on the high street, and your user experience on your website is the only way you can keep visitors from moving straight on to a competitor. The website that makes it easiest for users to effortlessly do what they need to do, in such a way that makes them feel good about the business they are dealing with, will end up being the most successful.
Top Tip
Look at people using your site. Watch real people, preferably your customers, using your website. If you don’t want to ask your customers, get your friends and family to use your website. Give them simple tasks to do that you think your customers would do on your website. Like a fly on the wall, just watch and see what happens. If you see people struggling to do or find something, to complete a task, this tells you where your website design could be improved. You don’t have to do this many times, try it 5 times and you will start to get the picture. You could also get the same people to try your competitors’ websites, and see how the experiences compare.
