If you’re just getting started with digital marketing, this is a quick intro to what website user experience is, is not, and how it will help your business.
You don’t have to be a big established business to have a good website with a good user experience; size and age do not matter.
User experience is not…
- something new
- fluffy corporate marketing-babble
- irrelevant to small businesses
- expensive
- time-consuming
- just about usability
- just about the user
- just about technology, so irrelevant to people who aren’t techie.
User experience is…
- Not just about the user – it’s about your business and business strategy as well as the user.
- A method – a practical and sensible way to achieve customer satisfaction if approached with pragmatism and common sense.
- An industry standard – ISO 9241-210* “a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service”.
- Common sense – if you had the spout on a teapot upside down, it won’t work for users. The same goes for a website.
- Customer satisfaction – If you want customer satisfaction then user experience is relevant to you. If customers don’t have a satisfying experience on your site, they’re less likely to like you and click to a competitor who has a website with a better user experience.
- Customer focus – it’s about putting your customers first and being passionate about what they need.
- Multi-faceted – it’s made up from different elements. What your customers experience on your website is made up of different things that all come together to create the user experience. User experience is made up of different parts.
How good website user experience helps business
A good user experience on your website is like having a welcome sign and an open door to your business. It will mean:
- visitors use your site more
- spend more time on your site
- revisit your site
- recommend you, share your site details
- increase usage
- get more leads, calls, enquiries
- save time handling repetitive queries.
How bad website user experience harms business
A bad user experience is like slamming the door in your customers’ faces. It will:
- lose you business
- damage your reputation
- stop visitors from coming back
- lose out to competitors
- stop people using your site
- lose the investment you’ve made in your site.
Top Tip
Ask your customers. Ask them what they would want from your business and your website. You can ask them when you speak to them; you can ask them in a survey on your website. The important thing is you ask them. When you find out, review your website and compare it against what your customers are saying they want. Any gaps will have a negative impact on the user experience of your website.
* ISO FDIS 9241-210:2009. Ergonomics of human system interaction – Part 210: Human-centered design for interactive systems (formerly known as 13407). International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Switzerland.
