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Importance of User Experience


User Experience is one of the little understand principles of website development. It is highly misunderstood and overlooked in many popular websites. It has also never been given the importance it deserves.

User Experience basically covers all aspects of the user’s interaction with the website: how it is perceived, learned, and used. Since the website is a non-human medium, its design should be intuitive enough so that the user can easily use the website without seeking help. Although currently most websites can be designed to be “useable” the need is to make the website user “friendly”. It has been widely observed that many websites have become popular just because their user experience is better than the competitors. Thus it is very clear that User Experience Design is an important part of the website development process.

The following are some common mistakes in web design which lead to bad user experience in the website.

1. Cumbersome Credit Card payment system

This is by far one the main reasons many E-Commerce websites fail. Users visiting E-Commerce site are wary about giving their credit card information. In such a scenario the website has to assure the user that it is safe and convenient to give the same. One important way to convey this message to the user is by having a simple and easy payment system. Many of today’s websites have long credit card forms which redirect to several pages before giving confirmation to the user. This results lot of uncertainty in the mind of the user and the user as a result feels that the payment method is not convenient. This will be detrimental to the website as such a user is unlikely to anymore transactions with the website. The following figure compares a simple and a complex credit card form.

Complex form

Simple form
2. Intuitive Title tags

The title tag is one the most important design aspects of a web page. It has to judiciously used. It should accurately describe the content of a web page. Most websites today overuse the title tag by cramping lot of keywords resulting in long tags. This results in alienating the user who either gets lost in the barrage of keywords or immediately labels the web page as “junk” or “spam”. Thus title tags should be crisp and to the point and short to avoid alienating the user.

Too long title

Short and Crisp title

3. Too much text

Indian internet users are notoriously adverse to use of too much text in web pages. The Indian user expects lot of pictures to aid his use of any website. Therefore it’s a good idea to support text with pictures wherever possible to make the website easier for the user. It is a good idea to use images in Navigation panes as shown in the figure below.

Pictures accompanying text

4. Complex URLs

URLs convey a lot of information to the user. Users infer on the content of the website just by looking at the URL. This is especially true when users search engines. It has been found that users click more on the links which are simple and keyword targeted than links which are long and complex. The following examples show the use of simple and complex URLs.

Simple targeted URL
http://www.cuppax.in/movie/Rab-Ne-Bana-Di-Jodi/12753

Long and Complex URL
http://sify.com/movies/bollywood/review.php?id=14817529&ctid=5&cid=2425

5. Too much animation

Animation should be judiciously used. A little more than few animations can easily add up to a highly distracting website. It is recommended that not more than 2 animations should be used in a single web page. The following screenshot gives an example of too much animation used in a single page. The actual content of the website is lost in the animations.

6. Not changing color of visited links

It is one of the best practices to change color of links which a user has previously visited. This greatly enhances the usability of the website because the user instantly knows all the content he has already viewed removing the need to go through many links again. Since this has been widely used in many popular websites users will expect this is any new website they visit. Non existence of this feature will immediately make a bad impression of the website in the user’s mind.

7. Not having good Search

We live in the search age. After the wide spread use of Google, internet users take search take for granted. As a result they expect all websites they visit to have a search function of their own. More importantly they expect this search function to be as user friendly as Google. But sadly most websites fail at this point. As a result internet users start searching even known websites in Google as it provides a better experience than the known website’s own search. Thus it is very important to have a good search experience on the website on par with Google so that the users are not lost to Google.

8. Too much Flash

Flash has become one of the most used web design element. Although it is being used widely in the internet, caution has to be exercised in its use. One of the main drawbacks of using flash is the lack of right click function in flash pages. Internet users have been using Right click extensively and they expect this function in all the websites they visit. Thus it is a good idea to not use flash were conventional HTML can be used. Use of flash in intros and animations is not a problem as users generally don’t use right click on these.

9. No contact information

One of the pivotal requirements in any website is contact information. It’s a cardinal sin to not give contact information. Users have come to expect contact information in the form of email, phone number and postal address in all the websites they visit. This information gives a website lot of legitimacy in addition to giving a means of direct communication between the user and the website owner. Websites that don’t provide contact information run the risk of losing credibility.

10. Not using thumbnails

Image galleries are being extensively used in the internet these days. It is generally a good idea to generate smaller images as thumbnails rather than showing the resized version of the original image as thumbnail. Using the bigger image as thumbnail eats up lot of the user’s internet bandwidth and gives an impression of the website being “slow”. This is because the user would “expect” the smaller image to load faster (but it doesn’t as the website loads the bigger image as thumbnail).