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Welcome to the next blog post in a series of best practices for search engine optimization (“SEO”) and your organization’s website. We’ll discuss user experience (“UX”): what it is, what it means, and what you can do to help potential clients gain a better understanding while visiting your website. We’ll also go over user interface design (“UI”) and how it relates to UX.

Not only will having a great experience attract people back to your site, it will help increase your search engine ranking. It’s not enough to create a website and call it a day. Your site needs to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye, and easy to navigate. People should enjoy being on your site.

What is UX?

User experience relates to the usability of the website. What does that entail? Your website should provide pertinent information. Content should be easy to find, along with being accessible for those with disabilities. Generally, it should be easy to use.

There are several elements that go into making your site all of those:

• Visual design – Front end development, more specifically, coding, helps make the site look good. Without code, you have a lot text on a white screen. If you do not have your own designer, you can use an agency, or contract a freelancer to design the site for you.
• Responsiveness – Does your site look exactly the same on a computer or a mobile device? It shouldn’t. Although your band should be comparable on all devices, simplifying your content from desktop to phone provides a better user experience.  
• Interaction – The usability of the site itself should lead to content, not frustration. Is there consistency within the site? If someone visits several pages on your site, do all of the links look the same, or will someone click on a word thinking it’s a link, only to discover that it’s not one? If someone scrolls over a word and there is a dropdown of more options, can one click to the right spot without issues? Also, do clickable looking things click? For instance, people will click on a product, and it should do something.

UX can become very technical easily, but these are a few basics. If you’re not sure where to start, you can always send out a survey, or have people test out your site and let you know their thoughts. This is not the time to be defensive of your site. The site is for the people, not you.

What is UI?

User interface design (“UI”) refers to the actual aesthetics of the site. It’s what you’re seeing as you click through and scroll up and down. If UX is the infrastructure for a city, UI is the architectural design. UX is the nervous system and bones; UI is the skin, hair, and nails.

The website could be easy to navigate from a development standpoint, but if it’s hard to read because of the colors clashing, there are a lot of moving items, or the font is too small, people will exit and find something else.

A few tips for UI:

• Consistency – Make call-to-actions the same design. Make links all one color.
• Whitespace is your friend – Don’t feel the need to use all of the space on your site. Too much clutter and it becomes busy, not to mention difficult to follow and read. If you have a lot of information to share, a picture says 1,000 words.
• Typography – The fonts should be easy to read. Also there is such a thing as too many fonts. Size matters. Again, someone with a reading disability or someone who is vision impaired should be able to read the text.
• Contrast – Also use grayscale to make sure that the colors don’t run. Good contrast can draw someone’s attention, and make sure that someone with a visual impairment could still read clearly.
• Feedback – People thrive on immediate gratification. If something is loading, let the user know. If there is a piece of a form that was filled in incorrectly, describe exactly what was wrong.

To recap: a good design is nothing if it isn’t functional. Functionality is nothing if it isn’t pleasing to the user. Both UX and UI go hand in hand when it comes to a website. If you do not have someone in-house to work on your site, there are agencies or freelancers who can help you make your website pop. The better experience people have on your site, the higher potential you have for new customers.