In 2015, website usability will be one of the key factors in dictating customer loyalty, conversion rates, and overall success. Here are ten usability goals to set for 2015.
1. Make 2015 a colorful year
Color is one of the most important tools in building a customer’s perception of a brand. Set an intention to embrace color in the new year. It’s great way to make instant associations between your brand and a certain set of values or feelings which can keep users coming back.
2. Set accessibility goals for 2015
When color is used to direct attention, usability can suffer. If you’re not already, start test web pages in a gray scale in the new year. Testing in gray scales will to ensure usability remains intact when colors aren’t viewed in the intended way.
3. 2015 will be a Mobile Year
2015 will see an increase in the amount of mobile traffic to websites. In order to stay competitive, in 2015, ensure that your website is responsive on everything from a traditional desktop or laptop to the small touch-screens of smart phones. Start thinking mobile, and reach out to the many customers who are searching for you on their smart phone.
4. Keep it Simple in the New Year
Set a goal to make 2015 a simpler year in web design. The best way to create great user experiences is to keep it simple. There are plenty of avenues for marketers and designers to be clever and creative, but website architecture and design isn’t one of them. Design a logical page and use simple navigational structures and ensure that there is a consistency of design and messaging throughout the site.
5. Offer good online guidance to improve User Experience
When making usability a goal, good online guidance is key. There are a lot of online resources available to those seeking to enhance usability. Companies like WalkMe help empower users through online guidance and increase user loyalty.
6. Make quality content a priority
Some experts will tell you that no one reads on the internet, and that no one cares about content. That’s dead wrong. Quality content is well-edited, clear, and encourages users to take action. Quality content shows people that you’re serious about your website and your business.
7. Make sure all of your information is current for the new year
The first thing you should do in 2015 is to ensure that your copyright information is up-to-date to show that your website is current. Check over your address, phone number, and email address to ensure they are correct, and check your social media icons to make sure they work.
8. Make it a goal to make over your website
Things move pretty fast on the web, and a website refresh can do good things for your conversion rates. Look at pages with a high bounce rate and out plans in place to reduce this with a new design. A simple landing page revamp can go a long ways!
9. Update your content periodically
A one-time revamp is great, but why not set a goal to update your content periodically in 2015. Doing so will give users an incentive to return. Implement a solid content marketing plan to keep visitors coming back to your site.
10. Make 2015 the year that your website is useful
Your website should have a single goal: to allow users to quickly and effectively accomplish what they set out to do. Set an intention to make 2015 the year your website is useful. Understanding your audience and their needs is key to usability. Organize focus groups, talk to your customer support team, and do keyword research to get information about your audience.
As a bonus:
Gartner offers these 10 best UX and usability principles:
All organizations should evolve a process that can recognize the top 10 UX mistakes and adapt appropriately to keep them from recurring. Good design can result from a systematic application of principles and consistent adherence to a process. Great design is possible by ensuring that you have the following ingredients:
- Comprehensive research on users, needs and behaviors to define high-priority usage scenarios. It should be noted that focus groups, while they have their place, are not as effective as structured observation of human behavior. Observation, rather than solicitation, is almost a UX best practice in its own right.
- Human-factor principles are deeply understood and appropriately applied.
- Cohesive usage scenarios tied to organizational business value, not just user requirements.
- Innovative rethinking of familiar concepts and approaches to redefine the product category.
- Well-chosen design vocabulary to create solutions and rapidly iterate toward an optimal solution.
- Validation of creative ideas via systematic usability testing and other mechanisms driven by objective data from users.
- Limit “feature bloat” by ruthless pruning to sustain a core concept.
- Overcome development difficulty because, although good design is invisible, achieving invisible ease-of-use can require a sophisticated technology foundation.
- High performance , including speed, is a key factor affecting usability and high-performance results more from a broad architecture than from narrow-scope optimization.
- Test, test, test — repeatedly. This practice increases the odds of delivering a cohesive, compelling solution that satisfies users, while maximizing the business value of your website.