We all know what we like. We see something and we just get a good feeling about it. As it turns out that feeling has a lot to do with our online purchase decisions. Happy users are more likely to visit your website, purchase your products and subscribe to your services. In this article we let the good times roll and dive deep into why UI UX is Important for your website.
How do we Know UI UX is Important?
As data-driven UI UX designers, we can create websites that make users happy. When an unhappy user abandons a checkout process you’re leaving money on the table. When an unhappy user abandons your website and never returns you are paying to send your customers to your competitor.
Mere seconds. That’s how quickly a user decides they don’t want to do business with you. That’s also the amount of time you have to prove your value to potential customers. In mere seconds good UI & UX puts your users on the path to conversion and lifetime value.
What is the Difference between UI & UX?
UI & UX are often mentioned in the same breath because they work together to enhance your website. Let’s quickly define each term and explore what elements of design fall in each category.
User Interface (UI) design is the visual elements, interactions, and animations that make up the website or web app. Visual elements consist of images, fonts, buttons, forms and colour palettes. Users interact with these elements in order to achieve their goals or purpose for visiting the website. Animations are used to enhance the user interface, prompt the user to take a desirable action or improve the interface design.
“UI is the saddle, the stirrups, & the reins. UX is the feeling you get being able to ride the horse.”
Dain Miller, Web Developer
What Falls Under UI Design?
- Accessibility
- Usability
- Website Performance
- User Stories & User Journeys
- Information Architecture
- Content Hierarchy
What Falls Under UX Design?
- Accessibility
- Usability
- Website Performance
- User Stories & User Journeys
- Information Architecture
- Content Hierarchy
User Experience (UX) is a person’s emotions and attitudes about using a website or web application. Great user experience can be defined as a simple, pleasurable interaction that empowers users to accomplish their online tasks, goals or purpose.
“UX is improving how useful, easy, pleasant, marketable, or addictive it is to use a product”
Steve Krug, Author of Don’t Make Me Think
Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Run a UI UX Audit
There are many reasons why running an audit for UI UX is important. Here are our top 5 reasons why you should consider looking into it sooner rather than later.
1. Personalization is the Future of User Experience.
Providing users with a personalized experience is becoming the standard at the enterprise level. Today, customers don’t just exchange money for goods and services. They share their personal information and trust companies with their privacy in exchange for relevant brand experiences.
The automotive industry is actively adopting increased personalization to improve user experiences. We see this with personalized websites, web apps and integration with vehicles. We now live in a world where your car lets you know when it’s time for routine maintenance, which can be scheduled through an app in your car, on your smartphone or through a web browser. First-party data is the key to building these experiences on your website. Further, customer information can be used to create Customer Match types on Google Ads. Kia recently reported that using first-party data yielded a 4X better conversion rate, a 268% increase in click-through rate, and 55% new-user engagement compared with previous benchmarks.
Enterprise businesses have a tendency to create a new normal. Mid-market businesses should start incorporating personalization features to meet and exceed the expectations of their users in the coming year.
2. Good UI Builds Trust, Even if it’s Deceptive.
Designers have been utilizing UI tricks for years to shuffle users through the online process to improve conversion rates. Loading screens reassure users that the website is processing a request. Progress bars let users know how far they are through check out. Counts like “you are number 2 in line” in support chats provide users with a perceived wait time. Without these features, users are more likely to abandon the process. These examples provide transparency and provide an added level of insight for users. Simply, this is design building trust.
Since this is rather boring, I wanted to introduce you to a new term “Beneficial Deception”. Eytan Adar introduced the world to Benevolent Deception in a 2013 paper citing a wide range of design decisions that trick users – but leave them better off. Examples of Benevolent Deception include the artificial static Skype plays during quiet moments in conversation to let users know the call has not dropped or the default recommendations displayed by Netflix when there is not enough bandwidth to display personalized recommendations. TurboTax employed a similarly deceptive technique to build credibility with its users as reported by The Atlantic. Rather than implementing a simple progress bar, TurboTax implemented this embellishment:
While the program is not actually running any checks, just submitting the form, the design inspires confidence in users and provides a distraction from possible performance issues. Sneaky, very sneaky.
3. Fix UX Issues Now or Lose Customers Forever.
A now-famous white paper projected a trillion-dollar eCommerce loss due to bad UX in 2020. The study identifies that eCommerce businesses leave 35% of sales on the table due to bad user experience. Businesses tend to focus on statistics like cart abandonment to improve conversion rate, while largely ignoring the impact of the entire interaction with the website. We suggest looking at systems holistically. The truth is many of your potential customers are not even reaching the checkout process. According to Justin Mifsud, founder of Usability Geek “88% of Consumers are Less Likely to Return to a Site with Bad UX“. That’s a massive amount of missed opportunity that proves why UI UX is important to you.
“88% of Consumers are Less Likely to Return to a Site with Bad UX”
Justin Mifsud, founder, Usability Geek
4. Performance Matters, Milliseconds Make Millions.
Users are becoming increasingly impatient. A blank screen or loading icon feels like a back button to most website visitors. You can’t afford to keep them waiting. Based on a 0.1s natural mobile site speed improvement, Deloitte observed the following key improvements to conversions and customer engagement:
- Mobile site speed improvements had a direct correlation to improved funnel progression.
- A positive change in the number of page views, conversion rates and average order value across all verticals.
- Retail conversions increased by 8.4% and average order value increased by 9.2%.
- Travel conversions increased by 10.1% and average order value increased by 1.9%.
- Luxury brand page views per session increased by 8.6%.
- Lead generation information pages bounce rate improved by 8.3%
For growing businesses these stats might translate to expanding a product line, opening a new physical location or an annual bonus for the whole team!
More than half of all users now complete transactions from their smartphones. Always consider performance from a mobile perspective first. Mobile devices typically have lower performance capabilities and operate on slower networks than other devices. If your performance metrics are strong on mobile, chances are good they are going to be good across the board. The competitive gap will widen between brands that provide great mobile experiences and those that don’t.
5. You can be Fined for Poor Usability
Website accessibility relates to the ease of use of online services for all users, regardless of how they consume the information or interact with the web page. UI UX is important to different users for different reasons. For example, many users navigate websites with a screen, visually locate relevant information and click on links using a mouse. However, some users navigate a website with a screen reader, locate relevant information with auditory tools and use a specialized apparatus for clicking. Accessibility ensures that your website is easy for everyone to use.
There are many laws around website accessibility. You may have heard of terms like ADA Compliance or AODA Compliance, What you might not know is that in Canada you can be fined the following amounts for non-compliance to AODA:
- Corporations can be fined up to $100,000 per day.
- Individuals and unincorporated organizations can be fined up to $50,000 per day.
- Directors and officers of a corporation or organization can be fined up to $50,000 per day.
In the USA, Federal law allows fines of up to $75,000 for the first violation and $150,000 for additional ADA violations.
We offer services like AODA Compliant Website Development and WCAG, AODA & ADA Compliance Monitoring to ensure your website remains compliant with evolving regulations.
UI UX is Important to All of Us!
Ready to get started? Let’s Start your UI UX Audit Today! The importance of UI UX design stretches into areas we often do not consider. It is important to not only think about design from our own perspectives, but also from others’ points of view. This is difficult for any of us to do. Luckily, there are data-gathering tools that help businesses capture insights. Pair with a strong development team and you are poised for success!
Not quite ready to make a change? Need more examples of why UI UX is important? Learn more about our Website Audits, UI & UX Design and Conversion Rate Optimization Services.
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Crocodile Baby UI & UX Design for eCommerce
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