5 Key Elements of Building a User-Friendly Website You Should to Know

Do you know that it takes about 50 milliseconds for a person to determine whether to stay on or leave your website?

So, talking about your website - what is the visitors dwell time? And how do you get them to spend more time on your site? Nice design or interesting content is great; however, this is not always sufficient for user interaction. Your website should meet the initial needs of the users, as well as offer an appropriate experience, convenient and at the same time simple functionality.

This article includes 5 key elements of website usability that will help make your website user-friendly, increase average on-site time, and boost the bounce rate. We will also answer the issue of how to build a website that is user-friendly.

Usability is an indicator that shows convenience, ease and efficient of a website from the users' viewpoints.

Usability describes how users can interact effectively with a website. This covers each item on a website that a user would usually faces:

-navigation blocks;

-lists, contents;

-buttons;

-application forms;

-illustrations;

-videos.

Alex Zergof, web usability pioneer and consultant, co-founder of Incresive, professional in human-computer interaction, describes the term this way:

Usability is a quality attribute that determines how simple user interfaces are. The term "usability" also refers to techniques for improving ease-of-use in the design process.

To make your website user-friendly, make sure it matches your target audience. Keep in mind who your customers are and what their goals are. Have they got all they need after visiting your website? It is significant to tune your audience and be familiar with their behavior patterns in order to save the principles of usability.

How to build a website that's user-friendly: 5 main principles:

Now that we know the significance of website usability, we can proceed to the basic website usability tips that help to make a website that is user- and customer-friendly. However, don't confuse user experience with customer experience, as the second term represents the first.

So, let's dive deeper into our 5 key user experience principles.

1. Convenient navigation

Navigation is the foundation of good usability. It doesn't matter how beautiful your website is if users are having difficulty browsing it. Convenient navigation allows users to understand the structure of the website. Thus, website visitors understand how to quickly and easily visit a specific page of a user-friendly website.

If your users don't understand how to navigate your site, they're most likely not going to try hard and leave the site. To stay away from such situations, you should adhere elementary website usability tips that make the main navigation menu items clearly visible. Don't hide them in the drop-downs, let them occupy a place of honor. You should also examine what the most used pages are and highlight them in the navigation panel for ease of access.

In addition, another major issue is making sure the user knows what page they are on. They must understand it at any time. Breadcrumbs are very useful here as they help navigate the website, adding points to the site's usability.

2. Consistency in style

It is impossible to force users of your website to remember its structure, therefore we recommend structuring your website in a form that is as user-friendly as possible. User-friendly web design assumes that you can create guideline for the consistency of your website or application structure. The colors and style should be recognizable and the site design should be user-friendly.

In addition, user interface standards suggest that all pages should have a common template: from the font size of the header to the same position of the signup form. All of this helps users to navigate fast on a website.

3. Industry design standards

It is extremely important to adhere to industry-specific standards when developing a website. Valuable travel agency website templates are not suitable for a medical application. Standards support will help improve the communication process with users and ensure the usability of the website.

To date, most people have sufficient experience of engaging with the sites. They already have some standards of the design principles for websites that determine the position of each feature. Trying to reinvent the wheel and re-arrange the elements can negatively impact the customer experience. Common principles and standards have been discovered a long time ago, and it is strongly recommended that they be observed when designing customer-friendly websites.

4. Visual Contribution

It's easier for our brain to perceives visual information. For this purpose, using images and diagrams can help you draw users' attention and create a user-friendly web design. This makes a positive impact when users meet other people.

It is necessary to use the images that match your website or application theme. If you choose the wrong content, the users will be confused. And, of course, the pictures must be of first-rate quality.

In addition, illustration is one of the best ways of gaining users' interest. It helps to view the theme and topic of the website and enhances the usability of the website.

5. Mobile compatibility

Most of the users visit sites via mobile devices. This amount will only rise from year to year and will push developers to first build a mobile version for your web or app. Thus, it allows you to reach more users around the world while adhering to the principles of mobile usability.

The number of mobile users worldwide almost doubled from 2010 to 2020. According to Statista, the total number of smartphone users in the world will increase to 7.41 billion in 2024.

With regard to the mobile version of your website, the importance of website usability is only growing. Here are specific guidelines for mobile usability:

-   Keep away from using a huge amount of text on a website. It's easier to divide the text into small parts with additional "Read more...".

-   Add more line spacing to make the text easier to read. Principles of usability have set the terms for an acceptable font size of approximately 16px, and larger for headings.

-   Create website webforms mobile adaptive. It will boost the user experience while entering data on your site.

Conclusion

We've outlined 5 basic usability principles that will help you create a user-friendly website. You should take them into account when designing, testing, or reviewing your website.

Summarizing all of the above, we can highlight the main points for improving the website usability:

Know your customers and try to solve their problems with your web solution.

Give a simple navigation panel to your users.

Provide the user experience with an easy-to-use style.

Strive to meet general web standards.

Add pictures and illustrations that make it easier for users to understand.

Create a mobile version to attract more users.

Test your website by conducting interviews and polling your real customers.