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What Is the Future of Website User Experience?
How innovations in technology and buying habits should change the way you think about your next website.
What Is a “Traditional” Website?
Website design has evolved a lot over time but basic layouts and functions really have not. It’s time to shake things up. I believe we are going to see a large re-think in what a website should be. It’s not how people want to find information, shop or engage with a business anymore. Here are some specific features that are commonly used that need to change, evolve or disappear.
Menu’s/Navigation Structures
This is out of hand and has been for a long time. Giant menu’s that can take up an entire screen of real estate that give you dozens of options. I refer to this as hunting and pecking. Website users clicking around hoping to find the right information. No one wants to do this and likely don’t need to anymore; even with your current structure.
Poor Search
Most websites have poor search experiences for a myriad of reasons:
- Results aren’t relevant
- Can’t filter results to better hone in on what you are looking for
- Pages of results appearing where most of it is old or not even applicable
- What you want users to really see is almost never the first result
Most websites take what Google does and provide an extreme sub-par example for your own content. Users want to search to find information, and we want them to find the right information. Most search experiences don’t offer this the way users want or need.
Old or Irrelevant Content
When was the last time you did a content audit? Content is (hopefully) a living, breathing entity that requires constant attention. A content audit should be done on a regular basis to identify:
- Old content that is no longer relevant
- Content that no one is engaging with
- Content that is being engaged with but isn’t easy to find
- High value content vs low value
- Consistency with branding and messaging
Most organizations don’t think of content this way. It’s a one and done until 5 years later when a big clean up needs to happen. This needs to change. Content should always be engaging, relevant and easy to find.
Can’t Answer Questions
Most websites can’t answer simple questions. The functionality just doesn’t exist. This is what people want. People don’t want to hunt for information to find something that still doesn’t answer their questions. Wouldn’t it be interesting to discover what questions users would ask your website if they could?
What Could a Modern Take on a Website Look Like?
Bigger Focus on Search
Don’t look at search as a simple utility needed, look at it as one of the (could argue the most) important aspect of your site. Spend time gathering requirements, designing, building and testing an incredible search experience.
More Relevant Content
Content is never one and done. Have an on-going plan to always optimize content. That could mean removing old or stale content, re-writing content that isn’t performing well, optimizing everything for SEO, and ensuring your content is accessible and fast no matter the device being used.
Intelligence
Make your website a “smart” website. Aspects such as:
- Automated content relevance tuning
- Content/product recommendations
- Smart Q&A function
- Gather high level or specific user behavior for both helping drive future content needs and to personalize
- Perform a/b testing to see what content would perform best
- Gather user feedback on what users like and don’t like. And don’t do this just once
Recommendation
A website is not a brochure. It’s the gateway into your business. The better the experience, the more loyal your customers will be. Too many websites are stale, stupid and hard to use. We can all do better. We can help you get there.
