18 UX Design Tips for Higher Conversions and Engagement

While 13% of customers communicate a bad experience to at least 15 people in their network, 72% share a good experience with over 6 people. That’s precisely why UX – short for user experience – is so important in 2021.

Almost 95% of a website’s first impression is made by its design—no wonder the focus on UX has grown in the past decade. Since user experience is so important in the world of e-commerce, we are here with 18 UX design tips that will help you boost conversions and improve engagement. 

These UX design tips and ideas are supercritical for businesses that sell online and attract leads from the internet. So, start paying attention! 

Effective homepage

Your homepage can make or break the first impression. A website with an organized and neat homepage is more likely to retain visitors and divert them to the other pages. 

Keep the homepage simple and interactive to deliver a better user experience. Stay traditional and use normal webpage scrolling to make it easier for visitors to surf your website without putting too much pressure on their brain cells.

Enable auto-completion

Auto-completion is big on time savings and almost a must-have in modern e-commerce stores. Brands like Amazon use this feature in the search bar to make the user search quicker and provide helpful recommendations. 

Auto-completion is also hugely beneficial in eliminating misspelling. Make sure this UX design element is present on your website!  

Use drop-downs 

Having big main navigations is a big no-no, especially in the world of mobile browsing. That’s why we need dropdowns. Dropdowns help visitors navigate the website easily and reach the most important pages. 

Using dropdowns helps keep the design clean and make page recommendations without cluttering web pages. In short, an organized and functional dropdown menu is a must to maximize user experience! 

Keep it mobile-ready

In 2021, more than 52% of the online traffic is generated from mobile devices. Google is also showering ranking love on responsive mobile websites by giving them more visibility as compared to traditional websites. This means a mobile-ready website makes more business sense than a website built only for desktops. 

Keep mobile interface elements large enough to reduce inaccurate taps. The minimum size for fonts on mobile is 1cm x 1cm and the same will improve user experience. 

Reduce loading time

We are more impatient than ever. According to a recent study, 64% of mobile users expect a website to load in less than 4 seconds. At such times, you cannot score high in UX without bringing down the load time. 

 

Render text before images and media to meet user goals quickly. Check your website for optimal performance. PageSpeed Insights is a great tool to do that. 

Avoid lengthy text blocks.

Since the dawn of smartphones, we have become less fond of long paragraphs. So, understanding how visitors consume content on your website is vital for creating an optimal user experience. 

Stay away from long text blocks. If keeping content seems critical for ranking, use content folding to balance UX and SEO. Use descriptive subheadings and bullet points because they are easier to read!

Learn about UI/UX design services for your next project 

Make the search field visible.

This is really important for websites that host a big catalog of products since search is a game-changer for them. The truth is that a search box with an open-text field design is more easily noticeable than a search field hidden behind the icon. 

Moreover, larger search fields are easier to spot, and the same enhances the user experience. So, keep the search fields bigger and prominent! 

Go multilingual

One of the biggest UX challenges for sites with an international audience is language. That’s because someone who prefers Spanish would never prefer a website that furnishes all its content in English. So, ‘multilingual’ is the keyword here.  

To improve both UX and conversions, invest in a platform that packs multilingual capabilities. You don’t have to tap every language out there. Just make sure you are catering to the language preferences of your biggest audience groups. 

Play the color game 

Color choice matters! Opting for the right color scheme for your website supports readability and boosts brand identity. It can also greatly help in lending more power to the call of action elements. 

To cater to visually challenged audiences (who are almost 4.4% of the population), we recommend designing with these guidelines in mind. This can also earn you some buzz on social media! 

Avoid complex 

Anything designed by ignoring traditional design wisdom and browsing behavior will fall face-first on the ground. Internet users have come a long way in the past 2 decades, but they still prefer using websites, apps, and software that stick to the ground rules they have grown up with. 

For instance, the main navigation should be on top of the website. Scrolling should be vertical. Got the drift? 

Mind the links 

Repeat after us: links are important. Every link on a web page must stand out. Use the blue color (any color from your logo will also do just fine) or underlining to indicate hyperlinks. Using a different color for already visited links (Google does this too) on the website is also a good idea. 

Users also should not have to make an effort to know where a link leads to. Link text should convey it all! These are some basic rules, but only digital newbies ignore them.

Master the buttons 

As screen sizes keep shrinking, it has become slightly hard to master the buttons on a web page. Buttons on your website should not be congested or overlapping since it may lead to tapping errors. 

Buttons that change color on hover work like wonders on desktops. The website should also give a visual clue that the button was successfully clicked. These are the basics of UX design in modern websites!  

Working on a game-changing mobile app? Learn about mobile app development services

Use clear CTAs

Short for call to action, CTA is crucial for conversion. In fact, conversion is almost impossible without a call to action element. That’s precisely why you should make them picture-perfect. 

Reserve one color for CTAs on your website and don’t use it for anything else. While warm bright colors convey positivity and pop up, dark colors stay in the background and may trigger caution. Make your CTAs accordingly.

Cut the clutter

Say ‘thank you, next’ to cluttered design in 2021. Why? It’s hard to sift through it. Also, mobile applications like Whatsapp and Instagram have set the standard really high in terms of design neatness. So, there is very little tolerance for clutter nowadays. Want a more science-y reason?

Sensory overload due to the incorporation of too many design elements compels the users to abandon the website and brings down conversion rate.

Right icons only 

You simply cannot make a website without using a handful of icons. They play an essential role in providing a great user experience by quickly communicating information. 

Make sure that there is design harmony in icons and they seem part of the same family. Icon colors should also merge with your brand identity and communicate the right pointers. 

Establish trust

In a Bluehost survey, 61% of participants reported not buying from an online store because it was missing a trust seal. This lone statistic is enough to prove that trust elements are super crucial for conversions. 

Virus protection, payment seals, and credit card security icons greatly help in reassuring visitors about website security. Establishing platform trust is obligatory for new websites that are trying to score their initial base of customers!

Here’s why you deserve a responsive design upgrade

Bank on user behavior 

Curiosity has played a massive role in the journey of mankind. Ironically, we are not very keen on doing away with what works for us. Turns out, our brain is lazy and loves sticking to patterns and designs we are familiar with.  

Add an Android theme to your Apple device and you will know what we are talking about. Long story short, design with user perceptions, psychology, and beliefs in mind. 

Support skimming 

Unless it’s a New York Times article, no one reads from start to finish. That’s why it’s a good idea to promote skimming by keeping the paragraphs short, creating subheadings, and using bullet points. 

This UX design tip matters a lot for websites that are in the content business. 

UX design tips for high conversions: Wrapup

A UX design is totally worth investing in, and the above 18 tips will put you on the right path. If you have already hired a web design agency, make sure the team is designing as per above listed UX guidelines. And in case you haven’t hired yet, well, we highly recommend speaking with our team of designers and developers!  

Already have a website and want to upgrade it? Get in touch with our team to get a pricing and timeline estimate. Email us at contact@bigkittylabs.com to start a conversation.