Why UX Matters

The design team at Wiliam just finished watching a great video explaining why UX matters. It really gave us an insight into how to better our designs but also how to focus more on the user rather than the marketing of the product. 

In order for a website to succeed, it needs to have a great user experience in place that people loved. When users go to a website they have a goal in mind. If they can achieve that goal in an easy manner, then they have had a good user experience and will most likely return to use your site again. The main thing is to create an experience that people get excited about and want to continue using over and over.

One way to ensure a great experience is to not lose sight of your website strategy. For example, Hulu's strategy was "the easiest way to watch tv online". Anything that got in the way of that strategy was dismissed. The site, of course, has had a massive following and a high conversion rate from the onset.

Something that I really thought was a great point, however as a designer struggle with, is that bad design can still lead to a successful website when a problem is solved. Meaning, if the site looks horrible but the user can achieve their goal easily then the site is a success. I struggle with this because I believe all sites should be visually pleasing as well as user friendly.

The video used Craigslist as an example, saying that they have tried to redesign it but failed each time. So it still remains a white page with blue links. I think we'd be perfect candidates at Wiliam to be the first to successfully redesign Craigslist without losing it's high conversion numbers!

Finally, whether you do A/B split testing or gather feedback post launch it is important to listen to your users. If you think they should understand your website, but in reality they don't, you shouldn't be opposed to adapting it. UX is always evolving and changing, there is no end point so you can always change your site in order to keep your users happy and engaged.