In the dazzling world of the World Wide Web, there are deadly sins for the User Experience (UX). They can drive even the most patient internet user crazy and have a negative impact on customer satisfaction and the company’s image. The experience that your target audience has from the moment they click on your website until they (ideally) make a purchase creates impressions. Your website should guide users smoothly through the buyer journey. On this journey, there are some potholes that you should avoid. You should avoid the worst of them.
1. Websites that cannot be reached
If users try to access your website and it doesn’t work – for whatever reason – your website becomes worthless. Not only will users be frustrated, but you will also miss out on new customers and revenue every time your website is unavailable. There can be several reasons for this deadly sin of usability, such as server reachability. It is important that your visitors do not receive an error message when loading your website. Be sure to invest in good hosting. A good hosting provider is characterized by reliable server performance, scalable resources, first-class customer support and regular backups.
2. Slow loading times
Just as bad as slow loading times. They lead to frustration and impatience among users – as sure as amen in the church. The result: a bad user experience. Nevertheless, websites, apps and digital services lack responsiveness and speed of the user interfaces. Large image files and excessive plugins or scripts are common causes of slow loading times. Optimizing images for web use and limiting yourself to necessary plugins and scripts can therefore improve loading times and increase user-friendliness. But the use of outdated technologies can also contribute to slow website speed. By ensuring that your designs use the latest technologies and best practices, you can actively contribute to loading time optimization and keep your website up to date.
3. Unclear navigation
Users come to a page to get information or perform actions. A lack of clarity can significantly impair the user experience of the website and make it difficult for users to find the information they are looking for. Web designers should focus on developing simple and intuitive navigation systems that allow users to easily navigate through the interface and find the information they need. But also labels, CTAs or headlines are part of the UX design. Inconsistent or unclear labels can consequently also contribute to navigation problems. By ensuring that the labels are clear, concise and descriptive, you help your website visitors understand where they will land when they click on a link. This has a positive effect on user-friendliness.
4. Lack of optimization for mobile devices
In 2024, there is no way around responsive web design. The advantage of responsive web design: It adapts to the screen size and ensures that the website is displayed optimally on every device. But it’s not just about the look, but above all about the usability. Access from the mobile device must work just as well as from the PC or laptop – if not even better. In December 2023, almost 58% of accesses to websites worldwide were from mobile devices – and the trend is rising. Make sure your website can handle different screen sizes and slow connections. Google has also moved to a «mobile-first» index, which means that the mobile versions of websites are indexed. You should keep this in mind against the background of search engine optimization.
5. Too much text
As long as you don’t work for Wikipedia or publish scientific studies, you should by no means make your websites excessively text-heavy. Although text is by far the most important type of content and therefore also has a significant influence on the ranking in the search engines. However, this does not necessarily mean that a lot also helps a lot. On the contrary: Too much text is a deadly sin for the user experience of a website. Because nobody has time and desire to deal with walls of text nowadays. And good content does not have to be lengthy. It must be meaningful and offer added value. Avoid filler words and repetitions, include paragraphs to make the text easier to digest. If you can’t avoid using a lot of text, include graphics, images or videos to create a visual balance.
6. Annoying pop-ups and overlays
Pop-ups and overlays are windows or dialogs that are placed over the actual content of a website. This obscures the content that is important to the user. Some of them cannot be avoided, such as the consent of the cookies. In addition, pop-ups are not negative per se. But the dose makes the poison for the website usability. But be sure to avoid pointing out every action or event, inviting users to the newsletter and referring to your social media account. Especially when several pop-ups disturb the user flow one after the other, this is a disaster for the website. What you need to avoid specifically and what you can do to optimize your pop-up strategy:
- Do not show multiple pop-ups at once or one after the other.
- Make sure that the pop-ups are relevant to the website and the target audience.
- Your pop-ups should not cover the entire screen.
7. Complex forms
If you include forms on your website to generate leads, be sure to keep them as lean as possible. Reduce the effort for the (potential) customer to the bare minimum. If they are too complicated, this can lead to frustration among users and the form being abandoned. Well-designed forms, on the other hand, can increase conversion rates and improve the overall user experience. Therefore, consider which data you absolutely need. Everything else is detrimental to the website usability and possibly the website speed.
A positive user experience on a website depends on many factors and is complex. If you avoid the deadly sins mentioned, you will be one step ahead of many other companies. Nevertheless, every website offers optimization potential. Contact us today to achieve a performance optimization of your website and thus increase the satisfaction of your target group. With experience, know-how and commitment, we support you in improving your online presence and thus achieving your goals.
