How to Create a Great User Experience - 5 Top Tips

Business owners can spend a significant amount of money driving traffic to their website/app but unless this platform is tailored to a user's needs, you’ll see high bounce rates which is detrimental to SEO.

We’ve asked Lewis Pitman, UX/UI Designer at Tramshed Tech Design Centre to share his top tips for developing a high-quality user experience.

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5 tips for creating a great user experience include, but are not limited to:

1. Make it user friendly

2. Keep it simple

3. Understand your target audience's needs

4. Practise a prototype before building a real product 

5. Don't be afraid to make mistakes 

1. Make It User Friendly

‍The first tip you should bear in mind to improve user experience is that you should make your product user-friendly.

Don't try to reinvent the wheel. There’s a reason most websites and mobile apps are structured the way they are, and this is because it works.

You might be wondering why this is, but simply put, it's because users are used to it, and this is known as Jacob's Law.

Every decision needs to consider the user. If something isn't user-friendly, or navigation is difficult, then this is where you begin to run into trouble. So, ensure that you go into the process aware that the product has to work for your user.

If a website is easy to use, users will naturally spend more time interacting with your website, eventually resulting in sales and conversions.

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2. Keep It Simple

Having too much is an instant user experience nightmare. When the user lands on a page that is jam-packed with elements, it can be distracting for the user, and you can be at risk of causing what is known as cognitive overload.

An experience like this strains a user and gives them too much to think about, which can hurt what you're trying to achieve.

To improve user experience, then, it's important to keep things simple.

3. Understand Your Target Audience’s Needs

It might be an obvious one, but to improve user experience it’s really important to understand your target audience’s needs. It’s essential to remind yourself that you’re not designing the product for yourself.

Testing with real users is an essential part of the design process. That said, you will need to ensure that you have done your research and keep asking your audience for specific feedback on what works and what doesn't so you can make the necessary adjustments.

Design the website with the target audience in mind. 

This will help to minimise the risk of creating something that doesn't meet your target audience's needs. After all, this is who you're creating the product for, so it's important to focus on them at every stage in the design process.
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4. Practise A Prototype Before Building A Real Product

The next tip to improve user experience is to ensure that you practise a prototype before building a real product. This comes down to the fact that skipping prototyping and putting a lot of effort into building a product is a common mistake among many design teams.

When you put a lot of effort into creating something that you believe is great, it can be stressful when you realise that what you’ve built probably doesn't reach your expectations.

‍Bearing this in mind, you'll never want to skip this step as it's vital to the overall product.

‍5. Don’t Be Afraid To Make Mistakes

Last, but by no means least, design is a process and mistakes will be made, so don't be afraid to make a few along the way.

If you're fearful of making mistakes and trying to get everything perfect, you're going to miss out on useful learning experiences and might even end up with a product that misses the mark if you've not learned throughout the design process.

Important to remember that it's simply not realistic to make something perfect every time that you try, so trust the process.

And there we have it! ‍Hopefully, these 5 simple tips have given you a better understanding of how to create a greater user experience. 

Interested in learning more about how you can grow your business? Check out more top tip videos on our YouTube channel. 

We are Tramshed Tech: a startup ecosystem home to 50+ companies ranging from pre-revenue start-ups to scaling businesses with 600+ registered members from the digital, creative and tech communities.

We’re currently based in Grangetown, Cardiff Central & Newport, Barry and Swansea. 

If you’re interested in joining us at any of our locations, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. 

For more workplace tips and tricks, check out our tech startup blog, including related blogs such as ‘4 alternative ways of working’, ‘How to improve focus and attention when working’ and ‘Are 4 Day Work Weeks More Productive?’.

Published on - 29/10/2021

Updated on - 21/02/2024