Bad user experience Archives

The expectations of users over the web and mobile apps has risen exponentially. A vast majority of users are unlikely to return to a website after one bad experience. There’s massive importance of user experience in website design – UX Basics, and the conversion rate of any website is directly proportional to how good is its user experience.

User experience (UX) is the wholesome experience a visitor has on a website or in a mobile app. It is a complete compilation of various small interactions knitted together, producing positive or negative feelings about the website and the brand. It’s not just a single design element or layout that defines the experience. The connection that visitors feel and the experience they receive on a website, as a result of the UX design, directly impacts consumer retention, brand identity, and the business as a whole.

A research conducted by Stanford University suggested that over 46 percent of consumers consider website design as an indicator of credibility. The fact is crucial for brands to secure existing users and captivate new consumers.

The following three UX design tips will help you improve your UX Basics, increase conversions and revenue, and will boost your business.

1. Branding must be consistent

There have been ample studies conducted to study the correlation between consistent branding and revenue. These studies suggest that consistent branding can boost revenue by a substantial amount. Moreover, a connected visual identity across all the platforms and devices, including the website, will help in creating a brand that consumers love to engage with. If users enjoy engaging with your brand, they will come back to you, again and again.

This cohesive visual identity(UX Basics) is pretty simple to reproduce. The top website designs use a recognizable color palette, consistent typography, imagery that provides value and information, and ingenious branding on every page of the website. The consistency in branding creates a balanced environment that allows your users to look for, and find, the products or information they seek; that too, without diverting their attention or confusing them. Users are aware of where they are, what to expect, and they can determine what they wish to do.

Amazon is an excellent example of consistent branding and a delightful user experience design. The modern yet simple logo design and an easy-to-use website add to the user-friendliness of the website and its mobile app. Users can quickly search, easily access their profile and cart, and quickly find their way back to the homepage, in case they go too deep into the thousands of pages on the website.

Read More about tips to boost your brand

This simple, consumer-centric, clean design is branded in its messaging too. Every piece of Amazon’s marketing collateral, from commercials to social media posts to banner ads, speak the same language.

2. Use clear and precise calls to action

If you want something to happen, you need to take action and go for it. It is only one part of the user journey to get them on your website. Many users won’t have a clue of the action you want them to take until you make it crystal clear to them. You should use distinct, clear and precise calls to actions (CTAs) with direct language.

Follow these UX Basics to maximize the UX design and the effectiveness of a CTA button:

Use large and fully clickable buttons. Don’t just depend on the text within the button
Write clear, easy to understand copy. It can be witty and playful at times, but most importantly, users should immediately understand the action.
Include a verb or an urgent adjective.
Keep the whole CTA short and sweet.
The font itself should be readable and large.
Avoid playing with any trendy, swirling fonts. Stick to straightforward sans-serif typography.
Ensure the call to action stands out. Stick to your color palette and use a hue or unique shape so that the action stands out.
Include small complementary design elements, such as an arrow or a shopping cart if it is in line with.
Utilize white space to allow the messages to breathe.

Read More about designing your CTA Buttons

3. Be user-centric, not designers-centric

Remember that the consumers will be using your website and not the designers. Therefore, before adding any features or implementing any changes, designers should first walk through what that means for the user experience and customer journey.

After you conduct consumer research, you and your team will better understand the features. You can segregate the features into two categories. The ones that are most important for users and the ones that are less important. no matter how aesthetically appealing they may be.

Finally, once you design any UX design improvement, take the time to A/B test it. A/B testing of the new feature will ensure that it is functional and leads to better conversions. Studies show that most companies discover the best conversion rate optimization through A/B testing as opposed to total implementation.

Ultimately, investing in user experience design will provide a strong return on investment down the road. Want to increase the user experience of your website? Need help to improve conversion rate and revenue? Talk to our design experts.

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There are two aspects to designing a website – a company’s marketing objective and users’ needs. One of the most challenging decisions a designer has to make is to strike a balance between the two. Boosting a company’s reach and profits is a common reason why brands use Dark UX Patterns.

What is Dark UX?

Dark UX Patterns are interfaces designed carefully to deliberately mislead users to choose a path they didn’t want to take. They are purposely designed to reach a company’s objectives without taking care of ethics and users’ needs. Dark UX came to light in 2010 after the boom of eCommerce industries on the web. To generate more sales, hit target numbers and get more subscriptions, etc., designers and business associates started creating misleading user interfaces to manipulate users.

Good user experience design is all about offering seamless and enjoyable interactions to users. User’s best interest should be of utmost priority, and there is no place for a deceptive or sneaky user experience design.

Here are some of the most commonly used Dark UX patterns that designers should not be ideally designing, and of which the users must be careful.

Get in-depth information about innovation in UX patterns here

Bait and Switch

Bait and switch is a sales (especially retail) tactic, which is no short than a blatant fraud. Baiting and switching usually consist of offering customers an enticing item at an attractive, affordable price. This lures users to perceive it as a good deal (that’s part one of the trick – the bait), but later turning the offer into a less desirable deal (that’s the second part of the trick – the switch). Although the deal is not as appealing as it was previously, the users are likely to take it to minimize their perceived loss.

Confirmshaming

Confirmshaming is the act of creating a feeling of guilt and regret, forcing the users into doing something, which they may not like to do in the first place. The option to decline is written in such a way as to shame the user into an agreement. The most common use is to get a user to sign up for a mailing list. It is also often found in exit-intent modals and other popups. Confirmshaming has made its way into retail, shaming users who don’t want to be bothered with a pop-up by assuming they’d rather pay full. Take a look at the following example:

Friend Spam

A lot of mobile apps seek various permissions when installed. One of the most commonly asked permission is to get access to your contacts on the pretext that they will use it for a desirable outcome (like finding friends to join you). However, in reality, it spams all your contacts in a message that claims to be from you.

Disguised Ads

As the name suggests, this pattern is adopted so that ads are disguised on the page, as if they were a part of the regular content or navigation. Considering the ads as regular content, users click them more often. Companies often run advertisements that look like a download button, tricking users into clicking on the ads rather than getting what they want.

Trick Questions

It’s a common situation in case of pop-ups with a confirmation. You read, and you don’t know whether to press OK or CANCEL. You respond to a question, which, when glanced upon quickly appears to ask one thing, but if read carefully, ask another matter entirely. They are cheap tricks that take advantage of the fact that people browse through web and app pages, instead of reading the content carefully. Users want to complete their tasks as quickly as possible, and that’s where they fall to these tricky questions.

Hidden Costs

You get to the last step of the checkout process, only to discover some unexpected charges have appeared, e.g. delivery charges, tax, etc. That’s not a new situation. A lot of E-retailers are trying to be transparent about it. However, you can still site examples of E-retailers, now and then, who use it to boost their profits. The designers should stay away from such practices. We checked out GoDaddy, a leading domain and web service provider, and found out an example of hidden costs.

Forced Continuity

Read the small print; many free trials end with continuing charges. When your free trial with a service comes to an end, your credit card silently starts getting charged without any warning. You are then not given an easy way to cancel the automatic renewal. To avoid this dark pattern, don’t provide payment for anything that’s free.

Misdirection

Misdirection occurs when the user’s attention is guided to a specific place. This is done so that they won’t notice something else that is happening. This dark pattern design forces you to focus on one thing just to distract you from another. Your reflex actions could send you far, far away from what you had in mind. So, take a good look and read the message before you click

Roach Motel

This type of dark pattern is pretty standard and reasonably relatable by all. The design makes it very easy for the user to get into a specific situation but then makes it hard for them to get out of. Once you have signed up, you are suddenly not given an easy way to cancel the automatic renewal, unsubscribe or opt-out of a service.

You may be interested in a few golden rules for UX designs

The designers’ community must take the same guard altogether and should advocate honest designs. There shouldn’t be any frauds, misleading communication or any form of trickery. Want to hear more about Dark UX patterns? Have a quick chat with our designers.

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