What are the characteristics of a truly user friendly website? It’s all about ease of use. A user friendly website helps visitors find the information, product, or service they need quickly without frustration or confusion. Whether you’re a local business or a national brand, investing in a well-designed, intuitive website can lead to more enquiries, better engagement, and repeat visits.
So let’s dive right in… Consider these on your website:
Key features of a user friendly website
Well planned architecture
Have your information well organised and beautifully presented so its easy to find and understand. Put your contact details and feature item “up from & centre”.
Mobile compatibility
Make sure it can be easily seen and navigated through on a mobile phone, a tablet and desktop computers.
Browser consistency
Ensure your website appears and behaves consistently across all major browsers.
Accessible to all users
Make sure your website can be accessed easily by on-screen readers for the blind, persons with disability or the elderly.
Valid mark-up & clean code
A website that adheres to the relevant web design best practices and standards is more robust and dependable.
Well-formatted content for scannability
Use headings, sub-headings, paragraphs, bullets or lists to break up text so people can quickly scan to the good bits if they are not interested in a big read.
Contrasting colour scheme
Poor colour choices make it very difficult for visitors to read your content. Keep it well designed, clean and contrasting.
Fast load times
Try to limit use of heavy plugins. however these are sometimes necessary for functionality.
Effective navigation
Keep the navigation clutter-free. Try to limit the number of menu items as far as possible and make the contact us page and enquiry form really easy to find.
Delete all the unnecessary information
Keep your site relevant, the user is not interested in a novel, nor in your staff’s life history. A background story is fine, but keep it short.
If you can check off most of these features, you’re well on your way to creating a truly user friendly website that keeps visitors engaged and coming back.