Understanding clients is the initial step of the plan interaction with your internet-based business needs. When clients are at the focal point of the UX plan, which guides them through computerized administrations, giving them an instinctive and connecting experience, we talk about User-Centered Design (UCD).
We Start By Understanding Our Users Who Will Browse The Online Shop Before Planning E-Commerce
This is a design philosophy centered on the user experience, whereby the user’s needs, desires, and limitations on the final product are given significant attention at every step of the process to maximize the product’s usability. Product itself. By working on graphics, content, structure, navigation tools, and how all these elements complement each other, user experience designers ( UX Designers ) take into account what people expect from a digital service and thus create an experience that meets user expectations.
How Do You Make A User-Centered Design?
It is necessary to understand users, analyze their behavior and probe their reactions in a process in which the user, understood first as a human being, is placed at the center. The aim is to offer a project that is focused on the final recipients and their needs and to propose a path within the site or application that is truly user-friendly.
The Definition Of UX Design For The User:
We specify here that while UX, in the strict sense, means the set of user perceptions and responses deriving from a product, system, or service, User-Centered Design refers to the process or strategy applied to design experiences.
The UCD should, therefore, not be confused with the specific experience of the user in using the product; it is true, however, that often, when we talk about UX design, we tend to simplify, referring precisely to the quality of the experience by a user in interacting with a system. Taking into account these necessary distinctions, we highlight why it is essential to understand the needs and expectations of end users.
Why It Is Essential To Understand Users
Although there are good UX design practices and “rules,” if we want to refer to them as such, the best way to create a good design is to rely on what the user suggests – and not the theory. It is not a question of forgetting all those practices defined and suggested by the great UX designers – which indeed continue to remain valid and effective – but of making a further effort, trying to evaluate our users’ experience on a case-by-case basis.
Not all user groups will be the same: different lived experiences, cognitive biases, decision-making patterns of thought, and mnemonic abilities lead to varying ways of reacting to the same stimuli. Designing good UX requires understanding your users, their limitations, and their expectations. If the goal of a good UX is to develop and design interfaces that aim to optimize navigation, making it as intuitive as possible for that type of audience is the goal to set.
For example, a specific type of navigation may be perceived as fluid by a young user but appear entirely inaccessible for an older one; or members of a particular ethnic group may find an interface intuitive without it appearing understandable and workable to those living on the opposite side of the hemisphere. Cultural, ethnic, and age differences, disabilities, or less cognitive-physical severe impediments, cause each user group to react independently. For this reason, the first step involves analyzing user behavior to achieve the goal of a UX design that is more inclusive for everyone and genuinely user-centric. Let’s see together some ideas for UXR.
User Behavior Analysis To Create The Best UX
As mentioned in our previous article (title), identifying needs, categorizing, and classifying them is the task of the User Experience Researcher. These, to the quantitative collection of data on user characteristics and the context of use (demographic, socio-economic factors, …), add standardized active listening techniques to obtain qualitative information that will go and make the design and implementation more straightforward and safer. Implementation of user-centric and personalized design.
Therefore, the preliminary phase of the design consists precisely of the UXR, an activity that collects the requirements to move on to the actual design phase. Then, once the product has been created, the UXR again measures user engagement (and frustration) with the product. In this sense, research techniques and metrics are useful for optimization purposes. As our previous article (title) mentioned, various tests allow you to observe user behavior. Let’s see some of the most effective.
Heathmap To Visualize Visitor Behavior
Speaking of websites, a method of immediate understanding and easy reading is using heathmaps, which offer graphical representations of user behavior. As the English word says, a heat map represents, using visualization in different colors – from blue to red – the degree of interaction (high or low with warm and cold colors, respectively) of users with the various areas of the screen. There are four tests typically using heat maps:
- eye tracking,
- click tracking,
- scrolling,
- mouse tracking.
Eye Tracking:
The eye tracking method allows you to pinpoint precisely what the users of a website or application are looking at; however, it does not allow knowing and understanding with certainty why the user is looking or staring at a given point: is it captivating or incomprehensible? A good solution could be integrating this test type with qualitative data collection methods.
Click Tracking:
Automatic click tracking is often used to understand which pages are more effective and which CTAs are more attractive, i.e., to understand any technical problems that could hinder the performance of the site or app: many clicks made often reveal difficulties along the way. Automatic click-tracking tools are simple to set up: by placing a piece of code on each page, every time a visitor clicks on a unique link, the device registers this by displaying the data in reports.
Scrolling:
Scroll tracking can apply to almost any site and provides insight into how users move around the site. In other words, it’s a way to understand its interaction behavior even if no clicks occur.
Mouse Tracking:
This method allows you to record and analyze the movements of the mouse pointer for each page. It is relatively simple to set up and quite fast in retrieving data.
A/B Testing: Comparing Different Versions Of The Same Page
The AB test is a comparison method that allows you to compare one (or – less frequently – more) website page variants with a basic version: the purpose is to identify the best performance for a defined objective. By juxtaposing two versions of the same page, A/B testing allows the user to interact with different variations, revealing which version performs better.
Session Logging: Observe A Visitor’s Browsing In Real-Time
Session recordings are visitors’ actions as they browse a website. Recordings capture mouse movements, clicks, taps, and scrolling across desktop and mobile devices. Like the other tests mentioned so far, session recordings are used to understand how users interact with the site, resolve critical issues, optimize the user experience, and improve the conversion rate.
In particular, from the session recordings, it is possible to understand which contents attract the visitor and which ones are ignored, how the user reacts to the elements highlighted on the pages, and how much time he spends on them. At this point of the path, he leaves the site. Ultimately, if the navigation follows the path the UX designer envisages.
Form Analysis: Understand When And Why They Are Abandoned
The analysis of behavior on the forms is critical because it allows you to understand how to improve the performance of the site and, therefore, of the site in general, helping to increase the conversion rate. When creating a form, the fundamental element, in terms of User Experience, is the completion time: the longer the user takes to complete a form, the more significant the negative impact on the conversion rate.
Suppose online forms are the main channel for acquiring leads and contact details through websites. In that case, it is, therefore, essential to pay attention to the user experience of the form, which allows the acquisition of potential leads and new revenue.
Conversion Funnel Analysis
The user experience is, therefore, a powerful lever to optimize the conversion rate. To obtain it, the site must be built based on visitors’ expectations: navigation comfort, straightforward design, and intuitive call to contribute to the conversion strategy’s success actively. The primary purpose of navigation is to allow users to find what they are looking for on the site: the hierarchy of the pages, the links between them, the presentation of the menu or the presence of a footer, the e-commerce loading speed, etc.
These are all elements that you need to pay attention to offer a quality experience and optimize the conversion rate. The conversion rate optimization strategy thus joins the UX strategy: funnel analysis is an excellent method for identifying where to go to work and thus obtaining better results.
User Feedback: Ask For Visitors’ Opinions
Collecting user feedback is essential for quantitative and qualitative analysis of the experience. User surveys are a crucial indicator of the online experience: you’ll be able to discover behaviors and opinions that you never imagined. And this will allow you to fix any critical issues on the site.
Conclusions
We have seen how UCD puts users at the center of decisions. The results collected with the profiling tests, mapping the path within the site, and usability texts are intended to ensure that the design of a product or service remains focused on who will use it in the context and with the purpose of the user. You offer a view to conversion by understanding visitors and their activities on the site guides and refining the experience design. The UCD is centered on the user because it iteratively involves him throughout the design and development process.
Also Read: Management Control: What It Is And How To Do It In 4 Steps