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Every new project starts with learning. Just as designers need to understand a particular client and their design goals, clients need to understand what the designer is bringing to them and how their user experience influences the designer’s decision making. This is especially important when designing the user experience for each project.
The user experience is enhanced through repeated testing, repetition, and extensive user information that will always provide value to the project at hand. Thankfully, the field of user experience has been around long enough to give us a lot of valuable information about how users interact with digital media, especially websites.
The following is a list of the most common user experience misconceptions I encounter when creating websites and applications, all of which have been eliminated by extensive user testing and research.
Myth # 1: Users don’t like scrolling
The user will perform this operation. Case studies show that users feel very comfortable scrolling through web pages. In fact, they prefer to scroll down a long page rather than click through several pages in a series. One major data analytics provider reports that 66% of user attention is spent on this.
What does that mean?
Don’t be afraid to leave your story in suspense. In the past, web design was often chaotic, trying to put all relevant information in the first place. As long as the content is engaging and the design is compelling, people will instinctively scroll down.
Myth 2: Slides are an effective way to present content
They really aren’t. On the surface, they seem like a clever way to add interactivity to a page while saving space, but their click-through rates are embarrassingly low. One large study showed that only 1% of users interacted with slides when presenting them, and most users only did so during the first slide. In addition, some eye-tracking tests showed that users often skipped content in slides.
What does that mean?
Don’t worry about worthless content. Know your topic and present it in a confident manner. If you want to tell a story, consider an image grid, a dynamic scrolling page, or even a video. Let’s use slides in specific situations where they work, such as showing multiple views of a single object.
Myth 3: The home page is the most important part of your personal website
That’s not the case. When web design was in its infancy, the home page was often thought of as a virtual storefront. Many people think that as long as the store is attracting customers, they will find their way into the store. But that’s not how the site works. Users can access the site from any page, and studies show that visits to the home page are declining every year. Perhaps users are realizing that the home page is more of a marketing platform than meaningful content.
What does that mean?
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. While it’s great to have an attractive home page, focus your design on the pages where your most valuable content is. For this reason, I usually design a home page that runs parallel to the most substantive pages.
Myth 4: Design is decoration
Design is not decoration when it is properly designed. This is a fallacy I believed at the beginning of my design career. But I soon discovered that good design is more about function than art. Do these elements work well together? Do all the design elements fit? The most accurate definition of design is creative problem solving. In this case, without content, the design should not exist or risk being reduced to decoration. In web design, getting the most from the designer means having the final content from the beginning. After all, this is the picture at the center of the frame, and it is only through a content-first approach that the final product can be seen as a whole.
What does that mean?
Before starting any Web project, understand what needs to be said. Prepare the content first, and then use the design team as the vehicle to make it happen.
Myth 5: Your website needs to be redesigned every few years
But is this really the case? Perhaps it’s a sign of our throwback culture that every two or three years we throw away our websites and redesign them from scratch. However, time has again proven how much our users hate changes to the web. A more practical approach for an outdated site is to zero out the places that haven’t kept up with The Times and readjust accordingly. Today, many large sites rarely undergo radical changes, but instead adapt and modify as user needs or business goals change. Think of Google, YouTube, Amazon and Apple, the big, trend-setting sites. Instead of being replaced, these sites are evolving in a subtle and deliberate way.
What does that mean?
Let your changing goals guide the scope of change in your website design. If you are subverting your business model, a complete redesign may be necessary. But if you’re just improving or improving your business, consider a more targeted strategy. This is a good reason to think of your design team as ongoing partners rather than one-off production studios.
Originally written by Daniel Beadle
The original address: graftonstudio.com/blog/the-5-…
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