The Top 5 Factors of UX

In an ever growing online world, UX (user experience) is imperative in creating a successful and well designed website. A question all designers should ask themselves before designing is, how will the design impact your user? In creating the right look and feel, it is important to understand what the user wants to see and what the business wants to show. So what are the top factors that need to be taken into account when creating a site that has good UX?
 
 

#1 The User

Who they are and where they are can affect how a viewer uses a website. Their gender, age and job all have an impact on what they expect a website to look and feel like, making it important to factor these elements into the design process. The location in the world and their culture should also determine how a website should be designed. What are they doing on the website? What tasks are they performing – are they shopping, browsing or looking for a service or information?

The usability of these elements should enhance the consumer’s experience, creating a positive relationship with your brand. The consumer’s goals on the website should also be taken into consideration when designing a user focused website.
 
 

#2 Tasks

The tasks a user performs on your site and how often they do them can also affect the UX. These tasks could be anything, ranging from adding items to a shopping basket, refreshing a ticket page or browsing through a clothing catalogue. Why is the user performing these certain tasks and why are they visiting the website in the first place?

The tasks they perform is important, as businesses can see where and what section of their website is visited more times than others. This will then allow brands to improve these areas where tasks are carried out the least.
 
 

#3 Environment

The user’s surroundings are essential to their experience. The country, city, town or village will play an important role on how your consumer explores your website. Living in the countryside with a bad internet connection will impact the speed of interaction with your website, so having a site that has properly sized images that are not large and slow, will improve their overall experience.

Moreover, the context the viewer physically is at the time of interaction – are they in a busy office, travelling on a train or at home? The context can affect their ability to complete the task they set out to do. For example, if the consumer is at work in a busy office with nosey people around them, then they are less inclined to do personal tasks – online banking, browse for clothes or book a holiday.
 
 

#4 Platform

Technology also plays a key part in how the website will be viewed by your consumer, for example, an apple device will display a website differently from say a Samsung device. Therefore the technology they use will affect how the website will look. Is the website going to be responsive or static?

Internet browsers will also affect the way that the website is displayed, different browsers will use different systems to exhibit websites. Will the viewer be using Google, Opera, Firefox or something else?
 
 

#5 Business Needs

One thing you don’t want to forget about, is the business’ needs. What sort of business is the website trying to be? Is it trying to create revenue through being an online shop, charity or service? How the business wants to engage with their customers is also important and does the company want to increase their engagement?
 
 

All these factors are important to consider when designing a website with good UX, but remember – what users say isn’t always what they mean, so observing their sessions and behaviour is very important. Even though the user is in the middle of the process and they are the most important factor when designing a website, you can’t ignore what their business want, as they are the ones essentially paying for the design.