Designing a website can be creatively fulfilling, exciting, and hair-pullingly frustrating all at the same time. Whether you’re building it yourself or have the support of an experienced web developer, it can be easy to get carried away with all of the bells, whistles, and AI chatbots on offer. But if you find yourself swept up in flashy features or stuck in the weeds of SEO optimisation, take a moment to think of your user.
We’ve all been there: a query on a search engine sends you into uncharted territory – maybe there’s something you’re looking to buy, or you simply have a question that needs answering. But what’s there to greet you? A pop-up, prompting you to accept the cookie policy, shortly followed by another pop-up, encouraging you to sign up for an email newsletter, then – oh, what’s that? Yet another pop-up! It’s a chatbot, asking if you need any help. After banishing the bot without even so much as a second thought, you’re finally off to the races, but… It’s a slow one. The sluggish site is filled with autoplaying videos, and with each click comes another hoop to jump through. Now you’ve had enough, and before you know it, you’re back on Google, clicking on the next result, with no intention of returning to the hellhole from which you’ve just escaped.
So how do we avoid creating a poor experience for customers, and what is a good user experience?
What is UX
UX, or user experience, is the overall experience a person has when they interact with a product, service, or system. UX is all about the user’s perception of its utility, efficiency, and ease of use; within the context of web design, we should aim to foster a positive, satisfying experience that encourages users to spend more time on the site and leads to a higher conversion rate.
For instance, a well-optimised, fast-running website with an organised structure that provides clear pathways for users and has a consistent design language will offer a better experience than a slow, confusing one. UX is an ongoing, often repetitive process of refinement based on user data, feedback, and testing to improve over time.
Quick Wins to Improve Your Site’s UX
Maintain a consistent visual hierarchy by organising your design elements by importance, drawing the user’s attention to focal points you want them to engage with, such as buttons, images, or calls to action (e.g. ‘add to cart’). Larger elements naturally draw the eye first, so make your main headlines significantly larger and bolder than the headings and body text to make their importance clear.
Easy, intuitive navigation is also a key part of good UX web design. If you have an e-commerce website, and your customers are getting lost on their way to your products, they’re likely to become frustrated and bounce. Ensure that you have a search bar and a navigation menu that are visible on every page and straightforward to use, and (while you’re at it) why not implement breadcrumb trails to highlight different pathways and make it easy to go back? If users can seamlessly navigate your website, they’ll be able to visit the pages you want them to see without confusion.
Limit your website to just two, maybe three fonts in order to maintain a cohesive stylistic appearance. Not only will it improve readability, but it will also help structure your content: if you establish a bold, primary level for headlines, a medium secondary level for headings, and another smaller level for body text, your users will know where to look.
Embrace Minimalist Web Design
Minimalism is a broad design philosophy which prioritises simplicity and clarity above all else. In web design, minimalist design places essential elements front and centre while removing anything unnecessary or excessive – like chatbots, animations, and videos – so nothing distracts from the core user experience. This general lack of clutter also means that minimalist design often optimises the website’s backend functionality, improving load times and creating a snappier experience for users, all while improving search engine optimisation, resulting in higher rankings on search engine results pages.
As a major trend in web design over the past 20 years, Minimalism has stood the test of time for a reason. The likes of Apple and Google helped popularise it, but now, many who chase the same aesthetic and experience fail despite their well-intended ambitions. If you’re considering taking a minimalist approach to your website design, here are some core tenets to stick to.
- Everything on the page must serve a function. If you’re considering content for a page, focus only on what is essential for users.
- Embrace a consistent design language and colour palette; it’s easier on the eyes for browsers and can reinforce your own branding.
- White space is your friend. It’ll give your website room to breathe and guide users to the places that matter.
Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Having a mobile-friendly website is critical because, in 2025, most users browse the internet on their phones. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but too many developers see the mobile site as more of an obligatory afterthought, rather than a key area of focus.
Users don’t want to aim their thumbs at microscopic icons and zoom in on a horizontal page on their vertical screen, and scroll sideways to read important text. Failing to optimise for mobile can lead to high bounce rates, due to a mass exodus of frustrated users who flock to your competitors who’ve prioritised building a mobile-friendly hub for their businesses.
What’s more, improving your website for mobile will improve its optimisation for search engines, as Google primarily uses mobile versions of sites for its rankings. This can, again, lead to improved search engine rankings and higher overall traffic.
Listen to your Analytics
Paying close attention to analytics when refining your website design is essential because it provides objective, data-driven insights into user behaviour and can tell you what is or isn’t working about your site.
If your bounce rates have increased since a recent update, you’ll need to know why. If conversion rates haven’t improved, maybe there are navigation issues. Designing your website is an ever-changing, long-term process that you should refine regularly if you want to see continuous improvement.
Some Examples
Airbnb
It might be hard to believe, but there was once a time before Airbnb. But the website took the world by storm, creating its very own cottage industry and making tourism more accessible to independent property owners. On the website itself, users have a clear call to action at the top of the landing page, encouraging them to search for a destination. Once there, they can browse the properties on offer, filtering by price, rating and location, until they are guided to book their stay.
BGN
BGN are web developers in Manchester whose confidence is on full display on their site. The site’s cosmetic wow factor isn’t the only thing worth noting, however. Its intuitive navigation showcases their portfolio of work, while encouraging visitors to browse in one direction – down. This creates a sense of organised chaos and reflects their overall design and technical prowess, while keeping user experience at the centre.
ASOS
As an e-commerce site that has only ever been online, ASOS owes much of its success to the usability of its website. Upon loading it up, you aren’t bombarded with glamorous models and countless products. Instead, you’re presented with options through which you filter your experience. Men’s or women’s? Sweaters, trousers, or shoes? As you go, you can refine your search by filtering by size, price, and colour, while keeping a menu and search bar at the top.
Duolingo
Not just an app: Duolingo’s website is unfortunately slept on. It makes a huge splash on both desktop and mobile, utilising sparse, high-quality animations and bright colours amidst an ocean of white space to guide users through their learning journey. The satisfaction and fulfilment that come with learning a language are reflected on the site, with clearly signposted difficulty levels and rewards that create a stimulating yet focused atmosphere that encourages users to keep their daily streaks for years.
Conclusion
There are more websites clamouring for our attention than ever, yet unfortunately, too many have missed the memo on creating a positive experience for real people, rather than search engines. We’re also spoiled by an abundance of tools and highly-skilled developers who can bring any vision to life, but instead, too much attention is paid to new features that supposedly improve quality of life, but all too often accomplish the very opposite.
If your website is in dire need of an update and you only take one thing away from this article, remember this: keep the user experience at the forefront of your approach. Leave your ambitions of higher traffic and improved conversion rates at the door, and, first and foremost, create a website that you feel your users will enjoy. If you can use some of the points above as inspiration, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your wider business goals.
