A User Centric Website

Assuming that you already have a functional website and a

team of web designers ready to improve it, take a deep breath and sleep it off first. Although time is of the essence in improving your online presence, hasty work leaves more to be desired. You wouldn’t want to make certain elements of your website an inconvenience to them, right?

Speaking of your users, the primary goal each design is to enable them to swiftly and intuitively navigate throughout the website. With that said, it is important to make every element on your site able to cater to your users’ convenience. How? Let’s find out.

Step 1: Go Responsive

If you want your website to be user-centric, start off by

using responsive web design. Nowadays, people do not exclusively surf the Internet through desktop devices, since mobile access to the Internet is a common occurrence nowadays.

Basically, if your website is responsive it will automatically resize and refit itself to fit the device used to view it. A non-responsive website would only look good on a desktop, but not on a smart phone and a tablet. Going responsive means catering to all of your users, thus making it user-centric.

Currently, it is a better option compared to using mobile websites (or ones with domains like m.example.com), mainly because doing so means you have two sites to maintain.

Step 2: Never Make It an Eyesore

The next step to creating a user-centric website is by

making sure that none of the elements prove to be an eyesore to your users. For example, make sure that the colors are not in the shade of neon since it may prove to be too bright to certain users’ eyes. The best ones to utilize are pale shades of green, yellow and orange as they are more pleasant to the eyes.

Step 3: Don’t Put in Too Much Elements

In web design, less will give more. Putting fewer decorations

and more emphasis on the elements your users should be done if you want to them to have a smooth experience while browsing your website. There’s no need to put glitter on the tail of the cursor, nor is there a need to place videos unrelated to your website or service. Anything that distracts your visitor isn’t user-centric: it’s just a distraction.

Step 4: Simplify Your Navigation System

For your users’ sake, put a functional search box and be sure

that each element on your site’s menu bar should be clearly defined and will lead to the appropriate pages. Bear in mind that if your user takes at least 10 seconds to find the page he wants to be in, then your website needs a lot of work.

Step 5: Write the Content for a 10 Year Old

To fully make your website user-centric, avoid difficult words

and all kinds of jargon – write as if you are doing so for a 10 year old child. There’s no need to include industry-specific words and phrases. Sentences like “Were your endeavors of the present day arduous? Step inside our facility and get a scrumptious doughnut” can be translated to “Did you have a bad day? Come in and get a donut!”.

Remember, people won’t read what they don’t understand!