If your website is easier to use, then more and more people will use it. An easy-to-use website means intuitiveness is one of its characteristics. An intuitive web design enables a user to know what they are supposed to do. While this type of design is not obvious, it is powerful enough to direct the attention of the people to the tasks at hand, eliminating distractions and feelings of being lost. Simply put, intuitive design put emphasis on giving a positive user experience.
Current Knowledge and Target Knowledge
Get started with understanding current knowledge and target knowledge. Users have existing knowledge (current knowledge) when they go to your website. But, you also need to know more knowledge (target knowledge), for example, on how to use your website, offerings, or application.
Your job is to create a place that lessens the knowledge gap between the two. You may make your web design extremely easy that visitors do not need any further learning, or you may add tips and instructions.
One thing that may complicate your job is that there are different types of users out there. Some of them are computer illiterate while others are tech-savvy. You also have users who are in the middle of the nerds and the computer illiterate ones. Things would be easier if you narrow your audience. You have a bigger challenge on your web design if your target group is wider.
Know Your Users
Understanding your audience will help you make an intuitive Brisbane web design. Find out what they consider intuitive. Again, learning where their current knowledge and target knowledge is pointing can help. Study what they already know and what they lack knowledge of. There are two methods to figure this out:
- Field studies. Observe your customers in their natural habitat while using the internet. Doing this will give you an idea of their current knowledge.
- Over-the-shoulder usability testing. Have some people use your site to perform some tasks and comment on their thought processes. This will help you determine target knowledge.
In both tests, do not interfere with the participants and take some notes. Identify the demographics of your audience and know how they behave online. Incorporate what you learn about your target market and cater to their needs when organizing your web design. For example, if your site visitors expect to see a search bar on the homepage, make sure to give them one. Otherwise, they may leave your website without taking any action because they could not find what they want.
Do Not Break Design Convention
You are asking for trouble if you meddle with convention. While innovative website design can be attractive on the surface, but if it causes frustration and confusion to the users due to unfamiliar elements, they will likely abandon the site. Therefore, maintain web design convention, which means users find what they are looking for, information is straightforward, and page navigation is effortless.
Remember these typical conventions when designing your website:
- Navigation and other critical elements should remain in the same placement throughout your website.
- You should have a visible scrollbar when users need to scroll down.
- The contact information should be in the footer.
- Users are able to distinguish regular text from links easily.
- The bottom link in your vertical menu or the last one in your horizontal navigation menu is Contact.
- There are descriptive help notifications and messages on your web design.
- Keep in mind that left-aligned text is more familiar to users and easier to read.
- A user will be back to the homepage after clicking the top-left corner logo.
Master the Grid
In an intuitive web design, a grid comprises several intersecting curved or straight lines for structuring content. The grid is a guide on which you can organize the graphic elements on your site that is easy for the brain and eye to absorb. With grid, the graphic elements are placed accordingly in relation to a web page of other graphic elements on the same page.
The following are some points to remember when using grid layouts on your web design:
- The grid is the beginning layer that allows you to add elements over it. Remember that the grid is not a prison of cubes and lines, but mainly a guide.
- The grid helps organize your placement and design in the same manner as the F-pattern, Rule of 3s, the Golden Rectangle, and the Z-pattern.
- You can stack your grid appropriately or swirl it around the web page, but make sure it is in a logical order, enabling the eye and brain to scan and react accordingly.
- Make room for your white space. The grid is not all about the size of its rows and columns, but also the height and width of its spacing; the white space.
- Apply the Rule of Thirds means positioning important elements on the thirds of an image, allowing you to grab the attention of users more efficiently.
Be Extra Careful When Redesigning
When it comes to redesigning, site owners must be extra careful, as it could disrupt the knowledge gap and cost you a lot of money. Your top buyers already know how things are on your site. When you redesign, you are likely changing it up on them.
People do not hate change. But, they hate any change that removes their current knowledge. Having an intuitive web design will not force its visitors to adapt to change. When you need to redesign, keep your valuable users and buyers in mind. While you cannot please everybody, the design of your website must be for them.
An effective approach when redesigning is to limit the time of the whole process. Doing small changes to your web design over time is better than having major redesigns all at once. The minor alterations allow you to measure the outcomes, whether the change causes positivity or the opposite.
However, this is the ideal strategy when you have a large number of returning visitors. On the other hand, if you have little traffic on your website and your design is flawed, now is the best to do a website overhaul.
All things considered, make sure not to design your website on your own. Your website is a powerful marketing tool. So, unless you are a website designer, leave the job to the experts.
