User experience (UX) refers to how users interact with a product, service, or system. It describes the experiences users have with such a product or service. User experience focuses on a person’s perception of a product’s ease of use or efficiency. User experience design is how design teams create products that will be meaningful and relevant to users.
The success or failure of a UX design can make or break a business or brand. So, for a design team to create a perfect website or product, they need to conduct user experience research. User experience research is the study of learning and finding out what end-users need and want. Then, web design Amarillo teams use these insights to enhance the design of products and services..
UX research helps designers discover the target users’ behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation, task analysis, and user feedback. In this article, you will be learning about the various ways to bring value to your website through well-thought-out UX research.
How UX research brings value to your website
When done right, UX research can be highly beneficial to a website. So, these are the various ways user experience research brings value to your website.
- UX research makes your website more useful
User experience research focuses on the users’ needs. When users visit your website, they are there to find the information they need. However, today’s internet users are impatient, and they tend to leave your website if they do not find what they need is relatively high. Therefore, your website should have a purpose for your target audience, and they should get the benefits of using your website.
With user experience research, you will be able to pinpoint the exact needs of your users and how to make your website beneficial. For example, your website should have easy-to-use and access features. Also, user experience research helps you determine the look and functionality of your website to fit in with the users’ preferences.
A UX research platform such as Maze ensures you run in-depth usability tests and add value to your website by making it worthwhile. Once your website is helpful to your users, it becomes valuable to them. In addition to getting new visitors to your website, old visitors will return to your site.
- UX research increases a website’s desirability
Through user experience research, you will be able to boost your website’s desirability, thereby adding value to the site. When a website is well-designed and functional and has the right aesthetic elements and features, users will want to keep returning to your website when a website is well-designed and functional with the right aesthetic elements and components. As a result, more users, both old and new, increase conversions and sales, adding value to your business.
For your website to be valuable, the target audience should want it. So, you have to think about the elements you include in your website. For example, if yu’re running an e-commerce or online store, you definitely need to include order forms to make the shopping experience easier and more enjoyable.
You can find a ton of order form templates for online stores and customize them to fit your clients’ needs. You can conduct usability testing or A/B testing with UX research to determine which template will be most desirable for your users. Then, when you have the desired website because of excellent UX research, it becomes valued in the market.
- User experience research boosts a website’s efficiency
The efficiency of a website is typically measured by how well the site does what it was created to do. It is not enough that your website has tools for users to carry out tasks. It would be best to focus on how efficient those tools are. When your website is not efficient, you can be sure that it won’t be considered valuable.
To determine if your website is efficient, you can use the following metrics as measurement:
- Overall traffic to the site
- Average time spent on site
- Conversions
- Web speed
- Bounce rate
- The average number of page views per visit
- Keyword rankings
After a thorough assessment of the above, you need to work on your website’s efficiency if you notice poor results. With UX research, you can find out the problem areas, fix them, and boost website efficiency.
- Easy navigation
Most users give their verdict on a website based on their first impressions. So, you have to ensure that those who visit your website are enamored by it. one way to dissuade people from your website is by having difficult navigation around your website. If visitors cannot easily navigate your website, they will leave and increase your bounce rate.
An increase in bounce rate leads to a decrease in website value. However, with UX research, you will be able to point out the areas that are challenging for your users to find their way around. For instance, as an online business, if your customers find it challenging to find the checkout point, they will not complete the desired action.
You can provide your users with a well-developed site map to guide them on their journey while on your website. When you have an intuitive and easy-to-navigate website, it will make your users happy and satisfied, which is one of the main goals of any website owner.
- Your website becomes more SEO ready
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most critical factors in determining how valuable a website is. SEO is the process of ensuring your website ranks high in search engines like Google. If your website ranks high on Google, you are doing something right. On the other hand, if you rank poorly, you have a lot of work.
With UX Research, once you identify and fix the issues with your website, more people will be interested in visiting your website. Google or other search engines will notice and rank you higher than your competitors, including Medallia competitors. Optimizing your website for SEO helps increase its visibility, leading to more traffic and conversions or sales.
These tips will ensure your website is SEO ready:
- Have a modern-looking yet straightforward website interface
- Make sure your website is easy to use and navigate
- Post helpful content regularly
- Carry out keyword research
- Use accurate and descriptive titles for your pages
Top user experience research methods
When it comes to user experience research, designers employ several methods to get the desired results for their design. Each technique a designer chooses depends on the nature of the design they are working on. The most common UX research methods are A/B testing, usability testing, and user interviews.
- A/B testing
A/B testing or split testing is a quantitative user experience research method that helps designers find the best version of elements such as call-to-action, website content, images, etc. In A/B testing, you need to create two or more versions of the website element. Then, you will randomly split your user groups into two or more groups to see which performs better.
For instance, you might have two ideas for your call-to-action, then the CTA, which converts more or resonates more with your testers, will be the best option. In split or A/B testing, the variant or element that makes the most users take action is the best to include on your website, while the alternative should be discarded.
The benefit of A/B testing is that you can test everything using this research method. Also, it allows you to base your website design decisions on data rather than on guesswork.
- Usability testing
Usability testing is one of the most popular methods in UX research. It occurs when the researcher or facilitator asks a participant to perform tasks. While the participant performs these tasks, the designer observes their behavior and listens for feedback. The goals of usability testing vary according to the study.
But they usually have to do with identifying problems in the design, discovering opportunities to improve, and learning about the target audience’s behavior and preferences. To produce a perfect web design, designers need to have their decisions driven by the observations of real users and their interactions with the design.
- User interviews
There are instances when getting accurate data for UX research might be challenging. This is because users may not seem comfortable enough to give genuine feedback. For example, your user experience research setting may be too formal.
However, with user interviews, a research method that allows you to gather information through conversations with your users, you will be sure to get data you can use in your design. In addition, when designers conduct these interviews wisely, they can get a good amount of qualitative data.
During user interviews, the interviewer typically asks questions on specific topics and proceeds to analyze the answers the participants give. However, to get results you will be satisfied with, you have to form and ask the questions cleverly. Also, you have to follow up on the answers the participants provide during the interviews.
Tools for UX research
UX research has to be carefully carried out to produce the desired outcome. With the right UX research tools, a designer is sure to find the research process easier and more effective. These are the three best software for UX research.
With Maze, you can be confident that you will build excellent websites and products. Maze ensures that the research process is not slow or complicated. You can collect actionable user insights to help your product decisions in hours instead of days or weeks.
Maze allows you to get user insights in real-time. You can test at any time and act on your test findings instantly. Using this platform is easy and efficient, as you can create a maze for every project need, e.g., usability tests or user surveys.
Also, you can share a maze with users and stakeholders no matter where they are in the world by using a unique URL. Integrating your favorite design tools, such as Figma, InVision, Sketch, etc., becomes a seamless process with Maze.
This remote user research platform eliminates the guesswork in your design decisions by validating them with real users. With this platform, you can confidently design your products or services.
UsabilityHub provides users with various test options such as prototype tests, first click tests, preference tests, design surveys, and five-second tests. Each of these tests performs multiple functions.
For instance, the prototype tests allow you to assess how target users navigate through your Figma prototypes. Design surveys help you get feedback on images, videos, or audio files, and preference tests let you determine which designs your users prefer and why. UsabilityHub makes the decision-making process easier and faster for design teams worldwide.
UserTesting is a UX research software that allows designers to experience what customers experience. It lets you engage and empathize with your audience through video recordings or live conversations. That way, you will get accurate feedback about your product or service.
Within a few hours, you can get the human insight needed to produce exceptional products, websites, or services. In addition, this platform is trusted by startups and the world’s largest corporations, making it perfect for any business size.
UserTesting lets you get a first-hand, vivid view of what customers think and experience as they interact with your product through Customer Experience Narratives (CxNs). You can observe their facial expressions and body language, see visuals of their experience, hear their tone of voice, get insights from their digital and real-world interactions and ask them any questions.
Conclusion
When UX research is executed excellently well, it adds value to the website and the business. By bringing more customers, sales, and conversions, UX research is invaluable in the business world. This article has looked at how user experience research brings value to your website, the methods in UX research, and the tools to carry out successful UX research.
