Did you know that 94% of consumers don’t return to a website if it has a bad design? The reason why you are not getting enough conversions on your website is not always related to the products you sell or your marketing strategy. If your website has an outdated, sloppy and non-responsive design, the cause of your poor performance is directly related to your web design (or UX design). And no matter how much your other aspects are optimised, if the user experience is not positive, it is really mission impossible to get sales.
An optimised, customer-centric web design immediately conveys trust and credibility in the brand to the user, encouraging them to stay on the site and increasing the chances of conversion. Moreover, in many occasions, it will be the first impression that the lead will have of your company. In other words, web design influences consumers’ final decision more than you think.
Based on our experience helping many brands to improve their UX design, in this article we have compiled the most common mistakes we usually see in this area. Our goal is to give you the keys to improve each one of them so that you can achieve a web design that increases retention rates and generates more conversions.
Top 5 most common mistakes in web design (UX)
1. Confusing and unintuitive navigation
We speak of confusing or unintuitive navigation when a page has a menu structure that does not help the user to find what they are looking for. But also when the different elements that make up the website (buttons, images, text…) make it difficult to move around the page.
It is also very common, especially in clients who sell a large number of products or services, to find labyrinthine websites that are made up of a large number of pages that are difficult to reach from the home page.
Having an unintuitive website generates very high bounce rates and decreases customer satisfaction, negatively affecting brand reputation. It can even jeopardise the retention of customers who have already trusted you.
To solve this problem, it is essential to design a menu that is logical, clear and as simple as possible, using well-defined categories and subcategories. In this sense, we sometimes recommend to our clients the so-called hamburger menus, which are drop-down menus that are indicated by three horizontal lines at the top of the website and that can contain a large number of sections and sub-sections without altering the aesthetics of the website.
On the other hand, make sure that the anchor text and urls of your page are concise, descriptive and coherent with the website so that the user is better oriented while browsing the page.
2. Slow loading speed
As Google warned on its blog some time ago, users do not have much patience for sites that take a long time to load. In fact, 53% of users who visit a website via mobile abandon it if it takes more than three seconds to load. And this percentage increases if we talk about the loading time during the purchase process.
The fact that your website takes longer to load than desired can be due to different factors: large images, too many plugins or plugins that are not updated, inefficient code… This is a relatively common problem on websites, so at Pukkas we wrote an article in which we delve into how to improve the web speed of your website. We encourage you to read it if this is one of the problems that is affecting the user experience on your website.
However, we already tell you that one of the basics to have an agile website is to use a quality web hosting service that offers a robust web structure.
But, in addition to harming users, a slow loading speed also affects the positioning you may have in search engines, as it is one of the factors that Google takes into account when it comes to giving visibility to websites in the SERP.
3. Non-responsive design
A responsive design is one that adapts without any problem to any device (mobile, computer, tablet…) and offers a satisfactory user experience in all of them. In contrast, there are fixed designs with a specific resolution. If, for example, you have only designed your website for desktop, mobile users will have to zoom in to view the page and scroll horizontally, which makes navigation very difficult.
At Pukkas, when we take care of our clients’ web design, we prioritise mobile-first design, as 73.1% of the times a user abandons a website it is because it is not adapted to mobile devices. But that is not the only reason, as Google prioritises mobile-friendly content in its search results. In that sense, we made the first design for the mobile version and then we expanded it for larger screens.
Before finalising the design, we always carry out multiple tests on different devices and browsers to identify possible errors and perfect the design.
4. Lack of clear TACs
Good web design should also guide the user to perform specific actions that are also of interest to the brand. This is achieved with buttons that contain specific, clear and concise calls to action. Buy buttons, newsletter subscription buttons, contact buttons or add to cart buttons are essential on a website.
This mistake of not including buttons with clear CTAs on the website is often found in companies that only focus on designing an aesthetically beautiful page with great visual potential. That’s fine, but we must not forget that a website should also be functional.
At Pukkas, when we design a client’s website, we know that a CTA button is effective when it meets the following requirements:
- It is visually attractive.
- It is located in a strategic place.
- It is easily identifiable.
- The text it contains is short, clear and persuasive.
5. Unprofessional or outdated design
A website can have a good loading speed, attractive CTAs, a responsive design and be well organised, but still not convert. If this is your case, maybe the crux of the matter is that it has a somewhat outdated aesthetic.
The aesthetics of websites change over time and what was once a modern and attractive website may no longer be so, as fashions and tastes change. This is something that happens at a general level in design, and proof of this are the logos of brands, which undergo modifications over time.
If a user enters a website with an obsolete aesthetic, they will quickly associate the brand with something old and outdated and their confidence will drop. At Pukkas, whenever we redesign a website or start a design from scratch, we take into account giving the page a modern look and feel that is adapted to the times, but without renouncing the style and aesthetics of each brand. An example of this is the website we designed for the multinational company Moventia, which we gave a fresh, modern and attractive look while respecting the brand manual and corporate image.
How Pukkas can help you to improve your web design (UX)
When a client contacts us to improve the web design of their website, we always follow the same work methodology, but with a personalised approach. This allows us to organise ourselves and obtain a professional and unique result.
After knowing your objectives and difficulties, we analyse the website to detect areas for improvement and those aspects that are hindering your conversions. Depending on the conclusions of our experts, we will redesign the whole website or, if it has a good base, we will only touch those points that are preventing you from taking advantage of all the traffic you get. Finally, we test the changes on different devices and environments to ensure that the website launches in perfect condition and make any necessary changes after the test.
If you think that the web design is what is failing in your goal of getting more sales, we invite you to contact us. We will carry out a free audit of the state of your website and offer you a detailed diagnosis. Do not underestimate the power of a good web design.
