The Digital Design and Usability course provided us with a foundation for a brand’s online presence as it interacts with its new and established customers. We hear the terms User Experience and User Interface (UX/UI) in the digital space but do not get a clear understanding of what they mean. Website designs incorporate UI/IX features in the form of Usability and Navigation.
Website navigation is critical for brand messaging, and it can steer customers away instead of drawing them in. There are a variety of reasons why a website may force customers to look at other brands to fill their needs. The navigation bar has too many options for the customer to find the content they are looking for; there are too many hover fly-out submenus with options becoming unusable on small screens (Vukadinovic, 2023). Many users are on their mobile devices where space is a premium, and not considering this can be damaging. The benefit of a good navigation menu reduces customer stress and makes decision-making a breeze. Website designers ensure that creating a good menu that keeps the user experience in mind has a navigation menu that is sticky, meaning that as the user scrolls the page, the menu is present on the screen (Vukadinovic, 2023). The navigation has to be as informative as possible, meaning that hypertexts are visible to users with color changes on hover and underlined, which leads them to valuable resources on the website (Vukadinovic, 2023).
Website usability is the ease of use a visitor feels as they navigate the environment of a brand’s web home. A usable website is consistently, easily, habit-formingly, and in the most error-free way usable (Alban, 2024). There are a few things to consider when brands go over their website to make sure it is usable for their customers. Depending on the business and the goal of the website, less is more; getting the customer to the information or resources that are important to them in an expeditious manner is vital in keeping them engaged. An essential part of website usability is ensuring that the website is learnable; this entails making the website flow according to the basic principles of usability (Alban, 2024).
Website findability is important to a brand because it brings awareness to its existence on the worldwide web. Many brands exist in the noisy space of the web, and in many cases, customers accidently come across their website and find their content aligns with their interest. Sometimes, the customer may scroll away and find it nearly impossible to reconnect with the website if they did not add it to their favorites. To ensure findability is consistent when customers are searching, it is important to use relevant keywords, title tags, and meta descriptions throughout the website (Bothra, 2022). It is important that the website loads quickly and efficiently on all devices, keeping in mind that a majority of customers access the website on their mobile devices.
The Digital Design and Usability course expanded my understanding of the importance of what the goal of a website truly is and how taking the right approach to improving it is valuable. The course cleared up UX/UI for me and the role it plays in increasing brand engagement with customers. Each piece of the customer journey to the website to bring awareness, navigating the menu for the content, and most importantly, getting to the content they are interested in creates the user experience and engagement.
Reference:
Alban, S. (2024, March 22). Website Usability – 5 Principles to create website users joy. Retrieved from User Guiding: https://userguiding.com/blog/website-usability
Bothra, K. (2022, December 19). The Complete Guide To Website Findability. Retrieved from Seahawk: https://seahawkmedia.com/seo/guide-to-website-findability/
Vukadinovic, D. (2023, March 17). The Good, the Bad, and the Best in Website Navigation. Retrieved from Get Dev Done: https://getdevdone.com/blog/the-good-the-bad-and-the-best-in-website-navigation.html
