A user-friendly interface ensures a positive customer experience, increases website traffic and, ultimately, revenue. Achieving these results requires brands to first debunk the “user-friendly” concept.

A whopping 79% of users don’t return to a website where they had a negative experience. The challenge for corporations worldwide is identifying the critical value-adding items from the user perspective. The old moto “You are not your users” still rings true.

Brands are not as customer-centric as they think

Most brands suffer from what is commonly known as the “empathy-gap”. In a recent study by Capgemini, it has been shown that although 75% of organizations think they are customer-centric, a mere 30% of customers believe this to be the case. Source: Capgemini.

UX Top performers start by defining what ‘user-friendly’ actually means

Research has shown that one main factor contributing to the empathy-gap is simply not defining what ‘user-friendly’ actualy means for a specific platform or audience.

When brand managers, designers or programmers utter the word ‘user-friendly’, they are mostly referring to anything that is easy to learn and use. In many cases, for websites of corporations affected by the empathy-gap, that means a general appreciation on how “sophisticated”, “modern”, “simple” and “intuitive” a platform is, according to the immediate team in charge of building it.

What makes a website 'user-friendly'?

Our complete guide to a great user experience is available to everyone here.

Our research with brands around the world has shown that there are 8 critical points relevant to every platform, organization and audience, regardless of size or sector:

HOME / LANDING PAGE - The home page is an organization’s face to the world and the point at which users decide to interact with an organization. It needs to strike a balance between showing the range of items on offer and simplifying the content to ensure that the majority of customers can easily embark on the most common tasks.
NAVIGATION - Navigation and information architecture are the components of web pages that support the user in finding information and in browsing through the site’s content. A well-designed navigation system is more than a good taxonomy: it encourages customers to explore parts of the site they may otherwise have missed.
SEARCH - Search is one of the dominant ways that many customers interact with web sites. A good search engine needs to acknowledge the 'human' side of searching, which means dealing with spelling errors and synonyms (such as 'laptop' for 'notebook'). Google has set the standard for how search should look and behave, and many of these guidelines are based on this best practice.
TASK COMPLETION AND FORMS - People go to web sites to achieve particular goals, not to look around and admire the design. This means web pages needs to support customer tasks. A site is task oriented when it supports users in the effective and efficient completion of their tasks. Forms are the components of a site that allow the customer to interact with the organization. Well-designed forms provide access to rich functionality while asking for the minimum of input from the customer.
CONTENT & DESIGN - Writing for the web is not the same as writing for print: people read differently on the web and expect to scan content pages for information. Appropriate visual design means that the fonts, icons, colors and layout help the customer complete common tasks and that pages do not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed.
ERRORS, HELP & LEARNABILITY - These guidelines help assess if the site helps prevent customers from making errors. A site is error-tolerant if, despite evident errors in input, the intended result may be achieved with either no or minimal corrective action by the customer. For novices and experts alike there should be readily available ways for them to become comfortable with using your product. Easy access to FAQs, onboarding etc.
PERFORMANCE - the average page load time varies between 4-6 seconds. 53% of users leave a page if it takes more than 3 seconds on mobile devices. It is known that 1 second more in page response reduces conversion rate by 7%.
MOBILE COMPATIBILITY - more and more consumers are using their mobile devices compared to desktop. 51% of users globally use mobile devices to search for new brands.

It ultimately comes down to what the target group of that organization actually values. So, it is important to ask them.

Fast track to a great customer experience with remote usability testing

Remote usability testing is a method of research that uses an insight platform to record the screen (and voice, depending on the software you choose) of test participants as they interact with your product or experience in their natural environment—at home, in their office, or a specific location.

Through usability testing, designers, product managers, and researchers alike will uncover and understand how real people respond to products and experiences. From what they like and dislike, to where they get stuck and confused, to areas of improvement, the valuable insight gathered from these tests are sure to be eye-opening.