In our previous article, you read about the importance of UX design and its common pitfalls. Before you start changing of creating the UX design of your digital product or service, it is key to determine how well your product is designed and aligned with users’ needs.
There are many tools to measure how your users interact with your website. We outlined a few essential guidelines that will help you determine the current state of your UX design.
Is relevant information for the user readily available?
Primary information should be spotted at a glance on the homepage, and other content should be structured and optimized for readability. This can, for instance, be achieved by paying attention to the hierarchy in elements and making important elements stand out.
Do the users receive feedback on their actions?
When you ask your users to interact with your website in any way, make sure that they receive appropriate visual feedback. Throw adequate errors messages and include confirmation messages to show users they are on the right track.
Are your users in control?
Users should have the impression that a system is helping them accomplish a task or process, not make it harder. You might recognize this yourself: there is nothing worse than losing unsaved data because you couldn’t undo an action. Enable users to undo their actions or warn them in case they can’t. Other improvements to consider are adding Cancel or Skip buttons, and allowing users to edit the information they provide as much as possible.
Do you have good error management in place?
It’s anyone’s goal to have an error-free system. But, in case of errors pop up nonetheless, communicate them in a language users can understand together with instructions for overcoming the issue.
Is the language consistent?
To assess language consistency, imagine your users would all meet face to face and talk about your product. They should have a common vocabulary, enabling them to have a smooth conversation.
Is your user interface following common conventions?
There’s no need to re-invent the wheel. Users have been interacting with websites for decades and we’ve learnt a lot about their behaviour. Lots of data have been gathered by using A/B testing, which is basically comparing two versions of a website to see which one performs better. A useful resource to see the results of these tests is Goodui.org.
Is content understandable for your users?
We aren’t talking only about language, but also about colours and other visual conventions: red is for pointing out that something is wrong, blue is used for links, green checkpoints are for validation. Note that the cultural meaning of certain colours can differ widely.
Do you require users to dive into their memory?
Don’t expect your users to remember information they read on the previous page. Always provide the information needed on the current page, form, or pop-up.
Is there extensive help available?
Include contact links in the menus, header, and/or footer, as well as links to dedicated help or guidelines pages.
To go into deeper details with the UX design assessment, you can review Google HEART Framework, which proposes metrics on Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention and Task Success.
Tools for assessing your UX design
There are various tools that can help you assess your UX design. A few of our favourites:
Hotjar
With this handy tool, you can “record” your visitors’ user journeys, see their on-page interaction with heatmaps, create polls, and track forms on your website.
Visual Web Optimizer
A great tool to do A/B tests on your own website. Their user-friendly interface allows you to make and test changes without having to know any code.
UXCheck Chrome extension
This Chrome extension helps you assess your website based on Nielsen’s Ten Heuristics.
UXCheck Chrome extension
Check out Uxtools.co for an extensive list of UX design tools in different categories.
Improve the UX design of your digital products or services
Want to know more about how you can improve your projects, websites or services by assessing their User Experience design?