Beyond Web Design: Web Usability’s Impact on a Site’s Success

One aspect of web design that is often overlooked web usability. How a site looks is just one part of the overall design process. There are many more complex reasons behind design decisions. Much of them lie in designing around how visitors behave on a website. The goal should be to create a design that leads to higher conversions and better engagement, and that is what web usability aims to do.

How to Start Measuring Web Usability

To start the process of improving your site’s usability, you’ll have to set up tracking to record the results. Once you do, you’ll want to keep track of various data such as entry pages, exit pages, visiting time, clickthrough rates and conversions. Then, you should think about how the data corresponds with your site’s purpose.

What Is Your End Goal?

Every website will have a different goal. Some websites will want to engage visitors and get to explore the rest of the site. Other sites will want to go straight for the conversion whether it’s through leads or sales. You have to figure out what your goal is and start testing different designs to meet the metrics for your goal. For example, if you want to increase engagement, you should aim to increase time spent on site and try to move visitors towards a specific funnel.

Designing for Marketing Funnels

You’ll need to test and track design elements for targeted marketing funnels. There are so many different paths that a web visitor can take, so it’s important to start with a defined path. For instance, let’s say you want visitors to read a short article, sign up for an email list and then watch a sales video. You’ll want to test design elements to increase the time spent on the page, increase conversions to the email list, and engagement with the video.

A/B Split Testing for Improvements

Improving your marketing funnel is a fairly simple process. You can use Google A/B split testing and test one isolated element at a time to figure out which ones result in your desired metric. For example, one particular online video player template may result in more people watching the video for a longer time than a different template. By constantly testing design elements in a defined marketing funnel, you’ll eventually come up with the desired visitor behavior and increase in desired metrics.