Over the last few years, the field of user experience design has grown significantly, with many business owners choosing to incorporate UX best practices into their products. As a result, we have seen huge improvements in the quality of products available in the digital space.
Unfortunately, the rapidly growing industry has also given birth to a multitude of myths and misconceptions. For those who don’t work in the digital sphere, these misconceptions can lead to costly mistakes. In this post, we will address the top 5 ux myths and dispel them one by one.
1 – UX Is About Usability
The usability of the product is the most basic step towards creating a good user experience. If a product is difficult to use, it simply won’t succeed. User experience design goes above and beyond basic usability and strives to create a meaningful experience with your brand.
User experience design focus includes: product offering analysis, competitor analysis, site structure and content optimization, design and layout optimization, user testing and market analysis.
2 – Visual Designers Can Do UX
Many visual designers advertise themselves as UX experts without the appropriate training or understanding of the practice. This leaves many disgruntled business owners wondering why they’re paying thousands of dollars and not seeing results.
The hard truth is, UX design is an extremely specialized field which requires training and expertise. You wouldn’t hire a sculptor to design the blueprints for your home. If you did, it may look spectacular on the surface but the structure wouldn’t hold up when put to use. In the same way, you shouldn’t hire a visual designer to design your user experience.
3 – The Homepage Is The Most Important Page
UX experts have long argued that the homepage is the most important page on your site. The logic behind this was valid at the time these statements were commonplace. However, research shows that with the improvement of search engines, the rules have changed.
Google’s new algorithms index all the pages on your site allowing users to land on any page with matching keywords. This means that your customer’s first impression of your brand may be coming from a random page on your site. This further reinforced the pressing need for a well planned site structure and content hierarchy.
4 – Your Users Are Like You
When designing a site, it’s easy to assume your customers will understand and navigate the site as you would. In reality, your customers will likely behave in unpredictable ways. The happens as a result of differences in computer literacy and the personalities of your customers.
For this reason it’s essential to make the user interface and browsing experience of your site as simple as possible. It is also advisable to conduct research surveys and focus groups to expand your understanding of your target demographic.
5 – People Read On The Web
When a user enters your site, they skim your content looking for meaningful headings and keywords. Unless the user is very interested in the content, they will not read it word-by-word. If your page is not optimized for this, your users will fail to find what they’re looking for, miss call to actions and leave your site never knowing what they missed.
Knowing this, it’s important to create a page which accommodates this rapid-fire style of browsing. This includes breaking up big chunks of content into digestible bites, creating large bold headings and using listicles and subheadings where possible.
The Bottom Line
A site designed around user experience will increase your customer satisfaction, enhance your marketing efforts and improve your brand perception. When recruiting a ux design team or making improvements to your site, keep these top 5 myths in mind to avoid costly mistakes.
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