When you’re creating a successful website or custom software, a well-crafted user interface design is essential. If your website and software is created with user experience (UX) in mind, it’s more likely to reduce bounce rate, increase traffic, and ultimately lead to a more successful project. Since your website’s success is tied so closely to the UX it provides and its bounce back rate, you should know a few ways to improve them. Our 245TECH team is happy to get you started with 5 ways to improve UX and reduce bounce rate as a result!
What Is User Experience?
To start off, let’s quickly recap what “user experience” means. UX refers to the way that your user and product interact. Essentially, it’s the feeling that a user gets when they engage with your website, application, or software. This feeling is influenced by several factors: ease of navigation, overall usability, visual design elements, and more. Having a poor user experience makes your audience less likely to return to your products or services. A positive UX means that they’ve enjoyed their interaction and are more likely to continue with future engagement.
What Does Bounce Rate Mean?
“Bounce rate” is a term used to describe the percentage of users who interact with a website and quickly leave without much engagement. This rate is potentially harmful to your business since it directly impacts the number of conversions, sales, and positive reviews you receive. Surprisingly, bounce rate has a lot to do with your brand’s overall reputation. As such, you should try to reduce bounce rate as much as possible.
1. Focus on structure for better user experience.
One of the first aspects of a website that users notice is how easy or difficult it is to navigate. Is it set up well? Is the structure intuitive? Your custom software development team should take extra care to create a site that has a logical and clear structure. It’s an essential part of user interface design and a make-it-or-break-it point for the vast majority of users. This can easily be done without overcomplicating the layout; in fact, an intuitive and overtly simplistic website can often lead to a more positive UX.
Essentially, you should focus on creating a website that hosts easy, consistent navigation features. Make sure that the search bar is accessible, tabs aren’t hidden, and your layout is crafted with your user’s interests in mind. Make sure that necessary information is prominent and easily found. Otherwise, users will quickly grow frustrated and leave your website, contributing to its bounce rate.
2. Increase your website’s speed.
How long do you typically spend on a website that takes “forever” to load? If it isn’t a requirement, probably not long at all. Slow loading websites are far more likely to have high bounce rates than fast websites. The modern user is accustomed to the widely available amenities included in our digital age, and that includes high speeds.
How fast your website loads is one of the first features of user interface design that your users will be exposed to. Before they see anything that your custom software team has invested time and resources into, they’ll be waiting for it to load. This means that your team should focus their energy into compressing images, minimizing website code, and utilizing a CDN, or content delivery network. You should also leverage tools to your advantage to analyze your website’s speed, such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
3. Use high-quality visuals.
Honestly, it’s better to have no visuals than to use poor quality graphics, pictures, or videos. When executed correctly, however, these visuals can help elevate user experience and act as a valuable component of user interface design. Make sure that your visuals are high-quality, relevant, and not overused. If executed correctly, these visual elements can help reduce bounce rate by attracting and holding the user’s attention.
4. Include relevant content.
Your website’s content as a whole should be reflective of your target audience. Ideally, every piece of content that you include should be created with your user in mind. Beyond that, you need to make sure that it has high readability, usability, and remains informative. By following these guidelines, you’ll establish your website as a trusted and helpful resource to your users. This means they’re more likely to return to your website and invest in your products. Outdated or poorly crafted content leads to a higher bounce rate and general lack of interest from your users.
5. Take advantage of user feedback.
As the actual individuals engaging with your website, users are a valuable source of feedback. When it comes to becoming an expert on your target audience, there’s no one better to ask than…well, your target audience! You don’t want your input format to be intrusive, otherwise it will disrupt the user experience. Feedback should be requested tastefully, and it should always be optional. This can mean a poll, feedback form, or survey. You can integrate these features into your website via custom software or send them as an email to your users. Getting this valuable feedback will help you determine which areas of improvement you should focus on the next time it’s time to revamp your user interface design.
245TECH Helps Eliminate Bounce Rate
There are more than five steps you can take to reduce your bounce rate and improve your user experience. If you’re interested in more ways to improve your website’s UX and decrease bounce rate, reach out to our team of tech professionals at (865) 465-4040.
