Website Design: UI/UX Strategies That Get People to Convert

If you use websites, then it’s no secret that you know websites are constantly being redesigned. And that process of evolution is alive and well today. In fact, there are more websites out there than ever before. With so much competition to be noticed, it can be difficult to come up with the next ground-breaking design strategy especially since most people will skim through your website without spending much time on it at all! Luckily, one of the keys to succeeding in the modern web landscape is enhancing your website’s usability and user interface experience.

This small business blog article discusses strategies for achieving exactly this goal by examining three important aspects of website design: initial site navigation, user interface features (including text content), and product pages.

Initial site navigation is the first thing visitors see when they land on your website. Your goal should be to show them how simple it is to access key information that they need to get what they’re looking for quickly. To accomplish this, you need to demonstrate that your website provides a clear navigation structure, helps users find the information they’re looking for, and ensures that users stay on the page once they’ve arrived at their destination. Most of all, you need to deliver content in a way that’s relevant and easy-to-understand.

Setting up an intuitive navigation structure is just one of the tasks that web content companies face when creating websites for clients. Therefore, it’s important to understand the web’s broader evolution in order to create websites that are more effective for modern users. Here are three major trends that have shaped the way we interact with websites:

The first insight is that websites are no longer static. Nowadays, they’re more dynamic which means they change based on the user’s actions and how much time she spends on them. For instance, a news website might show a different set of stories to people who visit on a weekend than it does for those who log on during the week. Thanks to technology, websites can now adapt to the unique behavior patterns of their users.

The second insight is that websites have evolved from a single-page to a multi-page experience. Web search engines are aware of this change through their algorithms, and so sites that don’t match the way people use them today will have a harder time ranking. Therefore, your focus should be on creating clean and easy-to-navigate sites with frequent back and forth between pages (as opposed to allowing users to glide from page to page like they’re browsing a magazine).

The third insight is that more people are now interacting with the internet through their computers than on their phones or tablets. This doesn’t just mean that users are reading more; the whole experience is changing. People tend to stay on the page longer so you need to think of every element of your website with this in mind: Users can never be too comfortable while browsing a website.

Once you understand these key design trends, you can begin developing a strategy for creating your own websites that’s differentiated from your competitors.

An example – Bootstrap’s User Interface and Page Structure:

Bootstrap is a front-end framework created and maintained by Twitter. It’s used by thousands of designers and developers around the world to make websites look great. As a framework, Bootstrap includes helpful visual elements that developers can use to build on top of, but it also provides a single application-wide grid layout. The structure Bootstrap uses is quite simple and it is broken up into 3 major sections: header, main content, and footer.

At its most basic level, the header contains information like your logo and other branding. Then comes the main content section which consists of 5 articles (or “pages”) arranged in columns – a layout often referred to as “full-width”. The final part is the footer which contains social media icons as well as your contact information.

All of this is just a starting point for creating your own website. If you’d like to learn more about Bootstrap, the source code to the example website I used throughout this article can be found here.

Another example – What Every Web Designer Needs to Know About CSS Grid Layout:

The CSS layout module is an incredibly powerful tool that allows you to create layouts and designs for your site in a consistent manner. However, its capabilities are so vast that they can be confusing at times especially when you’re just starting out. This lesson discusses the basics of CSS Grid in order to help you understand how it works and what kind of outcomes it brings about when used on your site.

Note: all syntax in this article is written using the “CSS Grid Layout Module Level 1” syntax. As of writing this, the current stable version is 1 and it’s being developed in modules (refer to “The Future of CSS” section below for more information).

Getting Started

To begin working with CSS Grid Layout, you’ll need to create a grid container which will hold all of your layout content. This container should contain a set number of columns on which to lay out your content. To do so, create a parent element for the grid which has an appropriate number of columns.

<div class=”container”> <div class=”grid”></div> </div>

The first element we need to add is a grid container. This will be the parent for our layout, and we’ll fill it with an element that has columns. We’ll use the .container class to allow us to apply CSS classes to this element later on. As you can see in the example above, each column has a class of .grid. Since each column is going to be given it’s own style you can actually name whatever styles you like and that’s what will appear in those columns:

<style> body { background-color: #000; } .grid { grid-column: 6, grid-column: 1; } </style>

The first step is to create an element that will hold all the grid columns (i.e. the .grid). By setting up a parent element, we’ll be able to use CSS classes and properties to apply styles and layout to the columns without having to write them out by hand every time.

<div class=”container”> <div class=”grid”></div> </div>

By adding a parent element and then setting up a grid container we’ve created a basic layout that consists of columns with six-columns on each side.

The CSS Grid Layout Module

The CSS grid module is a powerful layout system that allows you to lay out content in a consistent manner, regardless of the number of columns you have. It works by dividing up the container into distinct areas to be placed on your site. Your grid container (i.e. the parent element) is the first part of your layout, and all content will be given a placement inside of it. Next, each grid column is created with a fixed width and height. Row classes are assigned to each grid row, giving you control over how that row is laid out within the grid container. Eventually, you’ll have all your columns displaying at once within your grid container.

The Best Place to Start: Your Own Site

Once you’ve been using CSS for some time, it can get difficult to know where to go next. The truth is, everybody learns in their own way and at different paces. Whatever makes you comfortable, use that to deepen your knowledge of the CSS language!

Great Resources for Learning CSS

Now that you’ve learned about some of the foundational design trends and techniques used in website development, it’s time to put these skills into practice. If this was an article about something like Ruby on Rails, I’d recommend reviewing tutorials until you feel comfortable trying them on your own. However, CSS is a vast language with hundreds of options. It’s often hard to know where to start.

Luckily, there are some great resources you can use if you’re looking for tutorials, courses and other resources to help you get started with CSS:

Codecademy – Even though this is a lesson about creating a website using HTML/CSS, I’ve included this here because they have a great course on CSS that will teach you the basics as well as more advanced features. The key is that they also provide “next steps” (or even more complex topics) for each lesson which makes it easy for beginners to follow along and not get lost or discouraged.

Code School – Code School has a great course for learning CSS and it’s easy to follow along. Although it’s not free anymore, they do provide a free 5-day trial. Just keep in mind that you’ll need to sign up for an account when you reach the first lesson.

Kirupa Learn – Kirupa is a website filled with tutorials and other resources for learning different aspects of web development, including CSS. In particular, I like their list of lesser known CSS properties which is a great reference if you’re ever trying to decide between different styles or syntaxes.

Conclusion:

As you can see, there are a number of ways to organize and structure your content in order to make it easier for both computer and human readers to understand. The main thing to take away from this lesson is that even though learning about CSS Grid can seem overwhelming at first, the underlying concept is rather simple and easy to understand. If you use CSS Grid, remember that it’s designed to make it easier for computers (and people) to read and understand your code with its consistent layout format.