Travel Website Design Tips for Simplifying User Experience

Usually, travel agencies websites are jammed with such content, making them confusing for the simple user. All this information can be showcased in a user-friendly and organized manner on the travel website, if the web designer takes into consideration several tips.

Nowadays people are very picky in matter of everything. Websites are no exception. They want to be able to find beautiful photography, truthful information, and recommendations and reviews that will help them make their mind about choosing a certain vacation spot, hotel, or resort. 

Responsive Website Design: 6 Lessons To Learn From Your Competitors

It is already a known fact that people tend to brows internet from their mobile devices more than ever. It is thought that by 2017 there will be more than 5 billion mobile users. So, how do we make their browsing experience enjoyable?

This is where responsive website design comes up. Imagine you have a solution for all types of screen sizes and you no longer need to develop a separate mobile website to adjust it for these users.

But it is important to ensure your webpage loads and reformats itself for any specific device, be it a tablet, mobile phone or desktop.

Here is a list of tips you could learn from your competition related to designing responsive websites:

1. User experience

Responsive sites can be accessed from any screen size. Thus, when a user shares the link to your website with other user, the other user will easily access it and open it on a tablet or laptop. Since your website performs well on different platforms, users will be keener to share it with their friends.

2. Loading time

Responsiveness ensures fast loading time for your website. So you will be able to keep users engaged in your content, avoiding their possibility to access another webpage.

3. SEO-boosting

Probably one of the biggest tips that can be shared is that Google favors mobile-friendly websites. The most popular search engine prefers responsive designs and ranks it at the top of its search results. Google even offers free testing tool to analyze your pages, and receive suggestions on how to improve the mobile responsiveness of your website. Therefore, if you are a small business you definitely need to consider this option.

4. Time saving

Responsive web pages are time saving. You no longer need to develop a stand-alone mobile website, but rather configure the existing one to perform excellently on all devices. You can spend this time creating new products and services that will increase your reachability. It also saves management costs. It is cheaper to manage and maintain a single site, with less content.

5. Generate leads

We already mentioned that responsive layouts boosts SEO. Enhanced SEO generates more traffic which converts leads into users.

6. Long-term relevance

Investing in responsive design is, in the long run, a smart decision. Internet traffic coming from mobile devices is constantly increasing. So you want to make sure that your website is optimized to perform well on all devices, even those that haven’t appeared yet.

Related Post: The Advantages of Responsive Web Design

Conclusion

Responsive website design allows you to be ahead of all trends and gain and attract more traffic that ultimately converts into users. If users are happy with the way the content of your site displays on their mobile devices they will eagerly and smoothly migrate from one page to another, enjoying the same user experience provided by traditional sites.

What other tips one can learn from competition in matter of responsive design? Make your thoughts heard in the comments section below.

Basic Website Usability Tips to Keep Customers Returning

In simple words, usability is what makes your website’s design pleasant and convenient for visitors. The more you know about how to improve this aspect, the higher chances to build a website that visitors will love. We put together a list of website usability tips meant to help you build an outstanding user experience, that will turn into higher conversion. How wouldn't want it?

You might know that your website has only 5-7 seconds to capture the attention of the visitors. During this frame time you have to make them stay longer and convince them that they came to the right place in order to find product or service they were looking for.

So how can you ensure that? It’s not that hard, you just need to arrange the content of your page in such way that all the vital information is at hand and the navigation is intuitive.

5 Website Usability Tips to Follow

Keep the most important information at the top of the home page

Since your website opens on homepage, it’s the first thing your visitors see. First of all, it must contain company’s name and logo. If you want your brand to obtain visibility in the digital environment – make sure you have a magnificent logo and clearly seen company’s name.

Content of the page must correspond its title

The last thing you want to do is to confuse your clients. If they came to buy mobile phones – make sure they will find what they are looking for right on the homepage.
Your company’s phone number must be right on top of the page. Thus, in case your potential client sees that you provide services he requires, he can easily find your phone number and call you.

Any promotions, seasonal, weekly, monthly discounts, sales and announcements of the same nature, must be on top of the home page or below the left menu. People like promotions and free things in general, which is why they will be more likely to browse other pages of your website in case they see promotions.

High contrast and pleasant color palette

Smart color scheme using is one of that website usability tips you really have to stick around. There exists an entire field, dedicated to studying color and its effects on human psychology.We perceive green as calming color, red as aggressive and alarming and so on. Combination of the right colors can attract target audience to your website and convince people that your company is the obvious choice. For example, in case your website deals with real estate or finances – it will be unwise to use an entire palette colors. Grey, white, black and dark blue will be more appropriate choices.

Contrast also plays a huge role in improving customer's’ perception of your website. And is one of those site elements that is going to affect your website usability if neglected. Black text on white background is considered ideal. Nevertheless, there can be various situations, where you want to play with the colors. In such case, when in doubt – open Word, write something and apply the colors you want to use. If you find the result irritating for the eye – don’t use it.

Call-to-action buttons must be easily accessible and visible
These elements people need to notice right away. You can use colors to stress them or make their outline brighter than the filling color.

Use familiar shapes

It’s not a secret that people love everything new, exciting and shining, however, some things need to be familiar for users, otherwise they will get irritated and simply leave your website.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. If you want to create interesting buttons – use the same shape and assign them the usual purpose, but change their color and font of the inscription. Thus, people will not be disappointed, as clicking such buttons will get them where they want to go.

In general, you need to design your website keeping in mind what you would like to see on home page of any website you browse. It will be of great help in estimation of the overall website usability.

Related post:Button Design Techniques to Improve User Experience (UX)

Bottom line

Use these website usability tips to create a use-centered site that invite visitors stay longer and even buy from your website. Make sure all important information is properly displayed and there’s nothing that cause your visitors quitting. Placing vital info on the top, using pleasant color pallet, making call-to-action buttons visible and using familiar shapes are the basics of creating a great web usability.

Let us know if you have other website usability tips you implement to increase user experience in the comments section below.

Improving User Experience, based on Motif

Motif is a cornerstone of success in every IT company, although it is undoubtedly hard to see for someone, unrelated to any field of IT. Due to its big impact on improving user experience we will look into the root of the problem to get the full grasp of idea.

Nowadays, every project accomplishment requires collaboration between people of various professions that work together to create something complex and productive. This task is quite challenging, especially in terms of determining who gets the upper hand in deciding the direction the project must take.

When it comes to improving user experience we need to identify what makes the product/service great. People of every part of the team can come up with an answer. Problem is – every team will have its own opinion, based on the deep knowledge of their own field and inability to fully grasp other's point of view.

But what can a team do to find the unique equation that’ll work for all? It’s simple, really – all they have to do is find motif. A motif is a unique element that unifies all the conflicting sides. It can be something as simple as color or style that everyone perceives the same with little to no difference.

The importance of motif cannot be underestimated in terms of quality, as well as in sense of uniting multidiscipline team. If everyone is on the same page and work towards the same direction, there is a greater chance that people will be discovering something useful and meaningful, adding value and complexity to the project, as well increasing its functionality.

Use motif as a powerful way of improving user experience and delivering amazing product

Motif can also be used to create a unique and unusual digital experience to the point where people are thinking about the feature and associating it or something similar to it with your brand. For example, swiping on iPhones. When iPhones haven’t been available yet, the overwhelming majority of devices required tapping or pressing. Making swipe the first interaction became a genius motif, introduced by Apple that distinguished it from the rest.

So how do you find the motif of your product/service? In order to do that, you need to outline its feature that is so exclusive that customer will be able to find it only in your product/service. Improving this feature and putting some time and effort in its development will unite the team and allow reach common ground and understanding between all team members.

Bottom line

Consider improving user experience by integrating motif into the first-use of the product/service. If you do that, you will be able to naturally make users dependable on this feature, without making them feel like they are being forced to like or appreciate something. Make sure your unique feature is in its best shape and will require little to no tweaking in future. Remember that motif is really a basis for your marketing campaign, so choose wisely what feature to make your motif and how qualitative it must be.

What you do for improving user experience? Have you found what differentiate your website from others? Please share your opinions with us in the comment section.

Increase Click-Through Homepage Carousel by Avoiding these Usability Mistakes

In compliance with the recent research– only 1% of 3 million visits to the website’s home page results in clicks on homepage carousel.

The majority of clicks are made on the first slide and after that the click rate drastically drops with every following slide.

It’s quite surprising,considering the fact that it’s an important widget, found on many websites.

Apart from that, it’s a colorful and engaging graphic element, which must attract a lot of attention.

So why users tend not to engage homepage carousels? The problem is not the beauty of the carousel itself, but in its navigation and several other structural mistakes that designers unknowingly commit.

1. Replace navigation arrows with label navigation

After a couple of clicks without finding what they are looking for, customers look at the right navigation arrow that shows if any more slides are available. If they are, customer simply looses interest as he gets tired of endless line of slides and thinks that he will not find what he is looking for on your website. Thus, customer never gets to see the other slides of the carousel.

However, this situation drastically changes when navigation labels are used instead of small and hardly visible arrows. The results improve even further, when you add clear and comprehensive inscription on labels.

Thus, customer immediately sees if the product he’s looking for is on the website. Besides, you can place navigation buttons in a clearly visible area, increasing the engagement rate and amount of clicks on all the slides.

2. Remove auto-sliding, when user has already taken control 

Auto-sliding is a very frequently used technique on the majority of websites that have homepage carousels. It helps users to engage with the most important content.

However, users will loose interest if auto-sliding doesn’t stop when they’ve taken manual control and are trying to get to the slide that's the most interesting for them or stay and read the slide.

Stop the auto-sliding as soon as they engage and you’ll see the considerable improvement.

3. Show new additions by rows, not one by one

Researches show that people like to browse new items in batches, because this way they can see multiple items at once. Despite of this, some website owners tweak their carousels in such way that allows items to be shown one at a time.

It’s very inconvenient and irritating and is fully capable of considerably reducing the engagement with the carousel. People don’t like to work more than they have to, which is why they will more likely convert if they will be able to see all the new items in several clicks.

What else can be done to improve homepage carousel?

Make items progression clear and compressive

People like to be in control - knowledge of how many items are there to see gives a feeling of confidence and control. If your carousel shows this progression in a non-intuitive way visitors on your website will get irritated.

Such situation occurs when a certain number of items is shown out of the entire number. Much better option is to show how many rows of items are there and which row the visitor is on.

Click targets must be bigger

When you design homepage carousel, you need to take into account that your visitors come from various age groups. Some people have better vision than others, which is why click targets on your carousel must be bigger.

Sometimes the size of the arrows is smaller than the cursor and this is unacceptable, because your visitors will get irritated and will quit your website, begin unable to find what they are looking for.

What's you experience with homepage carousel? We would like to hear your opinion from both points of view - user and business owner.

The Advantages of Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design is your first step to success

Nowadays, the demand for adaptable and "fluid" websites is higher than ever. Flexibility of content translates in improved reachability of your website's content. You no longer need to create separately а “mobile version” or “tablet version” of your website. Responsive design allows your content, including pictures, texts, videos and other elements to adjust themselves automatically to the device your website is browsed from.

Currently, responsive web design can be considered a leading feature of the positive user experience (UX). It allows anyone to browse your website from any device – just think about the boost in the overall visitors’ turnout! Your website will be available to businessman, browsing from a laptop, student, who’s using a tablet and even to soccer mom, who is always on the phone. Responsive web design allows your website to reach all gender and age groups simultaneously and it’s hard to imagine anything better for a successful business!

Responsive web design will also provide a possibility to save a lot on separate “mobile version” or “tablet version” of your website. Separate versions of one website are already obsolete. It’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to keep several web addresses to the same website. Moreover, even in terms of SEO responsive websites are much better because they give you an excellent possibility to direct all visitors from all devices to the same website. Will it improve your conversion rate? You bet!

It is also important to note that responsive website design is recommended by Google. Why? Well, given that your website will have single URL and HTML it’s not hard to guess that it considerably facilitates Google’s job of crawling and indexing the content. Moreover, Google favors responsive web design because it is much more convenient for the end users to share and discuss. It’s not a secret that user experience becomes a key factor in ranking websites and responsive web design provides the best user experience of them all.

Responsive website will allow you to easily manage your statistics and analysis. Simple usage of analytic tools, such as Google Analytics will provide a possibility to get reports from all the device platforms simultaneously, considerably facilitating your SEO work, as it is much easier and cheaper to organize an efficient SEO campaign for one website with extended reachability across multiple devices.