When designing a website, user experience, or UX, is key to ensuring adequate traffic and appealing design. That’s why it’s critical to understand the best UX Design trends to keep up with what users are looking for and how to stand out.
UX design ensures that all the elements of the site appeal to the users and works well for them. There are various trends that are used by site developers and help them attract users. The ultimate question you should be asking is “will the user want to come back?” By taking the following UX Design approaches, the answer should be “yes.”
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Estimated Read Time
We live in a society with busy people. Everyone’s ready to learn new information but in the shortest amount of time possible, making estimated read time important. Medium was one of the first sites to implement this and it has quickly become one of the best UX design trends.
The average adult can read at about 265 words per minute, but they don’t necessarily feel like they are reading at that rate. They want the information out fast and will often scroll to see how long it will take to read an article. If it looks too long, users often skim the article and leave the page or site. If it says the article only takes a few minutes, they’re more likely to read it.
When users are on your site, they get the best experience when they are only focused on the content. Being distracted by noises, large advertisements, and other messages are easy ways to turn users away. Many apps are changing their designs to take the users through the process one step at a time..
Uber’s UX design takes the users through a linear process of going through each step with simple transitions. This way, the users can feel at ease knowing that all the steps were clear and easy to follow. Linear navigation is a very simple but effective way to improve the user experience for a website or app.
Chatbot experiences
When users navigate your site, questions are bound to pop up which can be beneficial not only for the customer, but to help you improve the site as well. Many chatbots, such as “Julie” from Amtrak, are there for the users right from the start. This ensures that users feel supported throughout their experience and are more likely to stay longer.
Chatbots make the experience a simple and fun way to take an action in a non-traditional way. When websites get confusing, it’s nice to see someone always there to answer any questions users might have.
Micro-interactions
Micro-interactions are actions users take that allow them to give feedback and emotionally react to content. Liking/disliking a post helps site development immensely by giving developers direct feedback. After giving emotional reactions, they’re able to see other people’s reactions as well. This way, the user feels validated engaged with the content they’re reading or watching. This allows them to have a say in what they feel should be changed or stay the same.
With micro-interactions, it’s important to make sure all the call to actions are clear and it’s an easy to use website. You can read more about how Kori Ashton described UX in SEO and tools she uses here.
With all of this in mind, you can ask yourself “is it actually engaging users?” and “if so, how are they feeling about it?”
Scroll Animations
A user’s experience is now seen as an actual product, meaning product development is essential. New developments with scroll animations are allowing products to be viewed from the inside out. Take, Apple’s MacBook Pro website, for example.
It starts by showing the core of the product and becomes more interactive as the user scrolls on. Then, you’re taken through the internal and external features that are laid out in a storytelling narrative. Also, they added fun features that even show the MacBook opening as you scroll down. The transitions can “wow” your users and provide a fun, yet informational, experience.
The evolution of user experience is the future of SEO for a website. It’s important to keep up with the best UX design trends in order to attract users, and to keep them on, your site and make it a simple, yet fun, experience. This way, you’ll be able to stand out from other websites and inform users in an entertaining, accessible, and simple form.
