3 Simple Steps to Upgrade your Website's UX

In a previous article, I discussed the purpose of UX and designing your website with it at the forefront of your mind. Today, I will be providing three quick-start steps to help you step up the look and feel of your website. If you’re looking to improve the basic UX of your site, look no further. 

It takes a lot of work to juggle your website along with the other responsibilities you have in your business. Between the time it takes to audit your website, look through everything, run more tests, and determine what works and what doesn’t, it can become a bit of an overwhelming task. 

These are simple, foolproof methods that’ll improve the look of your website—and make it look like you spent months cleaning up your site when in actuality, you’ll be saving a lot of time on where to start when trying to figure out how to improve your site. 

Minimize the copy

The first step is to minimize the copy on your site. This goes for anything from portfolio sites to a company store. Don’t be long-winded for the sake of being long-winded. It’s a well known fact that nobody will spend time on long-form copy unless it provides substantial value to them as the consumer. 

Forget the scenic route. Cut it down and push the essentials. 

Here are a few steps:

1. Lock in the tone and voice of your site. Ask yourself, “If my brand was a persona, how would they talk?”
2. If it’s a long-form piece of content, go through and highlight the key points. Don’t be afraid to go bold and use bullet points. 
3. Keep it organized. If there are testimonials, news, and blog content, keep these organized by separate tags. 
4. If possible, use pictures to represent what some of the words are saying.

Note: These are just a few simple steps, but if time and resources allow, dig a little deeper and analyze the content on your site. Cut out what doesn’t fit your brand’s voice and showcase what makes your brand shine. 

Cut down the Colors

This can be a make or break moment in the site for the user. If your site looks too busy, the user could become overwhelmed and decide to leave. Cutting down the colors is not only helpful for pulling out key elements and navigation but for making sites accessible.

Lots of brands have color storming meetings and come up with five or fewer colors in the genesis of their web presences, but just in case, check your color palette and make sure that you’re keeping it reasonably minimal, at least to start with. Remember to stick to your brand’s colors to avoid any discrepancies or color clashing. 

Also, one element of color theory that some may not know is that complementary colors—those that are across from each other on the color wheel—change how the eye perceives each color. For example, a medium orange would be an eye-sore when placed over a dark blue, whereas it would look normal on dark green. These principles of complementary colors and visual dissonance work in several ways, so it’s a great idea to touch up any areas that look a little strange or don’t seem to fit. 

On the accessibility side, some people who are neurodiverse may not be able to interact with a site that bombards them with highly stimulating colors. There are also several services that can check if colors would be appropriate for people who are color blind or are neurodivergent, which can be helpful when consulting on a case by case basis. 

Use Your White Space

This, I am sure, I cannot emphasize enough. Whitespace is the website designer’s best friend, and worst enemy. Trust me, don’t make it hate you. With the advent of all things minimalism and the word classy becoming synonymous with black and white, whitespace can be overused or at times, unhelpful. 

However, something that can quickly set a site apart is making sure that there are proper gaps between things and a deliciously—not overwhelming—use of whitespace. It’s best practice to leave a little space between ideas and to dispel any potential bombardment while keeping everything unified. This can be applied to a dark mode or black-based websites as well. The space would then be changed into black space rather than white. 

Hopefully, you can take your site to the next level with these tips and have gained some practical basics for shaping the way your site does UX. Have any other tips you'd like to share or need more tips from us at Nifty Method? Have a cup of coffee, and let us know!