Getting Started In Development
UX (User Experience) is a term that can be intimidating to many new designers and developers looking to get into the web development field. I know personally that this was one of the biggest topics I needed to learn about when I was getting started in development.
Most new developers just assume that when we talk about UX it means the user experience for a visitor of your site or someone looking to make a purchase on your website. Granted, they’re correct that it involves potential customers and clients. But what most developers just starting out don’t realize is that UX involves the individual managing or maintaining of a website or creating pages on a site.
Once I learned this, all of these vague interpretations of UX started falling into place. It gets you to start thinking in a different way when myself as a developer builds out a website and creates the process of adding content to pages. I now need to think about how to make it extremely easy to add and remove content, for someone that is not a developer and not very familiar with how to work on a website.
The biggest goal when laying out a site is we don’t want a user (Potential Customer or Web Editor) to have a difficult time finding what they need. Current design trends help with this, as most designs these days are very simple and clean. It gets the user the information they need in a small amount of time and gets them on their way.
Granted, this is not a topic that I grasped overnight. I learned by mistakes. But when I say mistakes, I mean I do not mean I broke things, I just didn’t create the most efficient experience for a user. You need to think about how accessible you make things for both a user and visitor. There is nothing more frustrating than going to a website and not being able to find the answers/information you need and then finding out later that it was not in an easy to find spot.
This is large reason why UX is so crucial to the success of a site. You can have the coolest, sleekest, most cutting edge design, but in the end, if the design doesn’t line up with your goals to convert visitors into sales then the design didn’t do its job.
There is certainly an endless amount to learn regarding UX and I have only scratched the surface, but I am extremely ecstatic to keep furthering my knowledge and to really excel at UX.
Contact BNP Engage today to discuss how we can create a functional and interactive website for your business.