Your website should be like a bread basket. You don’t know why a cheap slice of restaurant bread makes you feel welcome and happy, but it does, and that’s what matters. Users should feel welcome when they arrive on your site, and that means spending time to create the ultimate experience for them.
We pride ourselves at FSC Interactive on always thinking about the user first and caring about what kind of experience your users are having. User experience is repeatedly pointed at being the reason that customers return to a site, or don’t. We don’t suggest you offer free bread, but we do think you should review your site frequently to test its user experience. When FSC tests a site for usability, we ask ourselves six questions to make sure the site is built for the right users.
![volkswagen website]()
Volkswagen did something with their site that most car company websites don’t do. VW simplified their navigation to 4 main calls to action. It’s clear they want you to find your car, build your car or find a dealer. If you want to do anything else on their site, you have to search for it. VW created direction for the user without make it highlighter yellow and blinking.
![huckberry website]()
Huckberry is my favorite online store. Huckberry’s brand and mission is to be an online shop and journal that inspires more active, adventurous, and stylish lives through members-only sales, original storytelling, and unique product. Every page on their site faithfully follows their mission statement.
Creating user personas for your website will help guide you through the process and makes sure you have a clear intention for those people to do. Your website design should welcome your target audience in and make others question if they should be there. Certain types of users like tech savvy or millennials will have higher expectations for your site to be “up” with the latest website design trends. Trust me, everyone knows your site was last touched in 2002, it’s time for an upgrade. Ask yourself, is my website attractive to my target audience?
The Art of Manliness is a blog focused on helping men become better men.![art of manliness]()
I really doubt their target audience is a 25-year-old woman, and their choice of colors, mustache icons, even their navigation links like “A Man’s Life” and “Manly Skills” emphasize that this is for men only.
FSC Interactive typical customer base is businesses in New Orleans and![google analytics]()
the surrounding area. About 40% of our services page comes from people in the New Orleans area. Our next goal might be to increase that number to 50%.
Know thy enemy and know thy search result place! One thing I have noticed from my clients is that they think their competitors are the ones they can see, the store across the street or their peers at networking events. Your competitors are also the only sites that are next to you in the search results. Expanding the view of your competitors might give you ideas for pleasing your user base you haven’t thought of yet.
![subarru user experience]()
Subaru the company is different than Subaru the dealership. Somehow Bryan Subaru is beating the Subaru official site. Even though they are a part of the same company, they are competitors because the user has to choose between finding the car on the official site or Bryan Subaru.
![corona user experience]()
Corona’s three pages they want the user to go to (other than the home page) are the winning prizes page, the deals page and the list of events page. To me, I feel like Corona is screaming, “We want you to get free stuff, free money and free fun. Corona cares about you!”
By asking yourself these 6 questions about your site will take you closer to giving your users the ultimate user experience. Treat your users well and they will return the favor. Good luck, and let us know how it goes!
We pride ourselves at FSC Interactive on always thinking about the user first and caring about what kind of experience your users are having. User experience is repeatedly pointed at being the reason that customers return to a site, or don’t. We don’t suggest you offer free bread, but we do think you should review your site frequently to test its user experience. When FSC tests a site for usability, we ask ourselves six questions to make sure the site is built for the right users.
What is the intended goal of a visitor to your site?
Getting users to your site isn’t enough, you need to tell them what to do when they get there. Many of your users don’t have time to search pages of your website to figure out what to do. If the goal of your site is to submit a form, sign up for a newsletter, call your business, purchase an item or gain information, make sure your website clearly points the user in the right direction immediately. Having that sign-up button on your website is great but not if you bury it under three pages. Ask yourself if your intended goal for the user is clear, designed to catch attention, explained if needed and on the first page they land.
Volkswagen did something with their site that most car company websites don’t do. VW simplified their navigation to 4 main calls to action. It’s clear they want you to find your car, build your car or find a dealer. If you want to do anything else on their site, you have to search for it. VW created direction for the user without make it highlighter yellow and blinking.What is your most persuasive selling point you would like to communicate to users?
Your business, service or product is special. I know it, you know it but does your user know it? On your website, you need to convey what makes you stand out from the crowd. Asking yourself this question should bring you back to your brand. If you aren’t being true to your brand, this is the time to think about it. Do you need to change your marketing to meet your brand or does your brand need to change? Ask yourself if I found my website, could I tell what my business does?
Huckberry is my favorite online store. Huckberry’s brand and mission is to be an online shop and journal that inspires more active, adventurous, and stylish lives through members-only sales, original storytelling, and unique product. Every page on their site faithfully follows their mission statement.
Who is your desired target audience?
Creating user personas for your website will help guide you through the process and makes sure you have a clear intention for those people to do. Your website design should welcome your target audience in and make others question if they should be there. Certain types of users like tech savvy or millennials will have higher expectations for your site to be “up” with the latest website design trends. Trust me, everyone knows your site was last touched in 2002, it’s time for an upgrade. Ask yourself, is my website attractive to my target audience?The Art of Manliness is a blog focused on helping men become better men.
I really doubt their target audience is a 25-year-old woman, and their choice of colors, mustache icons, even their navigation links like “A Man’s Life” and “Manly Skills” emphasize that this is for men only. What is your typical customer base?
You want the target audience mentioned above, but that doesn’t mean you are getting them to your site now. With free tools such as Google Analytics, FSC can tell you who is coming to your site. The metrics you want to focus on are how long are users staying on your site, how many pages are users clicking through and how many of users return. If your typical customer base is B2B, then you might not need to put a lot of time into your mobile site since the users researching your company, they are most likely on their work computers. Your users don’t need to change for you, you can change for them.FSC Interactive typical customer base is businesses in New Orleans and
the surrounding area. About 40% of our services page comes from people in the New Orleans area. Our next goal might be to increase that number to 50%.
Who are your main competitors or similar companies?
Know thy enemy and know thy search result place! One thing I have noticed from my clients is that they think their competitors are the ones they can see, the store across the street or their peers at networking events. Your competitors are also the only sites that are next to you in the search results. Expanding the view of your competitors might give you ideas for pleasing your user base you haven’t thought of yet. 
Subaru the company is different than Subaru the dealership. Somehow Bryan Subaru is beating the Subaru official site. Even though they are a part of the same company, they are competitors because the user has to choose between finding the car on the official site or Bryan Subaru.Which three pages on your site do you most want visitors to see?
A user only has a certain amount of time to look at your site, so focus on the most important pages. Your site doesn’t need 20 pages to be important. What I find with my clients is that they are focused on the pages they care about, not the user. This is where your intended goal above and your knowledge about your target audience comes into play. You want the most important pages for the user to be clear and easy to get to. If you are a company that sells furniture, your top page better be the page users can buy furniture from.
Corona’s three pages they want the user to go to (other than the home page) are the winning prizes page, the deals page and the list of events page. To me, I feel like Corona is screaming, “We want you to get free stuff, free money and free fun. Corona cares about you!”By asking yourself these 6 questions about your site will take you closer to giving your users the ultimate user experience. Treat your users well and they will return the favor. Good luck, and let us know how it goes!
The post Ultimate User Experience for Your Website in 6 Questions appeared first on FSC Interactive.