Hit a Homerun With Your Homepage By Tory Darling, Codal Inc
______________________________________________________ For any company, designing a website is a process that needs great attention to detail. As a UX design company, the page that matters most to a website is the homepage. If the homepage does not attract the user and lead them on a journey of the website, it may be an indication the homepage and, maybe the entire site for that matter, needs a redesign. Through tracking of the user’s behavior, if you see a high bounce rate on the homepage, it may signify the homepage is not fully optimized. Being a UX design agency, we have compiled a list of five tips to keep in mind when designing the homepage of a website. #1 Clarify Who You Are The most critical aspect to the homepage is clarifying to the user who you are and what you do as a business. The first question that goes into any user’s mind when they arrive to a new website is “am I at the right place?”. It is your job to make them know they are in the right place. An iconic business, like Starbucks, can get away with not be explicit about who they are as a company, since majority of the population knows of this prominent coffee brand. In the example below, Starbucks is using their homepage as a promotional piece for the caramel macchiatos campaign. An effective strategy, but one that can only be done by companies that have a recognition and knowledge through a simple logo.
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#2 Make a Lasting Impression The next critical component of a homepage is to immediately engage the user in a way that impacts them and persuades them to continue to explore the site. Utilizing content such as a bright color background, an interesting photograph, micro animations, or rich text will captivate the user in a way that will create a desire to continue the journey through the website. For example, Codal, a mobile app design agency in Chicago, created a homepage for MoodyTounge with a bright image of the different beers.
Source #3 Create Easy Navigation Providing the ability to navigate from the homepage to the different pages of site needs to be clear and easy in order to ensure a lower bounce rating for the homepage. Another element to incorporate in the navigation is CTA’s. Not only does the navigation have to be clear, but it also has to persuade the user to go there. For example, utilizing a “shop now” to direct the user the product page may be more effective than just labeling it “product page.” #4 Keep in Mind The Above the Fold The move from physical to digital has had enormous amount of changes, but there is a traditional term can be applied to this digital site; that term is a bove the fold. In newspapers, editors needed to put the engaging stories and images on the front page above the crease so readers would be persuaded to purchase the paper. Likewise, UX design services, need to showcase the best and most interesting content at the top of the page, where the user can view without needing to scroll down. If the most engaging
content is at the bottom of the page, or a different page altogether, it is not doing anything for your site. #5 Don’t Forget About Mobile Applying the same homepage from the website to the mobile device is not an effective process. Considering by 2020 smartphone users are going to be up to 6 .1 billion, keeping as much focus on mobile view as on desktop is critical. For instance, the navigation on a mobile screen is going to be significantly different than on the main website. Ensuring that the mobile site has a seamless ease of navigation is very important to keep the mobile users engaged. Also depending on the amount of users that are going to your site, it may also lead to the question on needing to develop a mobile application, rather than just simply having a mobile friendly site. Since users spend 18 times more time in-app than on a mobile website, if you have a high percentage of total users going to a site via their mobile device, investing in an app may have a higher ROI than just on a mobile friendly site. Conclusion How well the homepage is designed can mean the difference of the user exploring your website and leaving entirely. The homepage is the chance of the user experience design service to captivate and inform the users of the site. Looking for more insight on UX design services? Are you wanting to develop an app and you need to know the cost to develop an app i s? Visit Codal’s blog, or come talk to us here! We’d love to hear from you.
Codal Inc App Development & UX Design Agency www.codal.com