Web Development Design - How to Avoid Traffic Loss Due to Poor UX?

The web development service consists of creating primarily business websites with a simple structure and more complex web applications that run in the browser. Historically, only computers were connected to the Internet, so products created within web development were adapted for display on monitors and laptops, as that was the only necessity. Today, thanks to advanced web and mobile technologies, users use the Internet completely differently. In 2023, according to statcounter.com, mobile traffic accounted for more than half of all Internet traffic.

So let's assume you want to increase the conversion rate of your website or web application, increase average session duration and user engagement, and increase the percentage of returning users. In this case, you need to focus on providing clear and intuitive UX design for both websites and mobile devices. A high bounce rate and user frustration due to unreadable design and navigation, as well as excessively long loading times, are signs of poor UX design. Read this article to learn what you can do to avoid losing traffic and stay ahead of competitors.

Most Common Mistakes in Website Development

It is said that mistakes are the best teacher. However, learning from your own mistakes can be both painful and costly. It's better to learn from the mistakes that others have made. So check out the list of the most common UX mistakes preceding web development:

• Lack of any plan - creating a web development design without a detailed plan that defines goals, target audience, page structure, wireframes and content of individual subpages, keyword list, graphic guidelines and content. This approach leads to endless revisions, stretches the entire website development process and simply frustrates the team, who go in circles instead of moving forward on the project. An effective plan should include a to-do list, deadlines, budget and a list of the main elements that need to be prepared (e.g., graphics). Following this guide, you can easily create such a plan:
  • Define the goals and objectives of your project.
  • Create a template to rely on when adding new pages.
  • Prepare a list of content - which you have or need to create.
  • Create a task list - you already know what you want to achieve and what content you are missing, thanks to this you can create a task list and define the order of completion. Don't forget to account for dependencies between tasks.
  • Set the time required for each task.
  • Once you have the overall picture, calculate how much it will cost. You can start work if you stay within budget, or revise the plan to reduce the project cost.
  • Assign team members to specific tasks.
  • Create a navigation plan, data flows, and user flows.
  • Create UX and UI design.
• Neglecting mobile capabilities - websites and web applications that do not meet mobile requirements are displayed incorrectly on mobile devices and therefore are not fully functional. Lack of mobile responsiveness is often a cause of user frustration (rage clicking - user behavior where they repeatedly click on an element or area without the desired effect) and increased bounce rate. Ensure consistency of display of individual sections in desktop and mobile versions and test their scaling, for example, how the web application behaves when the number of tiles representing your services or case studies increases. 
• Responsive web design is a necessity today. Remember, when writing content for simple sites, you need to adapt headings, margins, fonts, shape and size of CTAs, forms, photos and illustrations, as well as the length of text blocks for mobile devices. With complex web applications, it's more complicated. The desktop version usually presents full functionality, while tablet and smartphone screens are often too small to display and process large amounts of data on a single subpage. For mobile, sometimes information needs to be split across many subpages and a completely different user flow planning. Therefore, desktop and mobile versions of the program may have different layouts. This difference generates additional work. As a result, a higher cost of web development.
• Triumph of form over content - When working on creating a new website or web application, use common sense, not jump on every new trend. Some solutions look beautiful and intriguing but bring no benefit to your business. Each addition means more developer hours and increased web development costs. Remember, every new element should appear for a specific reason. Each user uses your web application for a specific purpose. Be moderate in adding useless sliders, graphics and videos. If they are not needed, it will lead to additional costs and difficulties with correct display on mobile devices. When designing the user path, try to identify pain points. Knowing them, it's easier to add elements that eliminate user problems, thereby improving the overall UX of the web application and increasing the conversion rate.

• Lack of balance - excessive attention to web design aesthetics can overshadow some application functionalities and make it harder for users to use the application. And vice versa. Too many functional features presented not aesthetically will overwhelm users, especially new ones. Ideal web design solutions are sustainable. Adding features that are not critical and represent only a beautiful idea can be unnecessary. Creating them means additional costs without certainty that the investment will pay off. In the worst case, these features will limit you and create additional costs over the following months or even years of project development. Implementation of functionalities should be based on usability test results and business analysis or, when you already have a live MVP version, based on user feedback.
• Remember the principle of clean design. The amount of space for additional features is limited, and too much concentration of functionalities can be overwhelming and, as a result, scare away the user, reduce site attractiveness and revenue instead of increasing conversion.
• Lack of usability testing - even the best prepared plan and prototypes of a web application are only theoretical solutions based on the experience and ideas of individuals. You will find out how correct your assumptions are only when real users start using the web application. Focus on user needs and thoroughly analyze how they use your web application. Testing is time-consuming and difficult to organize, but it allows you to eliminate critical errors and improve the quality of the final product. Usability testing should be carried out when the clickable prototype covers most of the final UI/UX assumptions.
• Test one variable in each individual test to make conclusions binding. With this approach, you will ensure that the prototype is ready or needs refinement, and only then start the entire development process - this approach should significantly reduce the cost of web development. When the finished product goes live, you can plan A/B testing to evaluate the value of different versions of data elements such as product cards, landing pages, contact forms, or other versions of the CTA button. Remember to compare a sufficiently large data sample, periods of equal length, and test one element at a time. Focus on the key elements critical to conversion and test them regularly. Accept that some conclusions and adjustments made after them will be minor; do not expect every test to change your business by 180 degrees.

Tips for Improving Web Application Design

Now that you know which UX mistakes to avoid at the design stage preceding the web development process, let's move on to a list of tips and best practices that will help you improve UX quality:

• Make a plan - before starting web development design, write down all your ideas. Then conduct thorough research of direct competitors, similar companies, and successful industry leaders. Based on the collected information, prepare mood boards and interface inventories. All these actions will serve as a starting point. Prioritize users, as they are the key to success. To avoid UX mistakes, analyze the list of collected ideas with user needs and convenience in mind. The result of the research should be clearly defined problems, user needs, and the purpose of the web application. When you identify the problems, transform them into valuable solutions. Try to formulate tasks using the 'How might we...' method and use the Business Model Canvas to record your vision and present it to other team members. To make the right decision, conduct UX research, which can be outsourced to an external company or done in-house.
• Now that you have considered all the pros and cons and are confident in the direction of your activity, it's time for wireframing and prototyping, as well as further web development. So far, your plan is based on research and assumptions. Your next task is to prepare an MVP version of the web application as soon as possible and show it to real users. This approach will allow you to draw further conclusions and confirm your beliefs. Repeat this process until the ideal product is created.
• Mobile-first approach - adapting the web application design to mobile devices. A significant portion of users will use your products in this way. Take this into account when designing individual elements so that they are easy to navigate with thumbs. Following Responsive Web Design principles, try to use fluid and adaptive layouts, responsive typography, optimize the site display for the most popular mobile devices and browsers. To increase the appeal of using the web application on smartphones, be sure to include the use of features characteristic of mobile devices, such as camera access, screen orientation change, geolocation, etc.
• Performance optimization - The modern Internet user is very impatient. Therefore, even the best prepared plan and thorough optimization of the web application for mobile devices will be useless if it is slow and the loading time exceeds a few seconds. Solutions such as lazy loading of non-critical images and videos, conditional loading, responsive images, and CSS compression will help improve the performance of the web application and retain users.
• Collaboration - Working directly in the browser can significantly simplify the design stage preceding the web development workflow. Thanks to tools like Figma, Bootstrap, Foundation, Bulma, Materialize, and others, you can save many hours by working in the browser. This approach improves team communication, as several people can work on the same model simultaneously. It also helps avoid significant discrepancies between elements in mockups and those that end up in the source code of the web application.

Conclusion

As you can see, the web development design process is a complex process involving many issues that require special attention. Working on improving the UX of web products is not easy, but it will undoubtedly pay off. However, if you want to handle this task on your own, prepare a web application plan based on the article above and send it to us.