User Experience (UX) Explained for Best Practice Website Creation
Creating your own Website
Where to start! It's no straightforward thing to do! So you need to assess your needs , wants, skills and such. First of all, what type of website are you creating? Will it be content heavy? Or daily blog posts, perhaps some ecommerce? Maybe you want to provide a service or have your own online business? The genres of sites are endless.
CMS Websites
So I've fast-forwarded and decided on the type of website I'm going to make. A CMS one! This was an easy decision to make, asides from this module requirement there are many advantages to using a CMS developed site. For those who are new here, a CMS site is a content management development site, essentially a software that allows you to build a website without having to code it. Ever heard of WordPress? Joomla? Etc yes those!
The advantages of using a CMS developed site can be listed below:
Suitable for websites with one or more html pages which is one I will be creating
Ideal for those with a non technical background but double ideal for those with a knowledge of html as I can utilise my skills and optimised my site to look how I want
Easier to update, refine and edit and overall a cheaper option !
Do you need any more convincing than that!
User Experience (UX)
User experience and interaction design these sound like big words! All that really means is how to make the best website experience for your users. The aim is to make the website experience easy for users and to make the website interaction smooth. We do this not only for audience retention but also for website success.
UX is simple to understand, there are four fundamental principles involved
Navigation- this is important, you have to make it obvious for the user on your site to know where they exactly are on the site. Whether this be via hover effects - highlighted buttons, big headers etc it needs to be made obvious! There are many ways to do this, I delve further into this as you read below.
Copy- also known as text. This point although self explanatory can easily go unnoticed. Buttons on the site should be clear, font should be appropriate and legible, make it easier for the user to understand what is a link or a button using the techniques we know of, such as colours , highlighted hyperlinks , change of cursor or arrows, the use of animations etc.
Contrast- the last but not least of the UX principles. Contrasting colours like black and white compliment each other. They make it easier for the user to identify things and can also help to section out information or text
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UX and CMS -How is this applied
Creating a CMS site gives you the option of using a premade or custom design template for your site. Whilst you may want to lean more toward a custom and funky design of your own, I wouldn't be too hasty! It can be too easy to get carried away and build a website that you may personally like the design and that you may find easy to use but is it user friendly? Think again!
In most cases the premade templates are the favourable option! This is simply because they are designed in a user-friendly way and satisfy all the laws of UX making your website already a success. Some elements these premade templates consist of are highlighted below
Consistent colour scheme
Consistent fonts button, button shape and layout
Consistent menu navigation layout of each webpage
A premade user tested interface
Now that's not to say to completely avoid the custom templates option! Custom templates can be made, but it will require more work and efforts to be imputed to ensure the UX fundamentals are satisfied. Some tips I can give for custom templates are:
Make sure you have a well rounded understanding of the framework and functions of the CMS you are working with.
Keep it simple! - keep your webpages free of any unnecessary clutter
Implement user testing- whether in person, or remote- this will give you a good insight into the user experience
Consistency is key!- In all aspects of your site remain consistent, the same sections on different pages should look the same! The footer for example.
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Before proceeding with any of those steps above it's important to consider your site target audience demographics, the type of site you want to create and the features provided by your CMS. These will all contribute to and provide you with the desired outcome.
Now that we have the tips for the structure down we have all the tools to create the best UX friendly site! I hope this blog post has provided some knowledge on all things UX and CMS related.
If you are to take anything away from this post it should be that
Good Design is good for business, it enhances the brand/company experience and user research is vital for design success!
Feel free to comment your thoughts or inputs! Is there anything you agree with or disagree with? Perhaps you want to challenge a statement about CMS? Would love to hear from you below
Using a CMS design (2022) Maria Andrea Mancilla https://www.chaskis.digital/post/why-you-should-consider-using-a-cms-web-design-rather-than-building-it-from-scratch
UX/UI Best Practices for Web Design (2021) Flux Academy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn2KgB_01mE
UI/UX best practice in CMS based Web Design (2015) Harbinger Systems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBkeeSgvXvM
Unlocking the value of Design: Advancing your Design Practice (2022) Andy Vitale https://www.adobe.com/max/2022/sessions/emea-unlocking-the-value-of-design-advancing-your-s152.html
Tips to improve your Site’s UX in 2022 (2021) Wordpress.com team https://wordpress.com/go/tutorials/tips-to-improve-your-sites-ux-in-2022/
What is UX/UI and how a CMS can help both (2022) Maria Carlyle
https://onequext.com/blog/what-is-ui-ux-design-and-how-can-a-cms-help-both
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