It is an irony to say that every business should have a website. In fact, most businesses have at least one website that is functional but with the increasing use of apps, websites must bring some changes to stay along with site the apps. Over 60% of users prefer mobile apps over Mobi-sites apps provide customized content to their users depending on their preferences, searches, and location. Websites provide a large amount of information, which is not personalized, and Mobile apps allow you to customize its appearance, usage, and layout while websites depend on browsers to perform primary functions. An app is more adaptable and offer functions like swipe, drag, tap, hold and more. This kind of functionality provides a positive experience for users.
But what if we integrate app design techniques to web design?
Building a personalized experience for your users has numerous benefits for you as a website owner. Though, before solving their problems, you should always start by questioning your customers, creating personas, and coming to a well-honed understanding the goals and frustrations of users. Customization can be pricey and time-consuming, and should never be a default approach. That said, personalization helps you to meet customer needs that would else be impossible without sacrificing serviceability, learnability, and the emotional need that your users will have for your website. Personalization also drives you to review what is essential about your app for your users – and what is not.
Here are some of the best application design tactics that we can implement in websites to make it as convenient as apps.
Anticipatory Design
Anticipatory design is a tactic to design whereby you look to resolve a user’s requirements before they even realize they have them themselves. A successful anticipatory design makes a user feel more at home within your website like it is “just right” for them by giving them what they want and when they want it in a clear and intuitive way. Clearly, users are more likely to stay with your website when their needs are met with little or no friction.
Consistency
Consistency in website design matter a lot. Give your interest to match design features throughout each of the pages. It is understood that your fonts, sizes, headings, sub-headings, and button styles must be consistent all over the website. Strategize everything in advance. Confirm the fonts and the right colours for your texts, buttons, etc, and switch to them throughout the development. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) can be helpful to keep the complete information about design styles and elements.
Easy Loading
No one prefers the website that takes too much time to load. So, take care of it by improving image sizes, combing code into a central CSS or JavaScript file as it reduces HTTP requests. Also, tamp HTML, JavaScript, and CSS for improved loading speed.
Easy Navigation
Research shows that visitors spend more time on websites having easy navigation. For good navigation, you must think about making a workable page hierarchy, using bread scrums, and designing clickable buttons.
Customized Content
Animations, videos, images, and content can all be chosen for your users, based on data about them. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all control this approach, by using your history of likes and shares to curate a feed that is more interesting to you personally. Try clicking “Like” a few times on a certain person’s posts and that person is assured to appear at the top of your feed the next time you sign in. The basic rule here for personalization is: If the user likes doing something on your website, give them further opportunities to take similar actions the next time they sign in. Taking an action like “like,” “share,” or “upvote” is a clear signal that they value your website for that purpose.
Conclusion
Yes, we should integrate app design tactics to website design because the success of any website entirely depends on how its web design is. Your neatly designed site which contains usability and utility defines the success and not the visual design. Since your site is the face of your business and most customers will visit your site before they ever look in on your store, it becomes inevitable to get your website designed cautiously. Lacking in any part could end up undermining your brand impression.