But what would happen if we broke free from tradition, and tried to live without those pesky habits and patterns?

Let’s dive into the experiment below and discover the results.

What are UX Design Patterns, Anyway?

Put simply, UX design patterns are predictable ways that designers come up with for users to interact with a website.

For a real-world example, consider the keyboard layout on your computer. It has a predictable layout and hasn’t changed in decades.

Web designers frequently ask their website visitors to take actions, that must be easy to accomplish. These tasks include signing up, logging in and out, submitting email addresses, and other important information.

If you’ve ever created a website before, you’ll know the pains of user experience issues from both the front facing and behind the scenes sides.

Since most Internet users tend to access multiple web and mobile applications on a daily basis, the fact that we have to constantly re-enter our information can become pretty tedious. This presents opportunities to implement UX design patterns to make things easier.

How is UI Impacted by UX?

There are many subtle differences between UI and UX:

User interface design is the part of the website that the user interacts with upon arriving at a website. User experience is the broad scope of the site itself, and the emotions and impressions that the user comes across upon looking at the site.

Generally speaking, UI deals with form and UX focuses on function. This means that UX patterns and UI patterns have some overlap, and sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. Some design philosophies consider UI to be an integral part of UX, so you could say that without good UI, you’ll never have good UX.

Some UI libraries contain ideas and solutions that address UX problems, such as user flows and empty states. Other UI libraries simply showcase ideas for creating engaging user interfaces.

Now that you’re up to speed on what UX and UI design patterns are, let’s take a look at the experiment: Testing the usefulness of these patterns.

The Experiment

A UX designer and cognitive scientist recently conducted a simple experiment to quantify the effects that disruptive patterns can have on the performance of tasks.

Intuitively, we feel like when we deviate from convention, it will have negative effects on productivity, reaction time and satisfaction. In this scenario, the main question is to understand if there’s any truth to this nagging feeling.

The experiment used a standard telephone keypad as a conventional pattern and a logical variation of the keypad as a disruptive pattern.

Standard keypads are found universally in telephones that don’t have rotary dials, and we all know how to operate one without much thought, effort or concentration.

However, the disruptive keypad requires cognitive functions. Users simply aren’t accustomed to using it, and there’s a learning curve in making the keypad work.

Most importantly, the disruptive keypad competes with the standard keypad. Our previous experience with using the standard keypad interferes with our ability to use the disruptive keypad with the same amount of accuracy and dexterity.

A web app was developed for the experiment, based on a jQuery keypad for the participants’ inputs, and MySQL to record the data. The experiment asked the participants of the experiment to dial a ten-digit phone number from memory twice: first using a standard keypad, then a second time using the disruptive keypad.

There was a three-second-countdown screen prior to showing the keypads. The web app measured and recorded the performance time for dialing the ten-digit number, as well as the number of occurrences the backspace button was tapped.

The Results

The experiment was conducted using Android and Google Chrome browsers, with roughly 150 subjects participating in the study. Some results were excluded, such as easy-to-type number patterns, such as “1-2-3-4-5”, as well as inordinate outliers that may have occurred due to technical issues. The final count was 130 valid pairs of inputs.

Based on the table above, the average time required to dial a ten-digit number on a disruptive keypad was 35 percent longer than on the standard keypad. The median time to enter the number was 54 percent longer on the disruptive keypad as compared with the standard.

It’s interesting to note that 28 of the number pairs didn’t match up correctly at all. I’d assume that the number was correctly entered on the standard keypad, but incorrectly entered, or even unnoticed, on the disruptive keypad.

Conclusion

There’s a high price to pay for not using UX patterns.

In the experiment, we learned that a non-standard design could slow down performance by up to 50 percent, and greatly increase the likelihood of mistakes. When the familiar conventions are broken, the results are significant issues in usability, function and efficiency.

There’s just not getting past the results that we tend to love patterns. Look for patterns that already exist and work well. We’re hard-wired to love those pesky patterns and the order they bring.

As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

The post The Research-Backed Impact of Not Using UX Patterns appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

This quick phrase could’ve saved me hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars, but like so many beginners before me, I didn’t listen.

There are countless stories of overcomplicating simple tasks, like the US space program’s epic fail while searching for an anti-gravity pen to use in space. Instead of just buying a $1 pencil, the space program apparently went on a multi-million dollar spending spree.

It’s tempting to overdo things as a beginner, trying to show off everything you’ve learned, but it’s a costly mistake that most UX veterans avoid like the plague. Instead, experienced designers understand that it’s best to keep things super-simple.

Keeping your design simple not only looks better to users, but it converts better too. Here are eight ways to implement user-centered design, and boost your conversion rate in the process.

What Is User-Centered Design, Anyway?

Put simply, User-Centered Design (UCD) is a set of principles that focus design on the user’s needs, desires, and limitations.

By focusing on how users interact with your existing website, you can improve upon its structure, interface, and content to make it more appealing, organized, and useful for them.

User-centered design involves making overall organization, interface, and presentation of content more accessible and cohesive. When visitors to your website can navigate your website easily and find the information they’re looking for, they’re far more likely to convert into buyers.

User-centered design simplifies common tasks and highlights important features and functions. Websites that implement UCD have sensible architecture and navigation that avoids pitfalls such as human error and other frustrating problems.

Get Rid of Obstacles

In order to increase conversions on your website, user-centered design seeks to eliminate user fatigue, doubt, and lack of feedback. Ultimately, the goal is to minimize the amount of mental effort the user must exert in order to get things done.

Eliminate Visual Clutter

Maybe your website has visual elements, graphics and other content that don’t help your users. And identifying these distracting elements among the helpful, productive content is easier said than done.

Make sure your content shows only what the users need to see in order to lead to your desired result. Remove colors, images, layouts and links that don’t add value to their experience, and use environment-like backgrounds on images to reduce distractions.

Simplify the Path to Conversion

From the moment your users first get to your website, they embark on a path to conversion made up of a series of steps. And they can cancel the process at any step along the way, simply by closing a browser window, getting distracted or frustrated, or running out of battery life on their mobile device.

Don’t let it happen to you. Make the path toward conversion a short one, and the steps along the way should be very easy. When my design agency, X3 Digital, added a contact form to the bottom of our home page, we dramatically increased our monthly form submissions. By reducing the mental effort of the entire contact process, we reduced steps and increased our conversions.

Use Clear and Conversational Content

Website visitors don’t like content presented in a “wall of text” format, and may be easily discouraged, overwhelmed and bored because of it.

Make sure your content is straight and to the point. It should be conversational, and easy to read. And if the message is better conveyed as an image, chart or other visual device, use that instead. When I wrote a tutorial about how to make a website, I first needed to understand exactly who would be reading the post.

Afterwards, I made sure that the tone of the article matched the typical language of the readers. This is instrumental in improving your content.

Speak One-On-One, Right From The Website

Customers sometimes need a more direct approach when it comes to assistance, or may have doubts about how certain things work. When they can’t find answers to their questions, they will abandon their purchase and leave your website. Sometimes live chat is all that you need to save your conversions.

Also, live chat is an opportunity to build relationships with your customers, garner positive reviews and gain some insight into what works and doesn’t work in your website.

Make Your Forms Easy

Anyone who has ever filled out a contact form on a website knows that they are obstacles. They can be tedious, intrusive, and sometimes clumsy. But they are necessary in order to get things done.

It’s up to you to keep user fatigue at a minimum by reducing the number of required fields that the user has to fill in. To keep things as easy as possible, keep related information in groups.

Customers also hate clicking on the “Submit” button, only to have it return with errors. Be sure to give feedback at the completion of every step, whether by highlighting correct inputs, or suggesting revisions.

Don’t Forget Mobile Users

As much as users like to fiddle with their mobile devices, conversions on mobile phones have always been significantly lower than on other devices.

The reason? Credit different usage patterns. If you haven’t optimized for mobile users already, it’s time to consider implementing one right away.

A user-centered design for a mobile site would be highly simplified, reducing the amount of text, and having more white space around call-to-action buttons and input fields.

Also, since cellular data plans have limitations, use visual elements that are compact and efficient, improving site speed. Remember, it’s a race against time.

Be Persuasive, Yet Subtle

Visual Design. This element will make your website’s first impression, and will influence your users to give you the benefit of the doubt. By using professional illustrations and photography, a clever color pallete, and implementing a user-friendly layout, users will spend more time on your site, and your conversion rate will improve.

Value Proposition. A value proposition is a clear, direct statement of what your product will specifically do to help your users. Users will find it reassuring that they’ve come to the right place, and that you will deliver on your promises.

Call-To-Action. Be sure to have this button on your website, and that it is clear and clickable, with plenty of white space surrounding it. This button represents the end of the user’s journey and the moment a website visit converts into a sale. Again, keep it simple, and make it clear as to what will happen when your user clicks it.

Next Steps

Jeff Horvath of Human Factors wrote:

“A good user experience, like a measurable ROI, doesn’t typically happen by accident. It is the result of careful planning, analysis, investment, and continuous improvement.”

Designing with users in mind means your website’s interface should be straightforward, logical and intuitive, while maintaining the right aesthetic. This requires strategic placement, spacing and visual coding techniques that facilitate all the actions that can result in sales.

Your website content needs to resonate with your users, delivering marketing messages that answer their questions and are relevant to their needs. This can be accomplished through research and strategic writing to keep users engaged.

Keep your users in mind when you design your website, and they will reward you with conversions.

The post How User-Centered Design Skyrockets Conversion Rate appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.