In today’s modern world, a website is one of the most essential tools a Software business can yield. Websites act as a 24/7 gateway into a company—its history, mission, and services—and overall SaaS website usability is key to turning website visitors into leads and customers.
For this reason, the usability of a website is important and, as such, should be a priority to any business—big or small. Nowadays, a particular standard is held within web design, and a website is expected to take its user experience seriously.
What is web usability for SaaS?
‘Web usability’ essentially means the ease of how someone uses and navigates a website. Despite being an important aspect of web design, businesses tend to overlook website usability. However, research has found that a visitor to a terribly designed website won’t stay there for long—even if the company has precisely what they need.
Why is it so important?
Generally speaking, SaaS website usability focuses on making a website more user-friendly. Website usability is a crucial aspect of web design because it helps retain visitors, turning them into leads and, better yet, sales. The design of a website can impact the click-through rate (CTR), bounce rate, and a company’s bottom line overall.
It takes a user around 0.05 seconds to form an opinion on your website, and 88% of online consumers are less likely to come back to a badly-designed website. To build a lasting impression on your potential customers, the design of your website needs to be of a high standard. These statistics only prove how vital web usability is to web design and why businesses should take it seriously.
To summarize, ‘web usability’ ensures that a website is user-friendly and a user-first website creates a lasting impression—leading to increased chances of sales.
What are the advantages of website usability in the user experience?
Today’s internet culture is not what it used to be back in the 90s. An easy-to-use website creates an experience that is less frustrating for the user. This is why user experience (or UX) is a key component within website design principles. Broadly speaking, ‘user experience‘ is the quality of the interaction of a website’s user with all aspects of the website. As such, good website usability leaves a good impression on potential clients and customers.
A well-designed website that takes care of its usability has been found to be a key to gaining user trust, as well a factor to the reputation of a company. As a matter of fact, companies that prioritize website usability within the user experience of their website can drastically increase sales.
To summarize, it is safe to say that the better the user experience, the greater the returns.
How to optimize web usability
Web usability is an important yet often overlooked aspect of web design. Businesses that disregard its significance find that their bottom line can suffer due to a lack of leads and conversions.
Now that we’ve talked about why website usability is so essential for your business, let’s talk about how to optimize web usability.
Structure the contents well
The contents of your website should be well-structured so that users can find exactly what they need, when they need it. Organize the contents of your website chronologically and by categories. However, the categories of your website, especially within menus, should be organized by popularity.
Within content articles themselves, ensure the use of various Header tags to divide your written content into sections. This will help with readability so that your website’s contents don’t overload the user with too many words at one go.
Web design must be “clean”
The overall design of a website is important for website usability, where a clean web design is a simple one. The contents of your website need to be easy to read and understand. A clear contrast between content and background is vital for overall web usability—usually black text on a white background. But don’t be afraid to add splashes of color here and there so that your website stands out.
As we’ve mentioned before, a bad user experience is terrible for your overall bottom line. Websites that are too full of stuff—be it advertisements or random plug-ins—create an unpleasant experience for the user.
The menu must be accessible and visible
The website menu could be considered one of the most essential aspects of a website—second to its content. A visible and well-designed menu bar makes navigating a website a less frustrating experience. As we’ve mentioned earlier, a majority of users won’t come back to a website they’ve deemed “difficult to navigate”.
Ensure that your website’s menu bar always sticks to the top of the page, and make sure that it is easy to get around. However, you should make sure that your website doesn’t have too many menu and sub-menu options, which would lead to information overload, instead.
Facilitate interaction
The best way to turn website visitors into leads is to keep them on your website as long as possible, and you can do this by facilitating interaction within your website. Facilitating interaction, getting visitors to remain within your website, and interacting with various aspects are important to web usability.
Making links more obvious than regular text is one way to facilitate interaction—especially when the links lead to other parts of your website. Clearly marked and labeled buttons are also important for facilitating user interaction, so it’s important that they do not blend into the background or with the rest of the text on the screen.
Simplify and synthesize
A simple website isn’t only based on the layout of its design but also on the simplicity of its use. Beautiful websites that are easy to use make the best impressions—potentially leading to better business.
In web design, it’s important to focus on what’s important. There is no need to overcomplicate things, and you should design your website to a point where it’s simple yet intuitive. The user interface should be such that your users will intuitively know what to do when they need to, without being directly told how.
Adapt the website to all types of devices
Nowadays, people use the internet on different devices—desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones. Your website should reflect this to optimize website usability across various devices to create a great user experience regardless of what device your website visitor uses.
Since a significant proportion of internet users are on mobile devices, there is no longer an excuse not to make your website mobile-friendly. In fact, a key aspect of web usability is ensuring that every device can load your website’s design smoothly and it doesn’t lose any of its key features.
6 recommendations to improve the usability of your website
In the previous section, we taught you how to optimize website usability to better the user experience. Spending time and resources on improving the UX of your website can benefit your business tremendously, so it’s a worthwhile endeavor for the overall bottom line.
Good website usability plays a role in your SaaS search engine positioning since a bad user experience can negatively affect your SEO. That’s why we’re suggesting finding SaaS SEO experts.
With that said, here are six recommendations to improve the usability of your website.
Place navigation menus on all pages
The best way to have users navigate your website is to make it clear that they can. Navigation menus are a crucial component of the user interface, and properly utilized menus are great for web usability. In general, navigation bars should be consistent, brief, simple yet noticeable, as well as helpful.
The navigation experience should be intuitive and straight to the point. Stick the menu to the top of the screen and ensure that nothing on the page blocks it.
Do not abuse pop-up windows
Pop-up windows are a valuable tool to get a user to interact with a CTA, but they should never be overused. Once or twice is fine, but that’s the absolute limit, and any more will ruin the user experience. If your website’s visitor hasn’t clicked on the pop-up offer after the second time, it is very unlikely that they would on the third.
Use pop-up windows sparingly and smartly. When utilized correctly, pop-up windows can be a game-changer in lead generation.
Add a sitemap to guide the user
The ease of navigation is a great way to optimize web usability. To avoid users from getting lost on your website (especially if it’s a large one), add a sitemap. A sitemap helps users navigate their way from one end to another, and one that is properly categorized and grouped helps organize your site’s contents simultaneously.
Do not overuse animations or other elements that may distract the user
While it may be cool to have the contents of your page bounce or swoosh in, having too many animations can ruin web usability. Flashy images and animations are distracting elements that can distract a site’s visitor from the content that matters.
Animations also add to the website’s load speed. The longer a website takes to load, the more likely a user will lose interest and leave.
Maintain a coherent design
While you and your brand have a design to follow, so should your website. A coherent web design is a great way to marry web usability alongside your company’s branding. It is essential to ensure that you use a simple design that is straightforward to navigate, easy to read, yet also provides effective interactability—using brand colors as accents rather than the star of the show.
Review and adapt the mobile version
As we mentioned previously, the mobile website is an incredibly important aspect of a great user experience. A mobile-friendly user interface ensures that your website is shareable and accessible.
FAQ
Why is web usability essential?
Users of a website aren’t simply visitors; they are potential clients and customers. In most cases, a company’s website is the first thing these potential clients will see before deciding whether to do business with you. Thus, web usability and, ultimately, a positive overall user experience are powerful tools in creating a lasting impression.
What is the relationship between web usability and UX?
Web usability and user experience (UX) are two different yet interlinking aspects of web design. The general definition of website usability is “the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction” of users to achieve their objectives within a particular website. On the other hand, UX relates to every facet of a user’s experience while interacting with a product.
Web usability is an aspect of a website’s UX, and it is an important one. Paying attention to these aspects of web design is key to creating a fantastic, well-functioning website.
Read the complete SaaS SEO guide here.
