We were so excited to have our webinar led by Sr. UX Designer Adam Deleeuw and UX Writer Genevieve Mount. This webinar taught all of the fundamentals of a visitor’s User Experience (UX) and how every choice made on a website can influence how they interact with the website. Our UX team created their own website and walked through each design feature that could be improved to give their fictional website visitors an optimal user experience. Our attendees were delighted to see the entire process from start to finish as Adam and Genevieve discussed the placement of fonts, image resolutions, choice of colors, and more!
In case you were unable to catch the webinar live, we compiled some of the most popular questions attendees asked during the duration of the webinar. If you have any additional questions, please let us know in the comments below!
Which fonts convey professionalism and confidence?
I feel like most modern, sans serif fonts are professional. Open Sans, Proxima Nova, and Roboto are clean and simple and solid go-to’s. My favorite font right now is Called Brandon Grotesque. Din is a classic.
Any recommended resources for auditing a site for accessibility?
You can check color contrast with this tool. https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
What size picture is best for a website-as in so many pixels by so many pixels?
Depends on where it goes, but for header us the full width of your site 500-700 px tall.
How would you increase the loading speed of the images on your website to improve UX when your site is visited?
Export them at a resolution of 150 DPI.
How does site speed affect SEO exactly?
The goal for search engines is to drive customers to websites that are helpful. A site that loads quickly is better for customers, so search engines prefer fast sites and will rank those higher.
How can a new brand create that sense of trust with their web layout when they do not have a lot of reviews to show?
Building a site that’s easy to navigate and that answers your customer’s needs and questions will be a great step toward starting to build trust. If you start customer-first, they will respond to that.
Is it a bad idea to have a background image cover the entire page to the bottom versus just the top and then open space on the bottom?
As long as the image is large enough to not stretch and simple enough to not distract from your content. We also recommend you make sure all of your copy is readable over the image.
What are the pros and cons of links to other pages as opposed to material also found by scrolling down?
There are a lot of different opinions about how many hyperlinks are too many (it will also depend on your content, length of articles, etc). If you can explain something quickly in a few words as opposed to linking out to a whole other page, do so. But if you have content that will help drive customers through an educational experience or help them geek out on a subject, include links. Just do so knowing that it’s a bit distracting.
What do you think of pop-up dialogs on the homepage?
Bad, unless the user is making a destructive/irreversible action (like deleting the content of information from their account) avoid using them. Pop-up ads can slightly elevate sales but also instill distrust in the user that they are being nickeled and dimed or upsold.
Are there keywords that customers expect for navigation like Home or Contact that we should use or just make sure you keep it descriptive and short?
One thing you can do is to look at big, popular websites on the Internet that most of us are on every day. You can also check out successful websites that are similar to yours in content or website type. If those words make sense to you, that’s a good guide. If you’ve always wondered what they mean even though lots of websites use them, that might be a sign that you can come up with something better.
Do you recommend keeping an offline log of changes being made to your website?
This could be good if you are unsure you want to commit to your changes or are experimenting.
Is it a good idea to have all the information on the home page, such as a one-page, or to separate the information into sections accessible from a menu?
One thing to keep in mind is how your customers would naturally group or look for the material you’re posting. If it makes more sense as one long page with a table of contents/jump-links at the top, go for that, especially if that keeps all the info on that subject in one easy-to-find place. If you end up with tons of sub-content under each section of the long scroll, that might be a sign that you need to break things up into pages.
