How to Create a Beautiful and User-Friendly Website

Creating a website is not easy, regardless of what guides and blogs on the internet tell you. However, its lack of ease comes simply in the many things you need to understand rather than what you need to do, especially if there is coding involved. However, with the right tutorials, you, too, can create a beautiful and user-friendly website in a few steps.

Before Web 2.0, we have Html and the ability to create some of the most cool-looking websites out there. However, they were personal projects that were never really meant for business. Web 2.0 changed that and brought new items to websites such as JavaScript, plugins, and more.

We will give you the right ideas and ways to create your own beautiful, user-friendly website.

You Need to Know the Basics before You Can Get to Making it User-Friendly or Beautiful

AStarting your website can be exciting, and that excitement wears off as soon as someone glances at an Html page or code because they get overwhelmed. After that, when someone mentions that Html is the least complicated and most straightforward language to use—so easy that it does not even classify as a coding language—well, they only get more nervous.

If you want to create an excellent website, you need to be familiar with these aspects of building a website. If you are a designer that knows basic HTML, you can genuinely take advantage of it in the iterative process.

Beginners Should Start With Templates

Creating everything from scratch as a beginner is not intimidating, but it can also be far more time-consuming than if you do it as an intermediate or advanced user. That is why the first thing we will recommend is to use a website template.

The template will have everything in its most barebones, basic form and ready to go.

Websites are now more than just informative; text-based pages show information and little else.

Websites are now interactive, with tons of unique features that can make every website memorable.

Visitors now expect a website to be informative, interactive, entertaining, offer a smooth experience, snappy and work as fast as possible, work on all devices, work across all platforms, have great aesthetics, and so much more. All this isn't easy, but making it gel together with a beautiful and user-friendly experience can be even more daunting.

Fortunately, here are a few tips to make that happen.

#1 Your Users Will Give Your Valuable Feedback. Listen to Them

Your website will have regular visitors. Not all of them will give feedback, but some might. Even first-time customers might have something to say.

Take the time to listen to them. See what they'd like to say. They might have an opinion on a page, on some information, or even provide some insight on how the website performs on their device. The sheer number of combinations of hardware and software out there makes it nigh impossible for developers to optimize for them all, so there are bound to be problems.

Getting input from your target audience brings unique performance issues that most testers will not be able to identify. That is because users are not always familiar with the software aspects, and they tend to be the best kind of population sample to test user-friendliness. If a product or piece of software is truly user-friendly, even someone with no familiarity with those systems will be able to use it without a hitch or issue.

There will always be certain features that visitors dislike, aspects they love, or things they have no firm opinion on. It is essential to listen to them all and understand what they mean. Not liking a website's layout is not the same as a website's layout is confusing. The latter is a real problem, and the former is an opinion that only needs to be addressed when it shows to be a real problem.

The user is the most critical aspect for any website to be user-friendly. They need to be the core of the website's design philosophy and content calendars.

Regular users notice the feedback being listened to. Still, they can also return that investment with additional traffic and additional revenue through sales and service purchases if the website supports it.

#2 Performance Optimization, Snappiness, and Speed are Crucial for an Ideal Experience

The issue with most modern websites and software programs that are integrated into the website as a web app is that it all adds to the number of resources it takes from the hardware of the device, as well as the network resources it needs, which is the internet speed and packet information.

However, website users also expect the website to load at lightning speed, whether they are using a desktop computer with a fast Ethernet connection or a mobile device with a 2G or 3G network. The maximum time users might give to a website is around 3-5 seconds. Any more than that, and the website can quickly become burdensome.

However, speed is almost contradictory to the myriad of features put in a website. The more elements are added to make it beautiful, and the more one needs to do to make it run fast and smooth.

Even elements that are meant to make operations faster are plugins, web apps, and micro-services, which only add to the cost and maintenance of the website as well. Two of the simpler things can be optimizing images and checking server speeds. If your pictures are all in Ultra-HD and super high-quality, it will naturally take more time for a website to load. Keeping these things in check is necessary for maximizing speed, resource optimization, and snappiness.

#3 Give Users All the Information They Need, but Break it Down for Their Convenience

When a website visitor reaches your landing page, they expect to be able to understand what your website is about, what your business does, and what they can purchase or gain from it. Your website needs a reason to exist beyond just an online communication channel.

However, its basic functionalities as an information hub should not be given up on. Users expect websites to provide easy-to-understand yet comprehensive information about the product or service that is on offer. If any information is not available on their relevant pages or is challenging to find, it can frustrate the website visitor enough to leave the website and not come back until they have to.

#4 Allow Users to Intuitively Navigate Across Your Website

One thing that is tied to how information is delivered is your website's navigation. A visitor should not have to understand or learn any new aspects of your website. If they want to contact your company, they will visit the Contact Us page. If they're going to find out about the company, they will see the About Us page. These are universal standards that should be respected, and any information provided should be done so with its relevant navigation visible.

If every banner and part of your website has a separate clickable page, it should always be easily reachable through the top navigation bar. The website visitor's journey should be mapped and understood to not lead them through zig zags on the website but instead get them back to the landing page after a clear-cut trip.

However, putting too many categories and sub-categories for the sake of organization can make it very difficult for users to search for something. Websites like Amazon do have this problem, but that is offset by the sheer number of items available for purchase. Hence, it assumes that the user can search for it through the search bar rather than look for it in its relevant categories.

More elements include positioning the navigation bars, the text, the colors, and more.

#5 Colors and Color Combinations Should be Chosen Carefully

Speaking of colors, your website colors are not something where you can pick the best-looking combo and call it a day. Before deciding on the final product, every color and the color palette itself has to be iterated upon considerably.

It would be best to have a perfect balance between clarity and beauty. A website needs to be both to be truly user-friendly.

For example, putting a black background on white text or vice versa can lead to jarring colors, especially in different displays, mobile phones, and other devices. Users that have their brightness up and are looking at the website in the daytime or outdoors might also find it difficult to distinguish the text.

However, if you put shapes on the background that make it opaque, as well as make the experience off-white instead of white or black, and try to be more subtle with the text to make it legible, it will not only add to the website's beauty but also make it more user-friendly.

The delivery of accurate information, colors, navigation, and speed are interconnected and work in tandem. Buttons like the navigation bars, buy now buttons, add to cart buttons, etc., should also be visible. An unusable button should be greyed out, but it should also be explained why it is so to the user.

#6 Always Look to Improve Your Website Layout without Changing Too Much

Making websites for PC, android, iOS devices, tablets, Macs, and other handhelds has become necessary, especially for smartphones. Now, more users own a smartphone than a PC and do their website visits from there most often as data rates decrease.

That means you must keep your website responsive across resolutions, hardware, and devices. Keep testing for potential issues, and ensure that navigation is easy and intuitive for each platform.

#7 Keep Call to Actions (CTAs) Strong but in Moderation

Sometimes users will actively look for a CTA to purchase because it is how websites have been communicating for years. Using simple CTAs that are easy to get to and locate should be prioritized.

That means using buttons with colors that pop. The user should be able to get to that button as soon as they enter the landing page. It should also be noticeable at a glance.

#8 Provide Actual Contact Channels on the Contact Page

You cannot just have a contact form and call it a day.

To establish trust, you need to present that you are willing to put in the time to help your users and consider their matters.

Simply providing more ways to communicate to you is something users have said websites are missing. User forums for user-to-user communication, blogs for information, a knowledge center, live chat options, and more are just factors that add to your website's interactivity and credibility.

Conclusion

Websites are already complicated, but making them user-friendly can be even more so.

However, if you focus on the user, that can be accomplished. Here, we have put forward eight ways to do so and some background information on what you need to be familiar with to take advantage of these methods.

Of course, this isn't a comprehensive how-to guide but rather an informative piece on how to make it to get you started with creating a beautiful and user-friendly website.