18 UX/UI Principles to Increase Your Conversion Rate (UX/UI Trends 2024)

Conversions are one of the most fundamental objectives of a business website, and UX/UI plays a critical role in this regard. Whether your company tracks conversion events through sales, subscribers, or form submissions, seamlessly moving your target clients from start to finish is essential. Today, we'll uncover eighteen UX/UI principles that will increase your conversion rate and help you scale your business.

UX/UI—What is It?

Before proceeding, let's review the basics of user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) to better grasp these vital design concepts.

UX describes a user's perception of a website after interacting with it. This broad category comprises many factors, such as ease of use, efficiency, and the intangible "feeling" a user senses after utilization.

As a subset of UX, UI refers to a user's impression of the visual aspects of a website. While UX encompasses a range of influencing factors, UI focuses on design elements such as color schemes, fonts, images, and animations.

UX/UI is an essential consideration when developing a website. Well-designed UX/UI often goes unnoticed by users, facilitating a seamless, enjoyable, and successful experience. Conversely, poor UX/UI can stick out like a sore thumb, costing businesses in a critical way.

To compare UX with UI and learn their subtle distinctions, check out our recent article: UX vs. UI—What's the Difference?

User Experience/User Interface is Important for Companies Because It...

• Boosts Conversion Rates
• Increases Average Session Durations
• Elevates Internal Productivity
• Improves Customer Retention
• Supports Site SEO
• Maximizes the ROI of Paid Advertising

Follow These 18 UX/UI Principles to Increase Your Conversion Rate

1. Create a User-Centric Strategy
2. Understand the Customer Journey
3. Meet User Needs and Goals
4. Consider User Control
5. Provide Feedback on Actions
6. Enable Affirmative Options
7. Design a Straightforward Hierarchy
8. Provide Clear Context
9. Maintain Consistency
10. Leverage Design Language
11. Consider Narrative Design
12. Design for Visual Stability
13. Prioritize Accessibility
14. Consider Usability
15. Focus on Simplicity
16. Design for Efficiency
17. Enforce Mobile Responsiveness
18. Seek Feedback

UX/UI Guideline #1: Create a User-Centric Strategy

A user-centric strategy focuses on the clients you anticipate utilizing your site. However, it involves more than just thinking about your client's needs—we'll discuss meeting their needs later, of course.

User-centricity requires a thorough understanding of your customers' core behaviors—how they think, feel, and act. What motivates your target clients to take action? What do your users stand for or believe in?

By establishing a website strategy based on your users' behaviors, interests, and morals, you'll position your site to resonate better with your audience and provide a UX they value.

UX/UI Guideline #2: Understand the Customer Journey

Once you establish the foundations of user-centricity, consider the customer journey—the path a user will take to complete an action. It's essential to plan for both user and customer journeys:

• A user journey map is specific to the online landscape and refers to how users reach their end goals within the confines of your website. Site heat maps are valuable in determining how users interact with a site, highlighting pain points and trends.
• A customer journey map entails how a user reaches their goal on your website with outside/offline influence, such as shopping at your brick-and-mortar store or seeing a friend on social media promote your product. Leveraging a quick user survey (e.g., "How did you hear about us?") and website referrer analytics will provide actionable insights into your customers' journeys.

UX/UI Guideline #3: Meet User Needs and Goals

"User experience" tells us right in the name: it's all about the user. Analyze your customers' needs and compare them to your business's goals to identify a practical path to the solution.

Effective UX/UI means seamlessly and quickly moving your users to their destination, so try to eliminate common pain points and distractions. After all, the "customer is always right," so if you satisfy the user, your business will succeed.

UX/UI Guideline #4: Consider User Control

Allowing a user to feel in control enhances the user experience. No one likes to feel vulnerable, especially in a commercial setting. So, establish simple, straightforward, and easy commands users can take if needed.

Here are some examples of common controls used to boost UX:

• "Skip to Recipe" on a food blog
• Arrows to navigate to the top of a page
• "Cancel" to close out of tasks
• "Undo" allows users to revert an action

UX/UI Guideline #5: Provide Feedback on Actions

UX and UI are all about the experience, so you must eliminate any areas of a site that may cause confusion. By providing instant feedback on user activities, you tell the customer their action was received and indicate the site will respond shortly.

For example:

• Clickable links that change color when the mouse hovers over them
• Loading icons that indicate the software is processing an action
• Haptic feedback (such as a vibration) on a mobile app

UX/UI Guideline #6: Enable Affirmative Options

Good UX allows users to confirm an action before completing it. Accidents happen to users of all ages—adults and children have easy access to touchpoints (like that cell phone you threw in your briefcase without locking), often preloaded with credit card information.

Whether your users are making a one-time purchase, signing up for recurring services, or deleting data, ask for confirmation first—just in case. Of course, while you don't want to complicate the sales funnel, users typically appreciate having the ability to confirm one last time before they hit that "Permanently Empty Trash" button.

UX/UI Guideline #7: Design a Straightforward Hierarchy

Site hierarchy involves informational architecture, or the process of navigating through content in a clear, natural way, and visual architecture, which describes how individual elements are organized on a display.

As a general UX/UI rule of thumb, the most critical information should be featured more prominently. Navigating the menus, options, and pages should feel intuitive, not clunky, confusing, or misleading.

UX/UI Guideline #8: Consider the Context

Improve UX/UI by considering your user's context and designing the website or app accordingly. Context encompasses many variables, such as location, time, emotions, their device, and more.

For example:

• A navigational app (context: user action, driving) should have a safe, hands-free mode and audio feature for directions.
• A self-help website (context: user mood, stress) may show restraint in visual design to calm the user and respect emotions.
• A landscaping company (context: user location, seasonal) may rotate featured services (like snow removal or grass-trimming) based on the season.

UX/UI Guideline #9: Maintain Consistency

To provide a pleasant user experience and user interface, maintain consistency in the following areas:

• Within the Site—Consistency in design, tone, style, and imagery provides a visually appealing experience.
• Across Your Brand—Maintain similar branding design, voice, and data (such as pricing and service information) to foster trust and boost conversion rates.
• Among Competitors—Users come to expect a specific process and experience among industry competitors. Don't directly copy a website or app, but strive to develop something similar to what's already proven successful.

UX/UI Guideline #10: Leverage Design Language

Design language—sometimes called visual grammar—is a graphic design foundation essential in solid UX/UI design. It refers to the nonverbal communication of design elements.

Typography plays a significant role in the movement of a user's eyes, as do repetitive patterns, colors, and more. By leveraging this element, you can help your users meet their goals (and yours) more effectively.

For example, our eyes are naturally drawn to big, bold letters first. Bright colors with high contrast stand out compared to finer text in a more muted color. In areas where people read from left to right, the top left corner of a site statistically reports the highest concentration levels.

UX/UI Guideline #11: Consider Narrative Design

Donna Lichaw explains in The User's Journey: Storymapping Products That People Love that once a website designer thinks like a storyteller, they can create more engaging user experiences. Don't panic—creating a narrative doesn't mean you have to conceptualize an entire novel.

However, you can resonate better with clients by implementing storytelling into your marketing strategy and basing your website design around it. If you're unfamiliar, research the most common marketing stories—you'll quickly find a structure that fits your industry and meets target clients' needs.

UX/UI Guideline #12: Design for Visual Stability

Visual stability refers to how little the elements on a page move around as the website loads. It is one of the core web vitals Google recommends prioritizing for a great user experience. A high CLS score indicates that elements move around more, distracting users and negatively impacting your UX and conversion rate.

UX/UI Guideline #13: Prioritize Accessibility

An accessible website enables more users to engage with it. In our competitive technological world, websites must be accessible to users with visual impairments, disabilities, and even those in environments that might otherwise negatively impact UX.

Here are just a few ways to implement website accessibility:

• Add alt-text to images
• Use contrasting colors
• Enable keyboard navigation
• Use descriptive link text
• Enable captioning/transcripts
• Implement simple, predictable navigation
• Simplify language

UX/UI Guideline #14: Consider Usability

Site usability is a primary UX consideration since it directly impacts a user's success—or lack thereof. Consider the following questions:

• How easy is the website to use?
• Could my parent navigate this site?
• Can a user locate what they need quickly, with minimal clicks?
• Does the site's organization allow users to remember how to use it next time?
• Are there errors in the primary sales funnel?
• Is the website pleasant and comfortable to use?

Experienced website designers realize that sacrificing usability to create a "cool" or "unique looking" website doesn't have a good ROI. Remember, no amount of appealing aesthetics can redeem a website that doesn't give a user what they need.

UX/UI Guideline #15: Focus on Simplicity

Technical jargon alienates clients who don't comprehend it, and visual clutter distracts. When planning your website for optimum UX/UI, focus on simplicity in both copy and design.

Just remember the mnemonic device, KISS: keep it simple, son.

UX/UI Guideline #16: Design for Efficiency

When it comes to surfing the web, faster is better. Notably, a recent study from Statista reports that mobile websites lose up to 74% of traffic within the first five seconds of loading time.

Don't lose out on three-quarters of precious leads because your site loads slowly. Prioritize speed by optimizing images, reducing redirects, using a CDN, opting for faster hosting, and more. A reputable, experienced web developer can help speed up your site if it's slow.

UX/UI Guideline #17: Enforce Mobile Responsiveness

According to Google, 57% of users will only recommend a business with an excellent mobile site, and over half of all internet use happens on mobile devices. Plus, Google recently revealed that its algorithms prioritize mobile-first ranking.

The message is clear: your website must be optimized for mobile if you want a chance to stay relevant in 2024. Consider some of the following implementations:

• Click-to-call buttons
• Larger fonts
• Optimized loading speed
• Mobile-friendly forms
• Simplified designs
• Larger buttons with effective placement
• Swipeable carousels
• Limited pop-ups

A responsive mobile site improves UX, boosting conversion rates and increasing customer satisfaction.

UX/UI Guideline #18: Seek Feedback

Finally, a valuable UX design principle that encapsulates the essence of user experience: seek feedback. By asking how your users feel about your site, you gain powerful insight into their minds, enabling you to continue refining your craft.

Codepoet's UX/UI Designers Help You Increase Conversion Rates and Close More Deals

Implement these UX/UI design principles and prepare for sales to skyrocket. Elevating your website's user experience will attract and retain long-term customers and help your company close more deals.

Our UX/UI designers and developers have years of experience and are ready to help transform your business goals into a reality. Reach out to Codepoet today for a free consultation.