The term “design” is a very wide-ranging and an ambiguous term. It is wide-ranging because it covers a wide range of categories in design. It is ambiguous because when someone says that he/she is a designer, it not a clear answer as there are number of responsibilities that are incorporated under the umbrella of term “designer”.
In e-Commerce industry, a bad design and cluttered website can easily drive away the potential customers from your online store. So, while planning the design of the store site, it is very important for store owners to understand the difference between user-experience and user-interface. If a store owner wants to hire a person to work on the design of the website and do not understand the difference between UI and UX; he/she might end up hiring a wrong person for the job.
In today’s technical environment, you will often hear the terms user-experience (UX) and user-interface (UI). Just because these two terms has a similar nomenclature, it does not make the meaning of both terms same. The most common misconception is that many people think that UX and UI is a same thing and terms can be interchanged but it is not true. The fact is that the user-experience is affected by user-interface but at the same time, is not depended on it.
Understanding User-Interface (UI)
According to Wikipedia, the goal of user interface design is to produce a user interface which makes it easy, efficient, and enjoyable (user friendly) to operate a machine in the way which produces the desired result. This generally means that the operator needs to provide minimal input to achieve the desired output, and also that the machine minimizes undesired outputs to the human. (Source)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_interface
- Think of a user (or online shopper) who has never seen your website (or store site). He/she lands on your online store site with only one goal in his/her mind, the website will have all the necessary elements to interact with. Anything on your website that users interact with or click is usually considered as user input (for example: buttons, dropdowns, drag and drop options etc.). The main aim of these user inputs is to guide the users to the next phase / level or area of the website.
- Think of a user (or online shopper) who has never seen your website (or store site). He/she lands on your online store site with only one goal in his/her mind, the website will have all the necessary elements to interact with. Anything on your website that users interact with or click is usually considered as user input (for example: buttons, dropdowns, drag and drop options etc.). The main aim of these user inputs is to guide the users to the next phase / level or area of the website.
Understanding User-Experience (UX)
User-experience (UX) is the process of making things easy and pleasurable to use. A user-experience (in regard to the websites) is all about creating a user-centric design of the website that enhances the user-experience. One of the main reason why it is important for online merchants to pay attention to enhancing the user-experience is because no matter how pretty or elegant your website is, if the website is not user-friendly, the online shoppers will go to some other site to get what they are looking for.
Here are the elements that make the user-experience (UX) of your website:
- In order to make your website user-friendly, it is important to make it look visually good. This includes: Making sure your colors work together on the site. A lot of web designers like to keep the color theme consistent by using the same colors that are being used in the business logo. It is always a good design practice to make use of complimentary colors that make your text readable so that it does force your online audience to squint or give them a headache while reading the content. A good usage of contrast in your design will always make your website look more professional. Text is a very important part of your website. It is there to make your website informative and answer the online visitor’s questions. The font color is quite important thing in regard to the ease of readability. Try avoiding mistakes like: Using yellow or florescent color on a while background or red color on blue background that will make the text quite hard to read.
- User-experience is not “just” about putting complementary colors together. It is all about showcasing your brand and a consistent theme on the website that reflects that products and services you have to offer to the customers. Always keep one thing in mind that a good logo can make a big difference. It is far easier to remember a nice and unique logo instead of recalling some random words. So, try to see your logo as a face for your company as that’s the first thing people will remember in regards to your business. Make your logo prominent to your homepage and other pages of your website in order to promote your online business as a brand.
- Offering the necessary features is something that enhances the user-experience on the website. It is like, no matter how much effort you put in developing and design your shopping cart section but if it is missing the shipping calculator, it is not a user-friendly cart to the user. If your website does not offer a search feature, customers won’t be able to find the product on your store site that they are looking for.
nopCommerce comes with a free default theme that offers a consistent layout across all pages of the website and make your online store look professional. The design is very clean and easy to customize. nopCommerce default layout/theme also support a responsive design that is optimized for all screen sizes.
Author: Lavish Kumar