1. Half-Page Graphic 

Most commonly used for landing pages these elements are pretty simple and allows you to create contrast. Play with layers and give the illusion of depth to help your main product or service photo pop. 

https://www.straightfromyard.co.uk

2. A Framed Viewpoint 

This element can help you present CTAs (call-to-actions) in fancy ways. Limit the scrolling area in a frame and create empty space at the top and left or right areas. These layouts are often seen on architecture, museum, corporate, and other formal websites. 

https://korsel.bold-themes.com/main-demo/home-5/

3. Horizontal Scrolling  

Think of this element like you are flipping through a book or magazine. This element is best if you have a portfolio of items to show off. For example, you are company sells luxury wine. You can showcase you top sellers on your home page and users can “flip” through to view your brand’s story and products. A word of caution for this element, it can be glitchy on mobile so you may have to deactivate it for phone viewing. 

https://scepterandsword.com

4. Translucent Skewed-Shape Layout 

Use an abstract shape and dim the opacity a little to partially obscure your product or service shot. It acts as a little sneak peek and gives a feeling curiosity to your website. Brands that also want to covey speed, strength, and boldness usually adopt this layout.  

http://www.themestarz.net/html/lovely/index-parallax.html#nav-home

5. Dynamic 3D Renderings

Pre-rendered video or 3D scenes as backgrounds can create a unique look to your product or service. There are free assets available on websites like Canva.com, Pixabay.com, Shutterstock.com, and Adobe.com. 

https://www.drpepper.ca/en/

6. Line Design

Lines are an underrated way to clean up you design. Strategically place lines to break up important info. This will also come in handy if your website is copy heavy and has only a few pictures. 

https://www.display.care

7. Arrow Links

Point to where you want users to go to. Where they are bold or thin, arrows are a universal symbol of direction. Place them in areas you want potential clients to interact with. They can act as a sales trail for visitor.

https://consulting.stylemixthemes.com/barcelona/

8. Marquee

Use keywords as decorative elements for momentum-scrolling websites. Brands that use short action words should incorporate this element either at the top or the bottom of your home page. This will give you website movement and encourage the user to stay on your page longer. This great if you want to gain a higher-clickthrough rate. 

https://chriscarruthers.co.uk/home

9. Chaotic Centered Hero Piece

This is when a horizontally centered product or service has used different fonts, typefaces, and misaligned images that create abstract look. Be careful with this technique. Avoid putting any important in hard-to-read layouts. This look is mostly for snappy headlines and images that do not show off the product or service directly. 

https://www.therailpark.org

10. Gravestone Images

Gravestone images refer to an image with top border-radiuses edited to make the full composition look like half circle shape or a gravestone. Perfume, Shampoo, Vitamin, and other Wellness or Beauty website adopt this layout to look cleaner and more high-end. 

https://dt-aia.myshopify.com

11.  Misaligned Card

These kinds of cards have the text floating partially outside the background creating a nice depth effect for your product or service shot. This is best used both in informal and elegant styles. Make sure the drop shadow isn’t too intense otherwise it will look dated. 

https://theartoffinance.biz

12. Add a Hamburger Menu

In lieu of a traditional navigation where you see all the page names, try a hamburger menu. It appears as 3 lines at the top right corner of your website. Mobile is becoming the first device most people will see your website in, and the hamburger menu is more mobile-friendly than traditional menus. 

https://www.atumobile.com

13. Use Bauhaus Shapes

These shapes are generally made with rectangles with maximized border-radius on 1 or 2 corners. Bright colors are also incorporated. Bauhaus design has a rich history, and more people are starting to appreciate it in web design, not just print or architecture.

https://yourleadershipbridge.com

14. Rotated Text

Vertical text for headlines is a great element to create if you want to encourage users to scroll down. Like the marquee style, avoid using for important info, but use for headlines that are easy to read or well known to your audience. 

https://avantt.displaay.net

15. Animated Cursor

This element is underutilized by most. Not only is it fun, but it can act as a call to action. Have you mouse cursor come up as a circle that says “click” will encourage more people to interact with your website. User will stay on your website longer if they something to engage with. 

https://www.lecantiche.com

Let our team create a website with 1 or more of these elements for you. Call 248.528.360

The post 15 Graphic Elements to Improve Your Business’s Website  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. Collect Detailed Demographic Data

Ask “Do customers even want this project?” or “How does my product/service meet my customers’ expectations? After that, do market research on who might need your product or service. Discover their daily habits and compare them to your product or service. Think about in what way will it help improve their lives. UX focuses on getting to know a specific demographic and building a product/service that will enrich and engage those users. The goal should be to get them to purchase initially and continually engage with your business. Use Google Analytics and keep track of who is already visiting your website pages to start. Look for their location (do get more local engagement or distant engagement?), age, gender (including non-conforming), profession, and lifestyle (what other items or brands do they purchase from).  

2. Build Strong Customer Relationships 

UX incorporates extensive knowledge of the customers to gain an understanding of why they use the products or services they do. This helps you build what customers need, as well as what they want. Getting to know the habits and expectations of your target audience means you can speak to them more easily. Hit specific messaging points that will bring them into harmony with your company’s mission. Social media and information sharing define consumer tastes. So, if you get stuck don’t be afraid to ask directly through email surveys or social media polls or questions. These two effective marketing avenues could be considered a successful user experience in themselves. 

3. Create an In-Depth Competitive Analysis

Examine the landscape of products and services that users may choose to use instead of yours. It is vital for creating the right set of features that will make your business different from similar brands or services. You want to fill in the gap that your industry has yet to solve. This type of analysis helps your marketing team recognize what features resonate with potential consumers, and therefore should be emphasized in your marketing material. Start with a framework to guide your assessment. Frameworks usually include these items:

• Mission
• Elevator pitch
• Products offered
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Brand differentiators

After establishing a framework, select targets based on what other options your customers have. Prioritize which competing businesses you want to keep a close eye on and those that currently offer a product or service most like yours. You want to monitor them in the long term. Also be on the lookout for partnership opportunities with your competitors. Sometimes your strengths and weaknesses balance each other out. 

4. Make Sure There is Adherence to a Core Idea 

Your product or service must serve its central goal. Every feature and interface element needs to serve the core of the product/service. Follow good UX practices, like staying true to your core messaging at all your company’s brand touch points. From your website and offline to social media, your marketing material must look like it belongs to your company while simultaneously relating to you target viewers. Regularly audit your marketing material to make sure every piece has purpose and is fulfilling the mission of your company. If you are busy, start with hiring a digital marketing agency once a year to consult and discuss your marketing material. They can help with one area of your marketing that you are neglecting, or they can simply provide thoughtful questions to help you improve your client’s experience. 

Let us help include thoughtful UX into your business’s marketing strategy! Call 248.528.360

The post 4 Necessary Elements of UX Design for Your Marketing Plans  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. What is the core flow of your user’s experiences?

How easy or hard is the experience suppose to be? Is it a website with games where tension is exciting, and friction is expected or it an ecommerce site that needs to be simply navigated to make the end-user happy? If you integrate a new feature, does it help or hinder this process? If unsure continue testing, if everything is working fine, launch!

2. Is the user’s ability to do a particular action going to determine the success of the launch?

In ecommerce, if a client completes a purchase by clicking a cart button that means the launch was successful. For a service-based company, a contact form was successfully filled out and sent to the correct email, it means the launch is successful. These processes should work smoothly. At least one test should be conducted on different browsers and devices to make sure everything if functionally correctly. If the buttons aren’t working notify the developer, and test again until it works. Once everything is working, launch! 

3.  Is this an area where we anticipate users could have difficulty?

Identify any pain-points a user may have. This may include the user interface design. Is the design accessibility-friendly? Is the design suitable for the target audience? Check if designs work on both on mobile and desktop. Are there any important instructional elements running off the page? Does one feature work on mobile, but not desktop? If possible, have someone from your target market or a group for your target market test at least once, identify any issues, and fix any problems in the front-end or back-end until 99% successful. 

4. Does this change the way current customers are accomplishing their tasks? 

Is this going to impact what customers are currently doing? Newer is not always better. Sometimes people can go too far into innovation that no one knows how to navigate your website. Make sure the basic principles of design are being followed. If a feature proves cumbersome for existing users to adapt to, it may be worth another look. You may need to replace it with an easier or more commonly used feature. Testing will also let you know if you need to invest in an onboarding experience to transition users accustomed to the previous version. This will come in handy for updates being made and whether you need to invest in instructional usage. For example, when we upgrade a php website to WordPress we send an instructional video or pdf for the use to refence for when they make updates. 

5. Is there already an industry best practice? 

For example, do you know that a green button signals success and a red button stops users from continuing? This does not need to be tested. If a feature is common knowledge and you already checked it functionality it does not need to be tested further. You should be ready to launch right away. 

6. Is what you are looking to test a matter of user preference?

Light mode vs dark mode is a good example of how certain users prefer different set ups but isn’t explicitly impactful on the overall project. If is your first test has a split percentage of reactions, it may be a simple user preference that you don’t need to spend too much time focused on. Your focus should be elements that focus on the main goal that will bring success. If unsure test one more time and if the percentage is still split move on or launch anyway.   

7. How much effort is this test going to take? 

Do you have the timeline necessary to undertake this effort? Always have due date for the project to be done, especially if you already spent money on it! Limit the number of tests that can be done. If the project is failing discuss a pause to the project and see it there is a way to exit the project or re-organize the timeline. This should be rarity if you discussed the timeline in the first initial discussion, but chaos happens and it wise to develop a web strategy with testing at the beginning of the project to avoid time wasting. 

Develop a web UX design with us! Call 248.528.360 

The post 7 Questions to Ask Before You Test Your UX Design appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. Keep the UI design simple

It may be tempting to put a lot of neat backgrounds and graphics to draw attention, but too many could actually be detracting and cause confusion. Make sure the navigation is clearly identifiable. Leave room between text and photos so that they do not run into each other. Visitors need to able to read important information so avoid too fancy fonts and text colors for the body copy. 

2. Predict & preempt

Before you start designing you must know who your target audience is. Who are your products or services for? Create a primary, secondary, and anti-client profile. This will help you create content that is relevant to the end user as well as predict what they might need in the future from your company. 

3. Put the user in the driving seat

The user should feel as though that they are in control of their experience. This means if there are any issue with page speed, image loading, or form/cart functions on your website they need to be fixed immediately. Optimize videos and photos for the exact size you need. Think mobile first as most users check Google from their phone. Make sure pop-up newsletter subscription or discount boxes are easy to exit out off. This will help reduce bounce rate and keep visitor on your site longer. 

4. Be methodical & consistent

Your website should align with your brand. Make sure images, fonts, and format match or look similar your other marketing materials. If possible, have a brand guide that contains brand color pallet, logo information, and the vibe information (aka photo or illustration samples). Headings, navigation, and body text should be consistent from page to page. Micro changes are expectable but avoid messing with the justification paragraph settings too much as it is unprofessional looking. 

5. Avoid unnecessary complexity

Keep click steps to a minimum. For example, a purchase button should go to a cart and then a checkout form. This is 3 steps. Add anymore and you increase the chance of clients abandoning the product. This goes for forms as well. No one likes to spend an hour on a task that should take 10 minutes. Employment forms are notorious for been too long and burning out potential candidates. Have name, contact information, and message (upload resume/file if employment forms). 

6. Provide clear signposts

Make sure that page architecture is simple, logical, and clearly signposted. Users should never be in any doubt as to where they are within the website they are or where they need to go next. Buttons should go where they say they should go, and calls-to-action should lead the visitor through the sales funnel with ease. Page Headings should be clearly visible at the top of it assigned page and easily identifiable from other text. 

7. Be tolerant of mistakes

Have undo functions or breadcrumbs just in case a visitor clicks on the wrong page, epically if your website is large. You want to make it easy for visitors to go back to the beginning. Sometimes using the back button on the browser isn’t a first thought or even visible. This will also help you avoid lost data and give the visitor confidence that if they mess up, they don’t have to exit your website. 

8. Give relevant feedback

Have way for clients to provide feedback about your product, service, or website function. This can be through a comment section, a rating system, ticket system, or with use of off-page notification (email campaign or Google review). Make sure to reply to the comments, especially the negative ones. Negative reviews can also be helpful when creating a FAQ page. You can have a “how we are improving” section. Including customers into the improvement process will help strengthen their attachment. 

9. Prioritize functions

Before launching your website. Have someone test the functions. Make sure your website accomplishes your business goal. If there are any broken links, have a developer fix it, but maybe have a well-designed 404 page in case of future breakage. If there is any confusing layout that might interfere with the sales process, make adjustments. Running a website can be a full-time job, so either have someone internally oversee web updates or hire a web agency that provides web maintenance. 

10. Design the UI for accessibility

Alt tags and meta descriptions make it so an e-reader can understand what is happening in an image and relay the information back to the user. This is important for users with a visual impairment. Label your images accordingly. Also make sure your design has enough contrast for increased visibility. This task is why most business hire a professional designer or agency. Knowing the correct colors, complementary fonts, and layout for maximum visibility for visitor of all types is done by research and user testing. 

Ready to create a website using these principles? Call 248.528.360 

The post 10 Fundamental UI Design Principles You Need to Know for Your Website  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. Test Designs with Actual Users 

Build prototypes for products or test links of websites and social media posts that you can interact with and test the useability of the project. Recruit a small amount of people that resemble your target market. For example, you can test with new sign-ups, trial vs. paid users, and a variety of demographics based on user personas you created. 

2. Learn How Designs Land with Users in the Landscape

Once your digital or physical product is developed or coded out, you are not done. Send out a survey to your users in-context to keep track of how to improve ease of use, reduce friction, and identify what changes need to happen. Collect feedback and allow your marketing team to create hyper-specific ads relevant to your target audience. They should investigate specific user groups at critical points in their customer journey. Some questions you might consider including in a survey:

• How would you interact with [website, product, or social post]?
• What did you find most/least important/challenging about this?
• Are there any things you would change/add/remove to make this more useful to you?
• Did you encounter anything unexpected or surprising?
• On a scale of 1–5, how [goal] was this feature?

3. Automate Your Efforts

Between spending hours conducting and reviewing interview notes or transcribing video feedback into remotely usable snippets of information, user research can be a thoroughly draining process. Have an automated analysis of test and survey results so you can get more user feedback without more of the tedious stuff. Look for automations for email, contact forms, and subscriber boxes in a content management system as well. This will help declutter the research process with small tasks. 

Need help conducting research? Call 248.528.3600.

The post 3 Simple Ways to Maximize Your User Research appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.