Top 5 UX Mistakes That Will Turn Off Your Users

Tired of users abandoning your website or app? You should review your UX (User Experience) design right away.

Delivering a specific experience to the user that will raise their feeling of satisfaction whilst utilizing a website or software product is the responsibility of UX design. From the user’s initial interaction with the website to the completion of the required conversion, a strong UX is appealing, engaging, and provides a seamless experience.

UX design is much more than just coming up with some eye-catching buttons and a fancy layout. To guide the user through the website (or an app) and get them to interact with the targeted touchpoints, a UX designer must take into account the potential user path and, overall, make the work user-centric.

Many designers prioritize their personal sense of beauty over the needs of the users. The top UX errors that many designers make, which lead to lost conversions and dissatisfied users, are listed below.

Mistake 01: Not considering the user’s mental model

A mental model is a representation of a product in the user’s mind that conforms to those expectations. In essence, it consists of the user’s expectations based on prior experiences, wants, comparable items, etc. Therefore, there will be an issue if a user tests a product and it doesn’t fit their mental model.

The problem is that many designers ignore the potential demands of users in favor of their own conceptual model, or how they view a product. There is a discrepancy between the two models as a result. Although it is not always a terrible thing, occasionally the mismatch is so severe that it leaves the user utterly dissatisfied with the product.

When working on the design, every UX designer should take both models into account. The design should be clear and appealing, but it shouldn’t just suit the tastes of the designer. The true demands of the product’s users can be met by the designer by keeping the design user-centric.

Mistake 02: Inconvenient content that disrupts navigation

Button-like call-to-action (CTA) elements are crucial because they persuade users to do the desired action and guide them toward conversion. However, there are occasions when CTAs are counterproductive because they ruin the navigation and keep visitors from using the website’s or app’s true navigation.

How many times have you visited a website that demands you sign up for a newsletter or request a free trial before it immediately closes the page with a pop-up the size of a page? The worst part of these pop-ups is that they frequently contain a small “leave” icon that is hidden somewhere on top of the pop-up and that the user frequently can’t reach.

By obstructing the user’s view with pointless visual elements, you interfere with the user’s natural customer journey, deny them control, and instead force them to perform a particular action. Users who are irritated and frustrated are the only outcomes of this incredibly bad user experience.

Image source: Hubspot

There is simply too much going on in this instance. The website should at least wait until users select the “Allow cookies or Decline” option before displaying the pop-up that offers a free resource, even though the cookie information is fine. As a result, the pop-ups entirely obstruct the viewer from even seeing the page or its content.

Therefore, it is crucial to only include the CTA graphic components in the right places and after a given amount of time, when the user is sufficiently familiar with the product, when developing software.

Mistake 03: Innovation that kills usability

A user anticipates seeing a cart in the upper right corner of a website, like an eCommerce store, when they visit there. Every eCommerce website has that, it’s just a common UX principle for this kind of website.

Image source: ASOS

Now, if a UX designer chooses to be creative and alter daily life, the user will be confused. A user will be greatly discouraged from continuing their buying if they arrive on the eCommerce home page and cannot see the cart in the upper right corner.

The important thing to keep in mind in this situation is to avoid introducing innovation to the fundamental components that support consumers’ quick and automatic navigation.

Mistake 04: Using carousels

Carousels are incredibly popular for some reason, although they frequently offer no benefit to users. The following are drawbacks of carousels on a website:

1. They have no real value; they are only extra pieces of information.
2. Take the control away from the user by automatically changing the images.
3. Draw attention away from the page’s content.
4. Encourage users to scroll down to the page’s most important content.

A carousel is essentially simply a large image with some content on it, thus it makes sense why users would choose to skip it. If you must include a carousel on your website, make sure it is user-controlled (as opposed to automatic ones) and display a worthwhile offer next to each image (make it clickable!).

Image source: shouldiuseacarousel

Mistake 05: Disregarding mobile UX

Worldwide, there are an overwhelming number of mobile users, and this number is steadily increasing. This therefore contributes to a sharp increase in mobile app development.

Despite the fact that every modern business aspires to have an app, not all of them are successful, meaning that not all of them are used for more than a few days. Poor UX that makes it difficult for users to utilize an app as intended is the main cause of app uninstallation.

Some of the biggest mobile UX mistakes are:

1. Tiny buttons that are fine on a desktop but are invisible on a mobile device.
2. On a mobile device, large copy may look infinite.
3. Poor picture quality.
4. Unclear navigation.

Navigation is yet another crucial distinction between desktop and mobile UX. While a mobile user tries to tap as little as possible, a user who browses a desktop version of a site usually has the time to do so. Therefore, it’s crucial to maintain mobile navigation straightforward and minimal in terms of touches (but do not overdo it and keep the balance).

Don’t forget to test the app on several platforms as well! Every device has a unique screen size and resolution, which will have an effect on how the app is designed.

*Performance

The user experience is significantly impacted by a website’s or mobile app’s performance. The user may very well quit the website and never return if the page loads too slowly or if a button cannot be clicked.

Of course, a UX designer does not bear sole responsibility for a software product’s functionality. However, because the fine-tuning of the product takes place in secret, it is simple to overlook it or miss something crucial. I advise paying attention to analytics and examining the locations that users leave the most quickly. You can also undertake a performance audit to find the areas that need improvement and quickly address any current problems.