User Experience
User Experience — The overall experience of a person using a product such as a website, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.
User experience is a detrimental part of website design. It can be the difference between an extremely successful website or one that has simply failed at what it has been intended to do. There are many different techniques and tricks that can be used to create a positive experience for users, below I will analyse a website which I believe to be a good example of these practices and one that does not follow any of the web design ‘rules’ and compare the user experience of both so that I can decide the most important features that I must implement into my own website design.
Website Study 1 — Pinterest
Pinterest is a website I personally use frequently, it is full of inspiration for any topic you could possibly think of. The positive experience I have each time I visit the page makes me go back to use it again and again, this should be a main consideration when designing a webpage as it creates a familiar and trustworthy feel for a user. The website features infinity scrolling with endless images which all relate back to the users personal likes and interests which again, adds to the familiar and trustworthy feel that is so important for a positive user experience. The number of images used in the page has the potential to be overwhelming and busy however the way they just neatly fit together to create an overall aesthetically pleasing image is very satisfying to look at. The clean look of the page has also been achieved by using plenty of white space, there are large areas of white at each side of the page to concentrate the user back to the content in the centre and each image has plenty of space around them to avoid making them look jumbled.
The logo has been placed at the top left corner, a website convention that is useful to follow as it is familiar, ensures the user is clear about which website they are on. This placement also adds to the simple navigation that Pinterest is known for as this button also causes the page to refresh with a whole new selection of images or returns the user back to the home screen making them confident when visiting the website. The user profile buttons are available clearly at the top right corner of the page and sends a notification when there is any activity on their profile (such as a new follower) with a red bubble beside the related icon, these new notifications are likely to keep the user consistently interested in the website. When nothing has been typed in the search bar, which is located top and centre of the page, it brings up faint text that says ‘try searching for’ with something that is currently trending or related to your previous interests. This gives the user constant inspiration for new searches which is the websites purpose, so it is successful at being focused which is what makes the user experience so great.
The colour scheme of Pinterest is almost none existent. This is because of the unpredictability of the images and their colour palettes, it would be near impossible to find multiple colours that would not clash. Instead of multiple colours they chose to stick with a clean white and eye catching bright red. This helps create call to action buttons such as the one shown on the image to the left where the colour red is used to draw attention to the ‘save’ button. Another tactic used in this particular call to action button is that the word is pure white which contrasts against the rest of the image which becomes darker.
Website Study 2 — Arngren
I had never heard of ‘Arngren’ before trying to find a contrasting bad website to Pinterest but I believe it is a perfect example of what would happen if Pinterest did not care about user experience. The number of images on this page is almost exactly the same as on the previous however this one has just thrown them all together in an uncaring and overwhelming way, there is no white space to be seen as the entire page has been stuffed with images and text.The images are overlapping which makes it confusing to look at. Arngren has no colour scheme in place to help guide your eye through the page like Pinterest, it has used almost every colour imaginable for text which becomes lost in the sea of images.
In conclusion, the comparison of these two websites entirely proves the importance of user experience. Just by glancing at them both you can instantly tell which is going to be easiest to show you what you’re looking for therefore which one you would choose to visit. This is the whole point of creating the best user experience possible.
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