How to take your website from clicks to customers with user experience (UX) design

What is user experience (UX) design?

User experience design, or UX design for short, is the process of designing products, services or systems that are easy and enjoyable to use. Whether it’s a website, app or physical product, UX aims to anticipate problems and offer seamless experiences.

When it comes to your website, the UX should help customers find what they need easily, complete transactions smoothly, and feel good about choosing your business. Ultimately, it should support web conversion: the process of turning site visitors into customers.

Designing the ideal UX involves putting yourself in your customers’ shoes to understand their challenges, preferences and goals. This allows you to design solutions that improve their experience at every touchpoint. It’s about creating positive interactions that leave lasting impressions.

Why is UX design important in a website?

Excellent UX design for your website is crucial because it influences how users perceive your company. Visitors are more likely to stay on your site and complete their objective when the navigation is intuitive, pages load quickly, and transactions can be achieved in just a few steps.

A site with a user-friendly design also builds trust and credibility, encouraging users to engage with your brand, says Françoise Sonnet, Senior Business Advisor, BDC Advisory Services. If your website feels outdated, confusing or slow, potential customers may leave and seek out a competitor.

“The better the UX design is, the higher your conversion rate is going to be and the more brand loyalty you will build,” she adds.

Excellent UX can also reduce your costs by minimizing the need for redesigns and diminishing the likelihood of costly customer support issues.

What's the difference between user interface (UI) and UX?

UI refers only to design aspects, like colours, buttons, menus, icons, images and typography, whereas UX refers to a user’s overall journey on your website—including ease of use, functionality and even emotional response. In other words, UI is one component of UX.

Jason Mann, Senior Business Advisor, BDC Advisory Services, offers a restaurant analogy.

“Think of the UI as the décor, lighting, music, table settings and overall ambiance—the aesthetics of the dining experience,” he says. “The restaurant’s UX includes these, but also how warmly the customer is welcomed, how well the servers know the menu, how quickly the food arrives, how easy it is to change an order, and so on.”

What are the top UX design principles?

There are seven standard principles of UX design. Here are the practical steps you can take to implement them.

1. Clear messaging, writing and calls to action

• Use simple language that speaks directly to customers and avoids jargon. If in doubt, hire a copy editor.
• If stock levels are relevant. Display messages like “2 left in stock!” to help customers make decisions. These should go on the product page near the “add to cart” button to create a sense of urgency. The levels can be confirmed again on the checkout page to reassure users they’ve made the right choice, such as with a message like, “Limited stock: Your item will be reserved for 10 minutes.”
• Provide client testimonials to foster trust and case studies to showcase real-world results. Three of each type is enough.
• If your business has won recognitions and/or awards, feature these to build brand confidence.
• If your business offers a money-back guarantee, make sure it’s visible. It can reduce buyer hesitation.
• Ensure pricing is transparent at every step of the user journey. Customers dislike surprises at checkout.
• Clearly state your privacy, data and AI policies.
• Include calls to action (CTAs) and make sure they are prominent, action-oriented, easy to find, and located “above the fold” (near the top of the screen, with no scrolling required). For example, use persuasive language like "Get started," "Learn more," or "Claim your discount," and show these words—and any other critical information—in multiple places.

2. Consistency

• Embrace uniformity in colours, typography and layouts to help customers intuitively grasp the logic and flow of your site.
• Ensure that similar actions lead to similar outcomes, and that your site behaves consistently and predictably. This builds visitor familiarity and confidence.

3. Accessibility

• Design your site to include all users with disabilities, such as visual, auditory, speech, physical, cognitive and neurological. If you’re unsure how to do this, consult the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAGs). For example, if your site uses videos, provide transcripts for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
• Ensure the site is responsive, loads quickly, and works seamlessly on all device types and sizes.

4. Feedback

• Provide clear, immediate feedback—such as loading indicators or messages confirming success—about any actions that visitors can take. This eliminates feelings of uncertainty.
• Don’t just notify visitors when they make errors, but guide them on how to resolve these. For example, if someone leaves out the @ character when typing their email address, instead of just refusing to accept the characters, the site could present the user with a message like, “It looks like your email address is missing “@”. Please enter a valid email address.”
• Offer chats with service agents or chatbots. (Caveat: Chatbots need advance training, so they tend to make sense only if your customer base is large).

5. User control

• Give visitors control over their interactions. For example, allow them to create wish lists, save shopping cart items, undo selections, or save their progress on a product they were “building” online.

6. Efficiency

• Streamline your UX with clear, seamless, logical navigation.
• Ensure users can complete transactions in the fewest possible steps.
• Speed up load times and reduce delays.
• Simplify forms. For example, don’t ask customers to provide a full mailing address unless it’s required for shipping or billing.
• Provide autofill fields for returning visitors.

7. Delight

• Go beyond all the above to create a positive emotional response overall. Ensure your content is dynamic and personalized (where feasible) and your design is engaging.
• Think through the details so your website will leave a lasting positive impression.

“Delight is the outcome of all your UX principles working together,” says Mann. “If you’ve got everything in place, users will have a great experience.”

In addition to these seven key principles, consider:

• Conducting A/B testing. Also known as split testing, this involves comparing two versions of a web page or website to determine which performs betters. By presenting version A to one group and B to another, you can analyze elements like CTAs, layouts, colours and functionality to see what resonates best with your target audience.
• Leveraging analytics. You can use various tools, like Google Analytics or Hotjar, to analyze customer behaviour on your website and identify drop-off points—the stages in a user’s journey where they leave without completing a desired action, like buying something or filling out a form. This type of analysis can help you identify pain points, improve the user experience and optimize conversion.

How to use personas in UX design

Think about your ideal customers. Who are they? What do they like? What are they looking for? How do they buy? A well-designed UX is built on a solid understanding of your customers’ needs, often developed through research, testing and iteration.

One way to get a deeper understanding is to build personas—fictional individuals who represent your ideal customers. Personas allow you to visualize the types of customers you want to attract and use that vision to shape your website. It’s about putting yourself in your customers’ shoes to understand how they think and shop.

“Developing a persona can unlock information about how people are likely to use your site,” says Mann. (You can also use personas to create more effective marketing campaigns.)

A related idea is to get real people to give your website a try. This could be a formal test group or just friends or family members. Either way, the principle is that a second set of eyes can be invaluable when it comes to finding pain points and making valuable suggestions.

Next step

Find out how your website measures up with BDC’s free website assessment tool.