Remedies for the 7 Deadly Sins of UX

You’re probably aware of the seven deadly sins thanks to our webinar, which detailed their existence beyond the biblical sphere. The 7 deadly sins have trickled down into the sphere of UX, and from time to time can rear their ugly heads into the UX of even the most astute digital marketers. But they can be prevented, or if committed already, set right. Read more to assure a  sin-proof UX so you can avoid UX hell.

Remedies for Lust

Lusting after trendy features? They’re hot, they’re sought after, but how do you know they’re right for your website and target market? You don’t. So don’t allow yourself to be bewitched by these beguiling features.

  1. Focus on analyzing your own consumer journeys to see which elements have the best user engagement instead of opting for features just because they’re trendy.
  2. If there is still a feature you want to adopt, research it before its implementation. Essentially, look out for the cold, hard data to show just exactly how such features affect the UX.
  3. Decide whether the data behind these features justifies putting them into practice. If the data doesn’t point to significantly higher conversions or fewer bounces, quash your lust and don’t use them.

Remedies for Gluttony

Stuffing yourself to get your fill may seem satisfying, but it’s excessive and can become dangerous to your health. The same goes for your UX: oversaturating the navigation bar may be tempting, as you’d want your consumers to see the most of your offerings. But it results in an excess of content that’ll sicken your customers. No one will want to be entangled in the glut.

  1. Understand how visitors browse your site: find the pages with the most visits and the highest conversions; prioritize these in the navigation.
  2. Keep the parent pages above the child pages in the dropdown menu, but don’t overwhelm it with too many child categories.
  3. Survey the digital journeys your customer take and discover where they land first and what pages they’re more inclined to click.
  4. Get rid of the clutter with a simplified navigation setup.

Remedies for Greed

We all want the best for us; to some, this may mean the more the merrier. Data is precious and we all need it on which to base our UX decisions. While that’s an understandable and even constructive motivation, you should always remember to share your insights.

  1. Use an easily-comprehensible solution for even the non-analysts to draw conclusions from. Our AI Alerts feature, for example, flags key site anomalies and delivers the insights straight to you.
  2. Keep other members in the loop as you discover new data. For example, our unique data visualization, paired with alerts and insights is accessible in just a few clicks with CS Live.
  3. Do not confine the compiled data to either one team member or one team. Remember, intuitive analytics software was meant to be distributed to all on your teams.
  4. Keep your optimization ideas and efforts in the know across teams, so that everyone has a say, or at least an understanding of how your website is performing.

Remedies for Pride

You’ve got the expertise and knowledge within your discipline and you’re proud of it. After all, it’s what has secured your position in the first place. Naturally, you don’t want to keep this knowledge to yourself. Except, it may mean little when stacked up against data. Thus, no matter how proud you are of your ideas, it’s only the data that’s indisputable to providing a virtuous UX.

  1. Consult the data that pinpoints the performance of various site elements.
  2. Gauge how these elements have contributed to your KPIs. Consider if they have hurt or helped them overall.
  3. Weigh this data against your opinions and make data-backed inferences on how to proceed. If your opinions have been proven to steer the site in a positive direction, incorporate them into the UX, but don’t stop measuring.  

Remedies for Sloth

Whether it’s from complacency or out of sheer laziness, you may succumb to to sloth. Sloth is especially conspicuous in websites that sit in stagnation for long periods of time. While you shouldn’t lust after trendy features, your website is a living creature in the digital space and it needs to evolve with the changing times. But if it doesn’t, it’s being slothful.

  1. Keep your site fresh by adding updates of things that have had proven success, ex: don’t get rid of testimonials and case studies, rather, add new ones to keep your consumers intrigued and in want of more.
  2. Apply fixes to underperforming elements or pages by applying elements based on data to garner more visits and conversions.
  3. Excite your customers with new sales and showcasing new products and monitor these new additions to keep improving your UX in a fast and focused way.

Remedies for Wrath

Starting out as user frustration, your UX can quickly spark wrath within your visitors and you, by extension. Aside from the missed conversion opportunities, wrath usually leads consumers away from a website entirely. Our 2018 survey of a wide breadth of industries found that for many industries, over 50% of digital content goes unseen. For example, in the travel industry, 78.99% of the content got no views. To avoid this conundrum and reduce website exits, you’ll need to kick wrath to the curb by providing optimal online experiences.

  1. Scope out the bad UX by surveying where users are hesitating, bouncing, hovering — or if it’s text, scrolling too fast.
  2. Identify the pages with the most user frustration (or get notified of KPI deviations) and optimize all areas of poor user engagement.
  3. Improve site load speeds and other bugs and glitches behind user frustration.
  4. Remind customers who have abandoned their cart of their pending purchase. Allow the option of checking out as visitors.

Remedies for Envy

You’re doing market research and jump right into competitor analysis. You admire what you find on your competitor’s site, knowing they are viable in your vertical. This leads to desiring what they have, imbued with negative feelings directed towards them. This isn’t healthy for either your psyche or your UX.

  1. Don’t look at your competitors until you sift through and analyze your own content, including navigation, site hierarchy, CTAs, copy and graphics.
  2. Run some A/B test and beta versions of your site to see how your visitors interact with it.
  3. Build your content around the best results from existing user journeys.
  4. Strive to create digital experiences that set you apart from your competitors.

Don’t Be a UX Sinner!

It’s easy to yield to sin whether via temptation, force of habit or mood. But there are plenty of ways to circumnavigate it. First, you must identify and accept the fact that you have transgressed or are about to in your UX. After all, recognizing the problem is a crucial part of rectifying it. And don’t deny your sin, no matter how trifling it may seem, as it is not harmless and will affect your UX, even if at a slow and steady pace.

But we understand that nobody’s perfect, so even if you do capitulate to a UX sin, the good news is that you can turn to your analytics as  your shining light out of the realm of the seven deadly sins of UX.