Even though it may seem that after several decades of websites, there is nothing to improve, and the whole array of best practices is written in stone, this is simply not true.

The reason is simple: there are now infinitely more websites online than even five years ago, and the competition for the user’s attention is fierce. Meanwhile, the very nature of online activity has changed with the advent of social media integrations, eCommerce, and other interactive functions.

This means the rules for creating an attractive website are constantly being updated by life itself. In this article, Lionwood.software, a Lviv-based company specializing in web and mobile platform development, shares a new perspective on how websites are influenced by other software types and what ultimately makes them attractive for the end user.

It’s not just about websites

As of 2024, we can hardly talk of website development as an area of its own, completely separate from mobile or other software. While the traditional understanding of a website implied a place where people came to consume content, modern websites are infused with social media and eCommerce functionalities or act as a facade for a certain platform (e.g. an eLearning hub or an appointment booking system).

At the same time, the mobile-first nature of today’s web content also impacts the way sites are designed. The line between websites and other software is blurred. For example, the well-known Ukrainian bank, PrivatBank, redesigned its website and web cabinet (Privat24) to match the experience on their mobile app, fostering brand consistency and making the UX more predictable.

This is a general trend: websites are seamlessly tied together with other software by means of design and integrations. Lionwood’s own product, the massive educational platform called NIT (Education and Technologies), also follows this principle, where the website is a front door to the platform itself.

In practice, this means there are now general principles for everything – including websites, and the main one is, of course, linked to user experience itself.

The main principle: UX balance

User Experience is a broad term, encompassing usability, accessibility, aesthetics, performance, and more. In practice, this boils down to a general formula: if the user wants to do something with the help of your website, the website should make it as easy as possible, using all means possible, without distractions or extra steps.

That’s where UX can sometimes come into conflict with what’s considered good in terms of graphic design, personalization, marketability, etc. Sometimes it’s an annoying autoplay video the user needs to stop before doing what they intended. Sometimes, it’s giving too many choice options in the menu, or vice versa, obscuring them under vaguely titled submenu. The possibilities are countless.

What matters is finding the perfect balance between UX requirements and everything else. Let’s dive into three most important areas where this matters.

Graphic design

The aesthetics of a website matter a lot. Adobe once found out that 59% of people prefer browsing “beautiful and well designed” sites to basic ones, which is quite unsurprising. What’s important, though, is not to put the user into a situation where they need to sacrifice their convenience for the sake of beauty.

Here are some best practices to balance what looks good on a static mockup with what feels good on a functional website:

• Minimizing the intrusive elements like cookie consent forms, “Can I help you?” chatbot dialogs, or popups is a good idea. When they are absolutely necessary, their “annoying potential” can be reduced with graphic design – making them appear in specific places in the layout, etc.
• Use illustrations and images to provide structure and relieve eye strain; they should never distract from the content itself, but rather be a part of the content (even if they are decorative, they can still carry some implicit messaging, e.g. depicting the potential target audience’s daily life).
• Proper use of whitespace is also important: it is needed to help the user focus on a particular part of content, just like coders need line breaks and indents to find the necessary place in the code. However, too much whitespace means awkward scrolling for the user.
• Consistent color schemes – colors that stand out too much can distract and annoy the user. Facebook made their “new message” icon red on purpose, because they wanted to make the user annoyed enough to click it, make it go away, and thus engage with the platform more. However, Facebook is a unique case, and most websites lose when trying to play this game.

Logic of user actions

We’ve already mentioned how important it is to let the user perform their intended action as fast as possible. The trick here is that human actions are very often connected into chains. We don’t just search information about a specific product; there’s likely an intent to purchase it. We don’t just take a placement test on an eLearning course; we’re likely to want to start the course afterwards, and so on.

A well-designed website (or platform) allows the user to go from one action to its logical follow-up seamlessly, without searching where they can do that:

• For example, some websites rich in content have an equivalent of the “My cart” functionality – “Watch later” or similar features. This makes finding the needed content easier, and ideally allows you to structure your experience with the website.
• When the website has contacts that are meant to be used frequently, the correct placement is important, too. While the footer typically has the general or PR phone numbers or emails, there may be other contacts, like customer support, that need to be accessible without leaving specific pages. For mobile devices, they also need to be clickable to allow users to engage directly without leaving the site.
• For some types of content, a sharing functionality is recommended, so that the user doesn’t need to leave the site.
• In websites that advertise or sell products, a good example of proper action design is being able to revert to the right position in the product choice section after you’ve looked up a particular item: a feature borrowed from eCommerce platforms.

Personalization

It’s been several years since everyone started talking about personalization on websites: using cookies or other information to provide relevant content to each user, sometimes even restructuring the page layout to match their interests. We could have just said that personalization matters, but in reality, even this needs to be balanced with the UX.

With good personalization tactics, the website still stays consistent and easy to navigate, so that the user can always choose if they want the “default” experience. An example would be an eLearning website that can offer content based on what the learner needs to recap – but still allows to check the overall order of lessons at any moment.

Wrapping up

Today’s websites are rarely self-contained; they often serve as an entrance to a multichannel digital experience. Those websites are attractive whose creators recognize this role and make it easier for the user to benefit from them. In essence, the main guideline is to balance aesthetics with convenience and observe the right UX principles based on realistic user stories.

This is what Lionwood has observed multiple times; since the team is mainly involved in projects that transcend the traditional definition of website, when actually design them and always keep in mind how similar they have become to full-fledged digital platforms. The experience with EdTech, logistics, eCommerce, and healthcare industries has shown this general trend is now valid everywhere you go – and that’s great: the world’s websites are becoming more meaningful and useful than ever before.