User Experience (UX) best practices and standards are rapidly changing. For example, the waterfall model didn’t adequately take user needs into account. Therefore, it has long since been abandoned.

Users have become more tech-savvy over the past few years. They won’t hang around a website that features a poor UX for more than a few seconds. This is hardly long enough for someone to sell a product or offer a service.

The problem is, you might not even realize the mistake(s) you’re making.

We’ve identified 5 major UX issues to avoid. These tips will help you to better attract and engage visitors as you wend your way through 2021.

You Need to Avoid These 5 UX Mistakes in 2021

UX Mistake #1 – Opting to Go with Diversity Instead of Consistency

A hard and fast rule to remember is consistency. Once you’ve selected a color scheme, stick with it across the entire online presence. This includes social media.

Be consistent with fonts as well – as illustrated in BeDecor. Always keep the number of different fonts to 3 or less, and the different sizes to 4 or less.

You also want to avoid adding unnecessary font weights. They contribute nothing to the UX and can slow page load speeds. Maintaining same line height to improve readability is also a must. So is making as much use of white space as possible. BeYoga2 shows you how.

UX Mistake #2 – Prioritizing Speed over UX

Many of today’s users have the attention span of a caffeinated Jack Russell Terrier puppy. While they don’t care much for slow-loading pages, once they’re aboard it’s the UX that keeps them there. BeCompany features a clean, relaxing, and appealing design. It keeps users engaged and happy.

Speed alone won’t keep a user on a website. This is especially if the design is cluttered and confusing to the point of becoming overwhelming. As a designer, you’ll want to attend to any potential UX issues first before working on speed issues. Or, you can start your project with a pre-built website like BeBirthday. It has been already optimized for UX and speed.

UX Mistake #3: Ignoring Specific Industry Standards

Industry standards have changed from promoting uniformity to encouraging customization. This is based on applying customer expectations and data. Customization will be the norm in 2021. If you adhere to using a universal structure in your websites, you do so at your peril.

What to do before you start a design effort? Research the niche or industry your website is destined to serve. This BeApp3 pre-built website design features UX best practices.

A design and UX that’s perfect for an app, however, won’t work so well when applied to a lawyer’s website. Stick with the “app” design, and you’ll chase a visitor away in a heartbeat. BeLawyer provides not only a better approach but a perfect one for this niche.

UX Mistake #4 – Prioritizing the Wrong Elements

The Missouri Laboratory for Information Technology Evaluation has published a study. This research revealed some interesting facts regarding website user behavior.

A user will spend about 2.6 seconds scanning a website before focusing on a specific area or section. Moreover, he/she will stare at that section for about 180 milliseconds before moving on.

How to get your design priorities straight? The study found out that there is a special order in which areas got the users’ attention. This order is as follows: the logo, the navigation menu, the search box, and the social media links.

They were followed in order by the main image, the written content, and the content at the bottom of the website.

BePersonalTrainer and BeBistro are excellent examples of thoughtful prioritizing.

Research users’ goals and expectations before starting your design work, so you’ll be able to prioritize your design elements to best meet their needs.

UX Mistake #5 – Attempting to Satisfy Multiple Goals

Working toward multiple goals in your website design may sound good. Yet, in doing so you’re apt to dissuade a visitor from arriving at a decision. The visitor usually has one goal in mind, and you want to make certain that goal is easily achievable.

How to avoid making the multiple-goal mistake? You need to simplify the user’s journey by following the BeSnowpark and BeEBook examples, and by:

• Identifying and understanding the user’s goal and building your design around it
• Taking common user navigation patterns into consideration
• Creating a smooth, linear user flow that leads the user toward his or her goal
• Letting the user approach the goal one step at a time, without distractions
• Making sure that the CTA button or page stands out by using contrasting colors

Be Theme’s Solution

You can also take an alternative, simpler approach. Let Be Theme take away your worries about following the latest trends and best practices.

Be Theme’s pre-built websites are constantly optimized to incorporate the latest trends. Plus, there are more than 310 of them including this BeWebDeveloper example.

It does not matter what is the industry, business, or niche you’re interested in. The design will always align with user expectations and preferred navigation patterns.

Wrapping Things Up

A quick summary of what we’ve covered:

• Consistency throughout the website is all-important
• Make UX your top priority; page-load speed second
• Consider user expectations and preferred navigation patterns
• Prioritize the elements on each page correctly
• Design a page around a SINGLE goal
• Make UX design easy by using pre-built websites

One-pager? Corporate website? It doesn’t matter if you keep on top of UX standards in 2021 by keeping these rules in mind.