UX design tips: the best practices for improving website performance

You’ve built a new website in the last few years. The photography is sharp, the fonts are on-trend, and the mobile version runs smoothly. There’s just one problem: it’s not converting. Your website views are growing, but sales numbers and enquiries aren’t, leaving you with a website that looks polished but isn’t performing.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. A well-designed website isn't necessarily a high-performing one - and the key differentiating factor is a user’s experience on the site. In this blog, we’ll lay out the UX design tips and best practices that convert an audience into loyal customers.

What is UX Design?

UX design is centred around a consumer’s experience when they visit your website. Fundamentally, it’s the difference between a visitor bouncing and becoming a loyal customer. With purchase decisions being made faster and the abandonment rate on online carts being 71.2%, it’s more important than ever that a website doesn’t just look good but functions smoothly too. 

For too long, the conversation around website quality has been dominated by aesthetics. Businesses, from SMEs to major corporations, invest in beautiful sites because it feels tangible and immediate - but they’re ignoring decision architecture, or the structure that guides a visitor from a curious viewer to a committed customer. 

What makes good UX design?

To understand how to fix a broken UX experience, we need to shift our perspective entirely. As the advertising legend David Ogilvy once said, "The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife." When we apply this to the digital world, it means this: consumers aren’t looking for you to reinvent the wheel or make shiny new interfaces. They want to find what they came for with minimum friction, minimum frustration and maximum trust. 

This is the principle behind usability heuristics, the foundational UX design best practices created by Nielsen Norman Group. Based on common sense, the principles include: 

• Site status visibility: the user should always know what's going on when they use a website (e.g., a’loading’ bar or a clear ‘added to basket’ notification). 
• Accessible language: using language and concepts that a user will understand, not industry-specific jargon.
• Error prevention: designing the site to stop errors from happening in the first place, rather than just offering cryptic error messages.

The moment a user has to stop and think about what to do next - where to click, what a button means, or why they can’t see the shipping cost - you've introduced cognitive load, a large driver of cart and website abandonment. 

Actionable UX design tip: Audit your site’s navigation. Does the homepage use technical lingo, or clear, simple language that a customer would use? We advised Harris to streamline their product pages and labelling to make it easier for consumers to navigate - a move that increased traffic by 25%. 

Why site performance is key to user experience 

In 2026, user experience now extends far beyond the layout and navigation of a page. It also includes the speed and responsiveness of your website - after all, if a customer is stuck on a loading page, they’re likely to click off and try a competitor. 

Google has made this crystal clear with the introduction of its Core Web Vitals, or a set of real-time metrics and suggestions for improving user experience on the web. Key metrics that Google are tracking include:

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): how long it takes for the main content on your page to load - it should be under 2.5 seconds. 
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint): how quickly your site responds when a user interacts with it (e.g., clicking a button) - this should be under 200 milliseconds.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): how stable the page is during loading. Aim for a CLS score of under 0.1.

You can have the most beautifully designed checkout page in the world, but if the button takes 3 seconds to respond, or the page jumps around while loading, the user's perception of your brand will plummet. This is especially important on mobile as more consumers begin using their phones for purchases.

Actionable UX design tip: Test out your site on an incognito browser, timing how long it takes to load, especially when entering forms and trying to make purchases. Aim to stick to the times that Google recommends, especially on mobile.

Fixing the flow of your website 

If poor performance loses a user before they even engage, poor structure loses them as they try to convert. The difference between a high-converting page and a low-converting one often boils down to a solid visual hierarchy and call-to-action (CTA) placement.

The CXL Institute has published extensive research showing how subtle changes in these areas can have a massive commercial impact:

• Clarity over creativity in CTAs: is your primary CTA clear, easy to understand and compelling? Descriptive, benefit-led buttons like ‘get your free audit’ or ‘book my strategy session’ boost more engagement than generic ones like ‘submit’ or ‘click here’.

• Visual hierarchy and reading patterns: users scanning websites don’t read from left to right - they use F-pattern (across the top, down the left, and across the next line) and Z-pattern reading. Your most important information, value proposition, and primary CTA should be positioned where the user's eyes naturally fall. 

• The rule of one: every key page should have a single, clearly defined conversion goal (and corresponding CTA). If your service page is asking the user to complete ten different tasks, you’re contributing to choice paralysis.

Actionable UX design tip: Take a close look at your website’s homepage. To drive conversions, any CTAs should tell the user exactly what happens next - do they? Does the visual hierarchy follow natural eye patterns? Make a list of any changes you need to make to the site architecture.

Easy action points for UX design beginners 

You don't necessarily need a UX team to start diagnosing where your site is failing to perform - luckily, there are plenty of beginner-friendly free and freemium tools to help revamp your UX strategy:

• Microsoft Clarity is a free tool that integrates seamlessly with Google Analytics 4. It provides session recordings (real-time videos of users interacting with your site) and heatmaps (visual representations of where users are clicking, scrolling, and ignoring content).
• Hotjar is another tool that offers similar functionality.

These tools can help you get into the mindset of a consumer. You might think a CTA is clear, but a quick review of the heatmaps might reveal that 80% of users are scrolling past it. You might think an events page is clearly laid out, but session recordings might show users scrolling to the bottom to find the contact details, then abandoning the page because they can't find them easily. Using these tools can help you get the understanding you need to completely revamp your site.

Using UX tools for client collaboration

Behind every successful UX project that Rawww does are the tools that boost collaboration between our clients, our design team, and the developers who bring the vision to life. A key part of our process is using accessible design software platforms like Figma. Figma allows us to build out detailed customer journeys, giving clients a clear view of the proposed user flow and how it runs. From technical specifications to template structures, it also lets us show developers how to build a website to meet the client's needs.

Invest in UX, not just appearance

A well-designed website acts as a great first impression, but a well-performing website seals the deal. If your site looks great but your numbers are flat, or customers are frequently reporting navigation issues, it may be time to rethink your UX design.

Done strategically, smart UX design can make your website more intuitive, strengthen user engagement, and create new opportunities for your business to grow online. Are you ready to create a website that puts your audience first? Contact Rawww today or submit an enquiry for an effective and creative UX strategy.