Three Website Myths That Get in the Way of Great User Experiences

A site that is frictionless for the user can build trust, deepen engagement, and even drive brand awareness.
Users expect website design to meet their needs in every way possible, leaving no room for error or confusion. And when it doesn't, they choose a different experience—someone else's website.
Yet, despite placing more and more emphasis on the user as the focal point of website design, many companies still fall victim to a few pervasive myths that stand between users and the optimal experience.
Myth No. 1: The homepage is the front door
The homepage is often considered the digital equivalent of a storefront—or book cover—and is therefore given a tremendous amount of design attention. However, you can't assume users come to your site on their own—and necessarily land on your homepage.

For example, while analyzing our clients' site data from the past year, we discovered that only 30% of site landings are on the homepage. Product and content pages together accounted for 23%, and other pages accounted for 47% of site landings.
Chances are, your site isn't much different. Which is why you should treat every page as if it's the homepage. After all, search engines and social media sites often send users to specific pages on your site. If you want those users to stick around, you need to guide them deeper into your site content.
In short, you'll need to make sure those pages are not a dead-end; otherwise, users will leave.


Christina Goldschmidt is the director of user experience for Cake & Arrow, a New York-based digital customer experience agency.
LinkedIn: Christina Goldschmidt
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Christina, these are wonderful observations. All three of the features you mention have been pain points for me as a website visitor at one time or another. So thank you for pointing them out. I'll be avoiding them in the future--and helping my clients to do so, also.