Did you know that the structure of your website plays a crucial role in determining the user experience on your website? In fact, it could be a make or break factor when a user is deciding whether to purchase products from your website.

Before we get into the importance of the structure of a website, we shall first cover what exactly is a website’s user experience.

Your Website’s User Experience

Every website provides a different experience for the user, hence firmly splitting those that are able to attract purchases, and those who do not. A website’s user experience is highly complex and affects each individual differently.

Take the example of page loading speed. Depending on the user’s device, a different amount of time is needed by the device to load the page. Moreover, users have different expectations, or in this case different levels of patience. Some will be unwilling to wait for the extra second that a slower website takes to load. If so, they would bounce from the website.

How Does a Website’s Structure Affect The Experience

A website’s structure refers to the hierarchy of both pages and content on your website. It affects your user’s journey from their entry to where their targeted answers lie. Again, several variables are at play here, ranging from the specific piece of content that a user wants and how the website is structured.

Commonly websites contain menus which act as the primary form of navigation on a website. By nesting sub menus within these, users’ journeys are expedited towards their end goal. However, for large websites, having every page listed in the menu may not be feasible. As such, identifying menu titles coupled with strong onsite call-to-actions must be combined in order to direct the user to the page.

Site Maps & Menus

A website killer is that of poorly structured pages or even hidden ones. Put yourself in the shoes of a user; if you are searching for an answer to your query, you certainly would be highly frustrated if you had to click and search multiple times on a single website.

Good user interface and experience tells us that we should have clear menus or site maps that direct users to their desired information at a glance. Moreover, structuring the pages in a form of clear hierarchy gives both user and search engine bots the means of understanding the relationships between the pages on your website.

An alternative to menu heavy websites is the one-pager website. This form of website contains only a single page with large amounts of information strategically placed across it. In turn, the user’s only course of action would be to scroll to find their desired piece of information. This simplifies the user experience, but is simply not feasible for larger websites.

Hire a Web Design Agency to Create your Website

Hiring a web design Singapore agency would expediate the web development process. They will be able to help determine the user flow and experience on your website. As such, you should at least consult them before attempting to create your new website.