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Planning and testing your dental website

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Ensure a good user experience to boost website enquiries

How often do you see a dental website that is confusing to use or worse still, doesn’t work at all in the browser you are using? Perhaps the designer got distracted by trying to implement the flashiest javascript image changer or funky navigation system and forgot about one of the priority factors in the design process i.e. ensuring a great user experience.

Earlier today I viewed a new dental website that was completely broken in a popular browser. Another website that claimed to be responsive failed miserably on one of the most popular mobile platforms. These were two great examples of a lack of testing which resulted in awful user experience.

What is “user experience”?

This is simply a definition of the way a user feels about using your website, whether good or bad. A good user experience will encourage to complete your contact form or call to find out about your services; conversely a poor user experience will see the user bounce away from your site to try elsewhere. It’s pointless getting traffic to a website that provides a bad user experience – for sure you will lose those visitors pretty quickly.

What key factors influence the “user experience” on your dental website?

Actually there are numerous factors that need to be taken into account during the design and development phase but here are some of the key ones:

  • a clear navigation structure – make this obvious, consistent and simple to use. Make sure your users can get to the inner sections of the site in the least number of clicks by keeping the navigation hierarchy shallow. This is also useful for search engines.
  • make sure the pages load quickly – optimise images and the underlying website code so your pages load up with minimal delay. Keep in mind that not all users have super-fast broadband so they are going to struggle with you over-sized images! Google also reviews your page loading speed – too slow and expect to bomb down those search rankings.
  • is you website cross-browser compliant? Basically this means that your website should have been tested in all of the major browsers not just Internet Exploder. Testing should also ensure that your site displays in legacy browsers i.e. versions from a couple of years ago. Surprisingly, lots of corporate IT departments are very slow to update their systems to the latest browsers.
  • Is your website designed to scale to work on mobile platforms? Test it across multiple devices to make sure.
  • Text content – is it well-written, clear and concise? Unless you are writing a technical reference for academics, don’t be tempted to cram too much information in there and ensure that the font size is sensible. Use clear headings, sub-headings and bulleted-lists to provide natural break points. Don’t be afraid to use “white space” to aid clarity and balance on the page.
  • Keep your calls-to-action prominent and clear. Make sure key information like opening times and contact details are prominent. Recently I viewed a new dental website that had NO contact details – really.
  • Is your website accessible to those with disabilities? You have an obligation to ensure that minimum standards of accessibility are met.

Summary

To be really effective, a dental website needs to be planned, developed and tested very carefully. Consider all of the key factors including structure and content to ensure that you provide a pleasing user experience and encourage conversions.

Need a website health check? Please call us on 01332 672548 and we’ll be pleased to assist.