09 Oct 6 Additional Tools for UX Improvement and Why You Should Use Them

Crafting an engaging, approachable, and profitable website is something you can’t achieve with conventional UX tools alone. Here are six adjacent tool types you need to master to produce sites clients and visitors will be equally impressed by.

1. Research

The quickest way to improve usability is by finding problems and giving them solutions. You’ll want to know how users think and which parts of the website interest them the most. Research tools help you identify pain points and streamline the journey from the first curious visit to a successful checkout.

Analytics tools will help you assess the audience’s traits and interests. Survey builders let you create simple questionnaires people won’t mind filling out that can provide valuable feedback and improvement tips. Interviews can offer invaluable insights into visitors’ perceptions of and expectations from the site. Best of all, any video call software lets you conduct them.

Data visualization tools put the information you gather this way into perspective. They make it easier to identify patterns or hang-ups that keep users from discovering features and using the site as intended.

2. Testing

Once you understand whom the site attracts better, you can take steps to correct perceived weaknesses. You wouldn’t want to take an active website offline, and its audience might not respond well to sweeping changes.

Testing tools let you experiment with new ideas, layouts, and features without affecting the existing site infrastructure. You can choose to moderate tests and have users review the changes you care about the most.

Unmoderated testing is useful in its own way and can yield unexpected feedback. Presenting only some visitors with changes and tracking how that reflects on their experience over time is a rewarding way of witnessing the effects of your research efforts.

3. Security

Visitors value their security highly and won’t return if they feel it’s compromised. A strong emphasis on safety for both them and the site should be a top priority during all stages of website creation.

Some tools in this category focus on protecting the site from bots and spam. Others ensure that third parties can’t use elements like ad space to redirect visitors to suspicious locations.

It’s also prudent to streamline integration with password managers since it benefits everyone. Users get to auto-fill their login details and start interacting with the website faster. Convenience makes it more likely that they’ll stay and buy something. On the other hand, the manager will generate unique passwords that make it far less likely their account will get hacked.

4. Speed Assessment

It takes five milliseconds to form a first impression on a website. Some sites don’t even get that much, as close to 50% of people won’t bother staying if the site doesn’t open in a couple of seconds. You’ll want to regularly check loading times with a specialized speed testing tool to ensure a streamlined experience.

Such tools analyze the site from multiple angles. For example, they can identify slowly-loading elements that bog an entire page down. Even more importantly, they can detect whether you’ve optimized for mobile well enough.

Much of the world accesses the internet exclusively via smartphone or tablet. Tailoring layouts and loading speeds to their expectations should be your default.

5. Content Analysis

Having your site cater to a specific audience is just the first step. While they might be interested in what you’re offering, many Americans will be put off by the copy if it exceeds the 8th-grade level. Tools specializing in content analysis can help.

They’ll take anything from one-liners to a long About Us page and highlight grammar or spelling errors. More importantly, some will point out complex sentences and alter simpler alternatives. The result? Text that keeps the core message intact yet can reach a wider audience.

6. SEO

UX is all about optimizing for humans, yet ineffective if no one knows the site exists. SEO should be a core part of the collaborative efforts of your UX and writing team. Any content you publish has to strike a balance between satisfying search engine requirements and being enjoyable to read for humans.

SEO tools help with the former by providing keywords search engines need to put you on the map. They’ll suggest the most competitive keywords and how you should sprinkle them throughout the text for best results.