Three Reasons Publishers Need to Ensure a Positive User Experience
It’s a golden rule: put the user first.
And it’s particularly true for digital publishers.
According to Greg Satell, a contributor to Harvard Business Review, “The quality of a publishing product comes down to user experience and reporting. Digital user experience includes traditional areas such as design, layout, structure, and pacing but also incorporates new skills such as navigation, visual communication, and video production. Poor user experience can diminish a product to the point that people will simply walk away.”
To ensure a positive user experience, several publishers have initiated varying changes with user experience in mind, yielding promising benefits.
Increase in User Loyalty
User experience can make or break a publisher’s relationship with its users.
According to an Effective UI study, 87% of users who have a disappointing digital experience will acquire a negative perception of the brand. Furthermore, if the design and layout of a website does not foster a positive user experience, it can damage a brand’s credibility in a matter of 50 milliseconds.
Several publishers have taken notice, redesigning their sites to counter these alarming statistics. AOL’s sharp website redesign in 2013 focused on maintaining its loyal users while continuing to increase its audience. AOL’s President, Maureen Sullivan, said, “The only way to wow our loyal audience is to keep delivering great innovations.” With this redesign, AOL’s 2015 unique visitors increased by 20.6%, reaching 31.3 million.
What brought about AOL’s success in driving up loyal users? A vastly improved user experience.
Increase in User Engagement
When it comes to increasing user engagement, creating a positive user experience across all devices is crucial. And with mobile representing 65% of all digital media time according to comScore, the mobile user experience is exceptionally important for publishers trying to engage with this growing segment of users.
Learn three other reasons why more and more publishers are embracing engaging content.
An Experience Dynamics study discovered that 52% of users are less likely to engage with a company in the future if they are given a poor mobile experience. The study also found that 71% of online publishers achieved a significant increase in user engagement when mobile content was well-formed and optimized.
User engagement also increases when users have a positive experience with publishers’ content. According to comScore, brand engagement rises by 28% when users experience professional content and user-generated product video. A Nielsen Norman Group study revealed that users only spend 10-15 seconds on a web page, so publisher content needs to create an experience that users want to engage with.
Reduction in Ad Blocking
At Ars Technica, a 17-year-old tech website owned by Condé Nast, founder and editor-in-chief Ken Fisher has taken ad blocking “as the default state of affairs”, what with their ad blocking rates reaching as high as 40 percent.
After much experimentation, by cutting intrusive ads and prioritizing page-load speed (to the point where the site is the fastest Conde Nast title), two strategies aimed at increasing user experience, the site’s ad blocking rate decreased to 20-25%.
When it comes to the user experience, Jesse Hertzberg, former COO at Squarespace said it best. “Focus unswervingly on the customer.”
1. Satell, Greg. “Tronc vs. the Right Way for Publishers to Compete in the Digital Age.” Harvard Business Review, 30 Jun. 2016.
2. Kuetemeyer, Julianna. “Building Brand Loyalty Through User Experience.” The Citizens, 29 Jul. 2014.
3. IBID
4. Ha, Anthony. “AOL.com Unveils a Mobile-And Video-Centric Redesign.” Tech Crunch, 2 Jun. 2015.
5. Sterling, Greg. “All Digital Growth Now Coming From Mobile Usage- comScore.” Marketing Land, 3 Apr. 2016.
6. Alton, Larry. “Why User Experience Matters In Digital Marketing.” CIO, 28 Jun. 2016.
7. “10 Stats That Show Why User-Generated Content Works”, DNM 16 Oct. 2015.
8. Techved. “The User Experience of Good Content.” UX Magazine, 4 Apr. 2016.
9. Davies, Jessica. “Carrot and Stick: How Ars Technica Cut Its Ad-Block Rate from 40 Percent to 25 Percent.” Digiday, 2 May 2016.
10. Summers, Brent. “50 Tweetable Quotes about UX.” Digital Telepathy.