Creating a Mind Map for a More User-Friendly Experience

The line between useful and... useless (or pushy or simply annoying) is thinner than you think. That's why creating a mind map that aligns your site's content structure with the user intent is... critical.

"Whether you’re a product owner or designer, you don’t want your website to be a maze with nothing but frustrating blind alleys.” (source: altexsoft.com)

And there's no guessing work or discouragingly complex process in identifying the current user flow on each web page on your website:

Just take a look at the behavior flow report in your Google Analytics. No rocket science here...

Take it from there and:

identify the roadblocks
restructure content on each page so that it matches user intent and is fluid and easy to read

But let us give you a hand with that. With mind mapping your current customer journey and planning its improved version:

In this respect, in today's post we'll:

give you the “anatomy” of a user-friendly website: what elements make a website, well, user-friendly?
define mind mapping with respect to designing the user experience on a website
teach you how to create a mind map: an easy step-by-step guide
show you how to use a mind map to make UX improvements on your website

1. The Anatomy of a User-Friendly Website: 4 Essential Features

“A vague objective leads to poor results.”

There's no point in creating a mind map that would hopefully make your website more user-friendly if... you're not quite sure what key elements make a website user-friendly.

So, here's the list of must-haves for any website aspiring to deliver a great user experience:

1.1. High Speed

It's no news to anyone: the page loading time has a huge impact on the user experience.

Unnecessary interactive elements, that don't match users' needs and don't play any role in the conversion process either, will only get you a clunky and... well... slow website.

1.2. Useful Features

And “intuitive” I must add.

Again, we go back to the “elements justified by the user's needs” principle:

Is that slider useful and relevant for the user behavior on your website? It it too bulky, loaded with endless options that just ... discourage the visitor?

You might want to re-evaluate all the features on your website: are they relevant and intuitive enough?

1.3. A Well-Structured Information Architecture

Information that's:

easy to access
easy to interpret

… is key for a wannabe user-friendly website.

1.4. Content that Matches User Intent

If users are looking for online cooking classes, let's say — and that's precisely what you promise to deliver them — and you're only trying to sell them kitchen gadgets on your website, the only result that you'll get is them bouncing off in seconds.

2. What Is Mind Mapping with Respect to Designing the User Experience?

An overly simplified definition would be:

A way to brainstorm and present the generated information in a visual way.

Now, since I've promised you a definition “with respect to” creating the user experience, here's a more... context-specific definition:

Mind mapping is a vesatile technique where you put together a visual hierarchy of your site's present or future content. It lists out the key pages on your website (homepage, service pages, blog page, etc.), the various relations between different web pages, the links and CTAs on each page...

Creating a Mind Map for a More User-Friendly Experience: What Is Mind Mapping?

Source: altexosft.com

In short: mind mapping reveals how data is structured on your website.

Of course, you'll then consider creating a mind map of the target version of your current website. The more user-friendly one...

3. Main Benefits of Using Mind Mapping: From Great Ideas to... Actionable Steps

Finding new ideas is exciting.

But jumping on every new great idea that someone in your team has, without first checking whether it aligns with the user intent, is just like... making shapes out of soap foam.

Not only that they're not future-proofed, but that clutter of ideas might not work together either.

By using one of the best mapping tools available online for structuring those ideas as they... pop out, you turn them into actionable steps in your strategy for improving the UX on your website.

And the clear benefits to mind mapping are:

you define your ideas' roles: what role do they play in your UX strategy (if you can't assign them a role, they're just “Wow” ideas with no solid justification)
you assess their value: how does implementing this new idea bubble up to the user experience?
you identify the various relations between them: you might want to avoid “island-ideas”, with no connections to other ideas listed out in your mind map

4. Creating a Mind Map: 5 Simple Steps

Now that you know what a mind map is and why on earth you'd bother making one, let's see how you can actually put one together:

4.1. Create a Mind-Map Template

Just so you can have a basic idea of the current information architecture on your website.

List out how data's being structured on your website now and how you plan to structure it for its more user-friendly future version...

4.2. Map Out Your Ideal User Flow

How would you like your website visitors to engage with your content? What actions would you like them to perform?

Creating a Mind Map for a More User-Friendly Experience: Mapping Out the User Flow

Source: mindmeister.com

Once you've outlined the key pages on your website (homepage, services, features), start planning out the user flow.

4.3. Compare it to the Current Behavior Flow Available on Your Google Analytics

Before you can properly map out the user flow, you need to know what's the standard customer journey on your website now.

For that, just delve into your Google Analytics data and look for the user behavior report. It'll show you all you need to know about:

how users are engaging with your website's content
what paths they usually take when navigating through your current information architecture

4.4. Identify the Roadblocks

The user behavior data might reveal to you some unwanted realities regarding the user experience on your website:

poorly structured content
a bulky and tiresome collection of interactive elements
irrelevant features (embedded videos, interactive elements, social sharing functionalities)
too many tools that don't respond to users' needs

4.5. Make the Appropriate UX Decisions to Influence the User Behavior

Now that you've identified the main roadblocks in delivering the best user experience, it's time to... remove them, one by one:

turn chaos into a logical content hierarchy
trim irrelevant page elements, with zero value in the conversion process
adapt web pages' content structure to the needs of specific audience segments (make sure to include relevant information for those customer personas, redesign your CTAs if needed...)

5. How to Use a Mind Map to Make Powerful UX Improvements

Creating a mind map is but the first step:

Turning it into powerful UX decisions should be your main objective.

So, the answer to the question “Are mind maps effective/useful?” is:

They are if and only if you make them useful and... usable.

You can turn your mind map into:

an effective sitemap
a customer journey map

But let us take a real-life scenario and point out specific UX decisions that you could make with your mind map at hand.

It's an example that I've run into reading Mindmaster team's great blog post: A Simple Way to Design UX, UI and CX Using Mind Maps:

Say you're targeting 3 different customer personas on your website. You then need to plan 3 different user flows.

You start by grouping the web pages on your site into 3 categories, each of them corresponding to one audience segment.

Then, you start doing some user behavior mapping: how do you want each customer persona to navigate to the corresponding web page so that he/she clicks the CTA placed there?

Now, it's time to make some critical UX decisions:

what relations to set up between various pages on your website? You might have a user on a service page and you need him/her to visit your “get a quote” page, as well
what's the best CTA design for each one of your 3 types of pages?
what key information should you include on a page, depending on the customer persona accessing it?

See? Not only that creating a mind map helps you put together an effective information architecture, but it's also a great technique for generating content ideas that match the user intent.

6. Final Word

In the end, it all comes down to goal setting.

Creating a mind map is a great way to:

understand your website goals: what type of conversion actions do you want users to perform?
achieve those website goals by delivering a user-friendly experience: content that's useful, accessible, easy to read and to interpret

The END!

Do you usually create mind maps when building new websites, to ensure they'll deliver the best user experience?

Or for existing ones, to improve their UX?

Do you consider them critical or optional in designing the user experience?

Image by Biljana Jovanovic from Pixabay

We do Web development

Go to our Web development page!

Visit page!

Recommended Stories

Design Drupal Drupal 8 Web Design

What Are the Benefits of Web Accessibility for Your Business?

For people with disabilities, web accessibility is highly beneficial. They use multiple assistive technology tools that often require accessible web design and apps to function properly. It is obvious how web accessibility benefits users with disabilities, but what about businesses? What are the advantages of building accessible sites for your company? Keep reading, and you'll discover seven key benefits of making your website ADA-compliant. Why do companies hesitate to invest in web accessibility? A survey of around 500 U.S. business leaders and web designers shows the main reasons behind the reluctance of some companies to make a website accessible. Most of the respondents confessed they are worried about the financial investments and potentially high costs (73.6%), while 66.9% think optimizing their sites for accessibility will require too much time. We are here to tell you that making your website accessible for people with disabilities doesn't require too many resources, will highly benefit the user experience, and most probably keep you away from web accessibility lawsuits. 7 Benefits of Making Your Website Accessible 1. Increased traffic on your site. There's a myth regarding accessible websites that says accessibility only benefits the visitors. However, by improving the user experience and making it accessible for anyone, you plant the seeds for: Higher traffic rates on your site Better user engagement Improved search engine optimization rankings Higher conversion rate 2. Lower risk of legal complications. As legal requirements regarding web accessibility are getting tougher, optimizing your site for people with disabilities becomes non-optional—unless you don't mind being prosecuted. Make sure your site meets specific accessibility guidelines and pay attention to the accessibility standards required by the industry that you're operating in. 3. Bigger customer base. Making your website accessible means addressing the needs of bigger social groups, and that, in the long term, could lead to you growing your customer base. By investing in accessible design, you can attract more visitors that are likely to engage with your brand on a long-term basis. 4. A more innovative business mindset. Building accessible design for your website visitors challenges you to deal with unanticipated issues and thus puts your creativity at work. The constraint of adapting your design so that it incorporates a whole set of accessibility features challenges you to... come up with innovative solutions—and to preserve that mindset for innovation in the long term. In the current dynamic digital landscape, staying creative and ready for innovation is key to keep up with the ever-changing trends. 5. Boosted SEO efforts. You can improve your site's accessibility by adding ALT-text to images, writing clear content, or choosing a clutter-free page layout. All of these steps also mean good SEO practices. So, by making your website more accessible, you're also making it more SEO-friendly. You probably already know the importance of investing in robust SEO strategies in today's digital landscape. It's all about how high you rank on SERPs and the level of visibility that your website is gaining. 6. Improved brand reputation. Accessibility is also essential for your business as it helps grow your brand reputation. By ensuring your website's universal design grants equal rights and easy access to your content, you raise awareness and build a positive reputation around your business. Today, having an inaccessible website is the digital equivalent of sticking a big KEEP OUT sign in front of your business. 7. Faster page loading time. It has been proven that if you improve a page's level of accessibility, you boost its speed score. As modern internet users demand fast website experiences, you want to improve your page loading times to keep up with your visitors' needs. By implementing features designed for users with disabilities, you're making your site a better place for all users. There are many ways in which you can promote accessibility on your website. For example, users that struggle with visual impairments benefit the most from screen readers to help them understand the content on a particular website. This is a way to make your website accessible for people with sight issues and offer some support in making their daily lives a bit easier. Hopefully, this article sheds some light on the importance of web accessibility for your business and how building a universal design for your site can positively impact your brand. For more insights on how Optasy can help you make your website more accessible, check out our Drupal Website Accessibility services. Photo credit: Wirestock on freepik. ... Read more

Raluca Olariu / Jul 12'2021

Design Drupal Tips Web Design

Web Design + Digital Marketing = Success

“Marketers need to build digital relationships and reputation before closing a sale.” - Chris Brogan, Chief Executive Officer of Owner Media Group. And how else can you build brand reputation in the digital era than with a robust online presence? Today, leading companies are leveraging web design to sustain their digital marketing efforts and are seeing remarkable business results. The following article provides a clearer picture of how digital marketing and web design can work together to deliver digital-readiness and build long-term customer relationships. What makes a great web design strategy? User-friendly web experiences. One of the primary purposes of a website is to build brand awareness, attract, and retain customers. Consequently, when crafting your web design strategy, the user experience should be a top priority. Think big: accessibility, usefulness, credibility, value, desirability, usability, ease-of-use. All of these are core elements of what attracts website visitors to turn back to your site and, ultimately, become your customers. Search engine optimization (SEO). An SEO-centric web design approach will help you build a solid online presence and a long-lasting brand image. When thinking of SEO, you must consider your long-term objectives and adjust your optimization techniques according to these objectives. On-page and off-page optimization methods, meta descriptions, catchy headlines, alt tags in images, etc., are just a few of the elements in the arsenal of a solid SEO strategy. Content optimization. This is the backbone of your website, and it can work well in tandem with SEO. When done right, your content will be easy to read, accessible, comprehensive, and informative. You don't want to overwhelm website visitors with too much text, so keep it short and concise. And don't forget about engagement. Think from your audience’s perspective—what would you like to learn from the content displayed on your website? Streamlined navigation. It might sound basic, but the truth is many websites could use some serious work when it comes to navigation. A user-friendly website allows visitors to quickly move from one page to another without 'getting lost'. A site map can prove to be really effective for this purpose, offering interactive and functional features for the users to know exactly where they are on the website and how to get to the desired location. Branding. Your website should reflect your brand's identity, your business’s culture, and the way you relate to your customers. You can create this brand-website link by investing in visually connecting your logo, print material, and brick-and-mortar location. In this way, you'll add an extra layer of credibility and enhance your brand’s overall image. “Your website is the center of your digital eco-system, like a brick and mortar location, the experience matters once a customer enters, just as much as the perception they have of you before they walk through the door.” - Leland Dieno. What makes a great digital marketing strategy? Content management and planning. To be successful in digital marketing, you need to set realistic frameworks from the beginning. There are plenty of strategies and tools that can help you with this, such as content mapping, editorial calendars, or timelines. At this point, you want to plan smartly and organize your project with well-defined outcomes in mind. However, nothing is certain in life, especially in business, so leaving room for uncertainty can be a productive mindset. Set your key performance indicators (KPIs) and ensure that they match your overall business goals. Choosing the right KPIs. Speaking of goals and performance metrics, how do you accurately set them? To stay on target, you must understand your digital needs and marketing efforts. There are some key questions to ask here: How are your KPIs connected to your objectives? What's the subject of your measurements? How do these measurements relate to the user experience? To what extent do you need to monitor these specific metrics? Answering these questions will not only help you go beyond data and address the human experience but will also support a solid digital and sales marketing strategy. Leveraging effective content strategies by addressing the 3 R's of engaging content: reliable, relatable, and relevant. Getting to your audience and performing effective outreach campaigns relies on wisely chosen content. Provide your customers with fresh, relevant information, and you'll quickly build trust and position yourself as a reliable advisor. Strategies are important, but so is flexibility. In business, as in life, it is always wise to leave room for uncertainty. That means building a strategy that is flexible and can adapt to new, unexpected scenarios. In other words, leave some unfilled spots in your timeline so that you can, later on, incorporate things like viral competitors' articles, trends, and current events, or unforeseen expenses in new technologies. To build flexibility, ask yourself these questions from time to time: Where could I improve my strategies? Which tools should I choose to keep the business in line and better organized? Where is the business getting the most traffic from? What KPIs am I interested in at this stage? Measure your content's performance and see where it is heading. In digital marketing, you always want to know where the business is standing. That's why visualizing a clear direction and planning accordingly to reach your goals is essential. That means being aware of each stage of your funnel and adapting your strategies to match your current activity’s needs and demands. Why web design and digital marketing should work together? The impact of web design on your digital marketing outcomes is substantial. The way you design your website speaks volumes about your brand, and it plays a vital role in how your overall business is perceived and engaged with. Elements like the website experience, SEO, social media outreach, and branding are essential components of your digital marketing ecosystem. Blending web design and digital marketing is a modern approach that takes digital businesses to the next level. “Websites promote you 24/7: No employee will do that.” - Paul Cookson. What are your thoughts on the importance of connecting digital marketing and web design in a holistic business approach? If you want to leverage the full power of the digital, have a look at Optasy's services and see how our web development and digital marketing agency in Toronto can craft a personalized digital strategy that will suit the needs of your business. Let us build your roadmap to digital success! Photo credit: edhoradic on Unsplash. ... Read more

Raluca Olariu / Mar 18'2021

Design Tips Web Design

”Why Would I Use Shopify to Start My Own Online Store?” Top 7 Reasons

You either ride the wave or drown in it (yes, I am talking about the new e-commerce reality that COVID-19 has brought). So, you’ve decided to go ahead and open up your own online shop and you ask yourself: “Why would I use Shopify?” Why not... BigCommerce, for instance? And you know that going through this digital transformation is going to be painfully challenging since you’ll need to: go through the entire process of building your online store (obviously!) make sure the servers will withstand huge (hopefully) amounts of traffic actually ship your products handle those scenarios where customers return their products handle all the marketing of your online business … With so much on your plate, the last thing you need is a complex or a too rigid eCommerce platform. One that would make setting up and managing your store even more cumbersome. But still: why Shopify? Here’s why: 1. You Can Start Your Own Shopify Store with… Zero Technical Skills And this is one of the key reasons why it’s the best eCommerce website builder, particularly for small businesses. Shopify handles all the technical stuff for you: backups, security, web hosting, updates. Unless you need some more advanced features than the ones it provides you with out of the box. Otherwise, you’re good to go: you can set up your store in no time, with no computer science degree. Talking about empowering entrepreneurs, right? 2. “Why Would I Use Shopify?” Because It’s the Easiest to Use The question "Can I build my own eCommerce website?” has one simple answer: Definitely! With Shopify, you can set up your storefront and start loading in products in a few hours.You have an intuitive interface “at your service”, enabling you to get everything up and running with… no single line of code. It’s conveniently easy to use, with your store ready to go pretty much right out of the box. 3. You Get Everything You Need to Run Your eCommerce Business And I’m talking here about: web hosting deep insights into your customer behavior via its easy to navigate dashboard (Are they abandoning carts? How long are they hanging out in your online shop? Which social media channels do most converted customers come from?) advice on the measures you could take to boost your sales transaction management a dedicated payment gateway: Shopify Pay (while it also integrates smoothly with Amazon Pay, PayPal, Stripe, Worldpay) integrations with Google and Facebook and other platforms, as well In short, Shopify takes care of everything online store management-related for you. 4. You Get a Fast and Low-Cost Shipping Service “Why would I use Shopify for my eCommerce store?” Because you get access to a network of thousands of third-party logistics providers. And this is gold particularly for small eCommerce businesses (with big plans), who don’t have a global logistics network. In this respect, Shopify Fulfillment Network taps into machine learning to guarantee you deliveries on time (two-day shipping) and lower costs for your shipping. And speaking of shipping (and empowering eCommerce businesses), you’re free to choose the shipping option that best suits your needs: by product weight by delivery speed by the region on the globe that you’re shipping to 5. You Get a Large Collection of Apps to Add More Functionality to Your Store It’s what makes Shopify one of the most “tempting” eCommerce platforms: You get to start small, using its built-in features, then… scale up, adding more power to your eCommerce business via add-on apps. And, thank God, there are thousands of them in the Shopify App Store. Ranging from: reviews sections to chat feature to the feature of converting prices to international currency to email marketing tools (if your chosen theme doesn’t already provide you with such a feature) … you can browse, choose, and add any type of new functionality that you need to “inject” into your web store. And since scanning through such a rich collection of third-party apps can get overwhelming, just make sure you go with the best-rated ones. It’s the best criterion to filter them by. 6. You Get a Whole Range of SEO Tools to Rank Your Store Higher in Search “Why would I use Shopify to create my online store?” Because it “spoils” you with a heavy load of built-in SEO tools to help your store get found: it prompts you with SEO best practices whenever you add a new product to your catalog you get header code and custom URL multilingual options reporting tools blogging 7. You Get a Rich Collection of Themes, Specifically Designed for eCommerce This is another strong reason why Shopify’s still one of the most popular eCommerce website builders. It provides you with one of the most impressive collections of stylish, clean, professionally designed themes. Themes that you get to browse through by: industry: food and beverage, art and photography, home decor, etc. price popularity style: “fun and lively”, “minimalist”, “great for small inventories” Good to know! The Shopify Express theme is the theme to go for if you need to get your store online… yesterday. If you don’t have tons of images for your product catalog and you need to get online fast, this theme’s the one for you. When it comes to built-in features, all Shopify themes ship with: social media icons drop-down navigation support free stock photos by Burst SEO customizable content sections on the home page mobile-friendly design free theme updates built-in styles and color palettes Prioritize those themes that ship with features that are critical for your store over the great looking ones that… lack them. Otherwise, you’ll need to look for (and pay for) Shopify apps to compensate for the missing features. In other words: Why not make your life easier from day one, going for a theme that helps you check most of the features off you wishlist? You’ll find it more… natural and easier to design your product pages around your products, then to style them with no products to feature. The END! Are these reasons strong enough to answer your question: “Why would I use Shopify for my online store?”. But what if you’re not that thrilled about the idea of a DIY store? Maybe you don’t have the time (or you simply want to invest it in other projects) to get into the nitty-gritty of building your own online store, from A to Z Or what if you: need a fully custom Shopify app for your store? One that should store a particular functionality that you need incorporated into your shop? … or maybe a theme that’s tailor-made to suit your specific business needs and to do your brand justice? want to customize your product page or your checkout form? We’re here to help you make the most of Shopify and fine tune it to your needs. Just drop us a line and let’s build your powerful online presence. Image by Akash Sanchihar from Pixabay ... Read more

Adriana Cacoveanu / Jul 13'2020

How Creating a Mind Map Helps You Make Your Website More User-Friendly