How to Make a Website More User-Friendly

A user-friendly website lets people find what they came for, understand it quickly and act on it without effort. Most of the improvements aren’t dramatic: clearer menu labels, pages that are easy to scan, readable text, forms that don’t fight back and buttons that are easy to tap. Below are the changes that tend to make the most difference, and how to check whether they are working.

Make navigation obvious

Use labels people recognise

“Services”, “Projects”, “About” and “Contact” beat clever labels every time. Words like “Solutions”, “Discover” or “Our world” make people guess what is behind them. Use the words your customers use: “Villa renovation” is clearer than “Residential transformation”, and “Menu” is clearer than “Taste”.

Keep the main menu short

Keep the top level to a handful of items and group related pages beneath them. If your menu has grown over the years, look at your analytics to see which pages people actually visit, and move the rest to the footer or into a section page.

Show people where they are

Highlight the current section in the menu, use breadcrumbs on larger sites, and make the logo link back to the homepage. These small cues stop people feeling lost.

Don’t hide the main action on mobile

A hamburger menu is fine for secondary pages, but your main action, such as “Call”, “WhatsApp” or “Get a quote”, should sit outside it where people can see it.

Make the language switch easy to find

On a bilingual site, put the English and Arabic switch in the same place on every page, and keep people on the equivalent page when they switch rather than sending them back to the homepage.

Structure pages for scanning

People scan before they decide to read. Help them:

• Lead with the answer. The first screen should say what you do, who it is for and what to do next.
• Write descriptive headings. “Fit-out for offices and retail” tells people more than “What we do”.
• Keep paragraphs short and use lists for steps, features and options.
• Front-load key words in headings and links so people catch them at a glance.
• Build a clear hierarchy. One main heading per page, then section headings that step down in size.

Think about the questions people arrive with. On a restaurant site, the menu, location, opening hours and booking should each be one tap away, not buried beneath the story of how the restaurant began.

Use readable typography

• Set body text to at least 16 pixels on mobile, with a line height of around 1.5.
• On larger screens, keep lines to roughly 50 to 75 characters so the eye can track back to the next line easily.
• Avoid long passages in capitals, very thin font weights and text placed over busy photos.
• Left-align English body text and right-align Arabic. Avoid justified text, which creates uneven gaps.
• Choose an Arabic typeface designed for screens, and give it enough size and line height for its letterforms and diacritics to stay clear.

Get contrast and accessibility basics right

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the internationally recognised standard for web accessibility, and level AA is the usual target. You don’t need to be an expert to cover the basics:

• Contrast. Normal text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background, and large text at least 3:1. Buttons, form borders and meaningful icons need at least 3:1.
• Don’t rely on colour alone. If an error is shown in red, add a message or an icon too.
• Alt text. Describe meaningful images. Decorative images can have empty alt text.
• Keyboard access. Everything should work with a keyboard, with a visible focus outline showing where you are.
• Proper structure. Use headings in order, label every form field and write link text that makes sense on its own, such as “View our fit-out projects” rather than “Click here”.
• Captions on videos with speech.
• Respect reduced-motion settings for anyone who finds animation uncomfortable.

Accessibility helps everyone, not only people with disabilities. Good contrast, for instance, makes a site easier to read on a phone outdoors in bright sunshine.

Design forms people finish

• Ask only what you need. For a first enquiry, a name, a phone number or email and a short message is often enough.
• Put labels above fields. Placeholder text that disappears as you type makes people forget what the field was for.
• Use the right input types and autocomplete attributes, so phones show the number pad for phone numbers and can fill in details automatically.
• Be flexible with phone numbers. Accept +971, a leading zero, spaces and dashes rather than rejecting what people naturally type.
• Write specific button text. “Send enquiry” or “Request a quote” is clearer than “Submit”.
• Confirm what happens next once the form is sent, so people aren’t left wondering whether it worked.
• Offer alternatives. A WhatsApp button and a phone number next to the form suit people who would rather talk.

Write helpful error messages

A good error message says what went wrong and how to fix it. “Please enter a mobile number, for example 05X XXX XXXX” is far more useful than “Invalid input”.

• Show the message next to the field it relates to, not only at the top of the form.
• Keep everything the person has already typed. Never clear the form.
• Check each field when the person moves on from it, not on every keystroke.
• Make your 404 page helpful, with a search box and links to your main pages.

Make tap targets comfortable

WCAG 2.2 sets a minimum target size of 24 by 24 CSS pixels at level AA, with some exceptions. Apple and Google’s own design guidelines recommend larger targets, around 44 to 48 pixels, and that is a sensible size for main buttons and menu items. Leave space between links, especially in footers and lists, so people don’t tap the wrong one. Our article on why mobile-first design matters covers thumb-friendly layouts in more detail.

Keep it fast

A slow page feels broken, however good the design. Speed is part of usability, and it is often where the quickest improvements are. Our guide on how to improve website speed walks through the main fixes.

Be consistent with calls to action

• Choose one main action per page and style it the same way everywhere: same colour, shape and wording.
• Make secondary actions look clearly different, such as an outline button or a text link.
• Use specific labels: “Book a site visit”, “Request a quote”, “Chat on WhatsApp”.
• Don’t make every button look like the most important one.
• Repeat the main action at natural points, such as the header, after key sections and at the end of the page.

There is more on this in our guide to building a website that generates enquiries.

Test with real users

You don’t need a lab. Ask a few people who match your customers, not your own team, to complete real tasks on their own phones while you watch quietly.

• Give them tasks, not tours. “Find out whether they deliver to Abu Dhabi”, “Book a table for Friday evening”, “Find a project similar to your villa”.
• Note where they hesitate, scroll back or tap the wrong thing, and resist the urge to help.
• Ask what they expected to happen at each sticking point.

Between test sessions, look at your analytics for pages where people leave quickly, and at what they type into your site search. Fix the biggest problems first, then test again. Small, regular rounds of testing are more useful than one big review every few years.

Next steps

If you’d like an outside view of how easy your site is to use, our web design services page explains how we approach this. You can also contact us with your site address and what you’d like it to do better.