Put more patients in your chairs with these top user experience design tips for dental websites.
When a patient has a great experience at your practice, they’re naturally more inclined to return, and it’s the same with your dental website. When visitors have a great user experience, they tend to return to your website. Moreover, they tend to remain on your website longer, which increases your chances of converting more website visitors into patients.
- User experience design (UX) can increase a website’s conversion rate by 400%. (Forrester Research)
- On average, every dollar invested in UX brings in $100 in ROI. (Forbes)
Such statistics are why more dental practices now place a high priority on user experience website design (UX). In a competitive market where you only have seconds to make a good first impression, optimal UX design quickly makes that impression to attract more patients while continually serving your existing patients to keep them coming back.
To help ensure your website delivers an exceptional visitor experience, here are the top UX best practices to follow to help put more patients in your chairs:
- Get to Know Your Audience Beyond Basic Demographics
- Prioritize Patient-centric Content
- Design for Mobile Devices
- Make Sure Your Website Loads Quickly
- Be Consistent in Your Website Design
- Prioritize Readability and Accessibility
- Keep Online Forms Simple
- Listen to User Feedback
- FAQs
Let’s dive in.
Get to Know Your Audience Beyond Basic Demographics
Thoroughly understanding your audience is integral to UX design, and knowing basic statistical information such as location, education, and income certainly helps with this. Yet basic demographic information cannot give you deeper insights into what affects the dental decisions and expectations of current and potential patients, including:
- What common dental questions they have
- What their dental fears are
- What assurances they require
Here’s a simple example:
You may choose the colors blue and white as dominant website colors to convey cleanliness and professionalism, and that may be a top thing that some potential patients in your area want when searching for a dental practice. Yet as shown in the ProSites blog Dental Practice Environment: How to Make Your Dental Practice a Place That Patients Love, color also comes with possible drawbacks because color affects perceptions. Some potential patients may be looking for a warm and inviting practice (conveyed in colors like yellow, orange, and brown) and colors like blue and white may feel too clinical, which underscores the overall point of demographics. A quick test with an online color wheel can reveal how slight hue adjustments can make a space feel more inviting while still aligning with your brand’s identity.
The deeper you get to know your audience beyond basic demographics, the better you’re able to design a website that quickly lets patients know that you understand them, which attracts appointments and strengthens patient retention.
Prioritize Patient-centric Content
Within the context of UX, patient-centric content involves more than the words you choose to describe the services your practice provides, the expertise of your staff, and blog content about oral healthcare. Patient-centric content also involves visual hierarchy, the principle of strategically arranging website design elements to influence a user’s perceptions of information, help them easily understand information, and guide them to desired actions.
“The page’s visual hierarchy,” writes the Nielsen Norman Group, “controls the delivery of information from the system to the end user—it lets users know where to focus their attention.” If a website visitor struggles to understand information on a web page, the Nielsen Norman Group adds, “It’s likely that the layout is missing a clear visual hierarchy.”
Visual hierarchy begins by understanding how people process visual information on a webpage. Though people generally scan visual information from top to bottom, they predominantly scan visual information in one of two main patterns:
- F patterns – This is the most common scan pattern for text-heavy webpages. People start at the top left and scan horizontally to the right. They then drop their eyes down at the left side of the page and scan right again, and repeat this pattern as needed.
- Z patterns – For webpages that are light on text and heavier with visual elements, people tend to scan across a page from the top left, then scan horizontally downward to the left before scanning right again.
Depending on your content, these two patterns should help guide you in forming a general approach to where to place text and visual elements on a page.
The next step involves careful consideration toward visual design principles that are the building blocks of visual hierarchy:
- Color – Bright colors typically attract more attention than muted colors, but don’t go overboard with colors. Too many can visually feel overwhelming.
- Contrast – Colors that are distinctly contrasted tend to be more eye-catching. This also applies to fonts. Words styled differently than surrounding fonts (e.g., italics next to regular text) tend to attract attention.
- Size – Website visitors tend to notice large webpage elements more easily than small ones, so make the most important elements the biggest and make less-important elements smaller to establish a visual hierarchy.
- Alignment – Arranging elements that relate to each other convey clear structure and informational relationships.
- Repetition – Repeating design styles creates visual cohesion.
- Proximity – Elements placed together let people know they’re related.
- White space – More space left around elements draws the eye toward them.
Overall, visual hierarchy is about deciding what’s most important about a webpage relative to what patients want to know, then creating designs to have the most impact.
Design for Mobile Devices
UX design involves ensuring your website looks great and functions perfectly on a wide range of devices, and most people now own a smartphone. Pew Research Center, for example, recently found that 97% of Americans now own a smartphone—and here’s the important part.
Americans are increasingly using smartphones as their primary or sole device for accessing the internet.
- 58% of 18- to 29-year-olds say they mostly use their smartphones to go online.
- The share of adults ages 30 to 49 who say they mostly use a smartphone to go online has nearly doubled—from 24% in 2013 to 47% today.
- 15% of U.S. adults are now smartphone-only internet users, meaning they own a smartphone but don’t have home broadband service.
In other words, when both existing and potential patients want to interact with your website to book an appointment, find out more about your services, or something else, chances are good that many (or most) are going to do so on their smartphones some or most of the time.
Given the importance of this to any business, many DIY website platforms provide tools to design for mobile optimization, and some tools are even easy to use. Yet optimal design for mobile devices using DIY services ultimately comes down to your knowledge and experience to make sure all the boxes are ticked, and some DIY website designers miss some of those boxes.
As HubSpot recently found, 73.1% of web designers think that non-responsive design is a top reason why visitors leave a website, and 58.8% of web designers cite “not being responsive on all devices” as a top reason for a website to be redesigned.
Ticking all the mobile boxes also links to search engine results and discovery of your practice.
Google has made it clear that it’s done with websites that aren’t optimized for mobile because their goal is essentially the same as your practice — they’re in the business of delivering the best possible value to users. A website optimized for mobile is a high-value signal for Google. So, mobile-optimized websites tend to rank higher in search results, and rank is everything when it comes to attracting more potential clients to your website and converting them into clients.
- “Mobile accounts for approximately half of web traffic worldwide.” (Statista)
- “The top 3 organic search results receive more than two-thirds (68.7%) of all clicks on the Google Search page.” (First Page Sage)
- “Companies with mobile-optimized sites triple their chances of increasing mobile conversion rate.” (HubSpot)
Given the statistics, HubSpot research unsurprisingly found that 50.3% of businesses consider mobile optimization to be a key part of SEO, and 45.4% of businesses say that optimizing their websites for mobile is one of the most effective strategies for ranking high in search engine results pages.
So, after you’ve worked through the essentials of mobile optimization (covered in our blog Creating a Mobile-Friendly Website for Your Dental Practice), test your website for mobile responsiveness on a variety of devices.
DIY website platforms may allow you to preview your website as a generalized mobile view before your website goes live. Yet the only way to ensure your dental website provides the best user experience design possible across iOS and Android platforms is to test it on real mobile devices.
In tandem with this, when you make changes to your website, you’ll need to repeat testing to make sure any changes carry over to mobile devices.
Make Sure Your Website Loads Quickly
Current and potential patients are like any internet user. They lead busy lives. So, when they visit your website, they expect your website to load quickly because they have little patience for slow-loading websites.
According to Google:
- 53% of people are likely to abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
- 50% of people expect a website to load in less than 2 seconds.
- 46% of people say that waiting for websites to load is what they dislike most when accessing the internet from a mobile device.
Because people place higher value on fast-loading websites, Google rewards fast-loading websites in search engine results pages, meaning website load speed is an important SEO factor. “Like us,” writes Google Search Central, “our users place a lot of value in speed—that’s why we’ve decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings.”
In other words, the faster your website loads, the happier visitors are. This is why website load speed is a key UX element, and image optimization is a big factor.
As Google writes, “Images are often the largest contributor to overall page size, which can make pages slow and expensive to load,” meaning the slower your website pages load (a usability issue), the more your website negatively impacts Google ranking, and the more potential patients will be inclined to abandon your website. To hedge against all this:
- Resize images according to what is required on your website. High-resolution images can come with huge file sizes and reduce website load speed.
- Choose the right image format. PNG images are better-quality images but come with a large file size, versus JPEG images, which contain less data than PNG files.
- Use images moderately. Cluttering up web pages with too many images can slow website load speed, and visually, too many images can be distracting and even annoying for patients.
Other things to help ensure fast website load speed:
- Minify and concatenate CSS and JavaScript files.
- Use a content delivery network (CDN) to deliver website assets more quickly.
- Choose system fonts over custom fonts to reduce website load times.
To help you measure the overall load speed of your dental website, PageSpeed Insights by Google is a free online tool that shows you how real users are experiencing your website on both mobile and desktop and performance issues that may be affecting your website load speed.
Simply enter your URL and click Analyze for a list of issues that you may need to address.
Be Consistent in Your Website Design
If you’ve ever abandoned a website because the pages looked disjointed and therefore questionable, you have a fundamental understanding of why website design consistency is important. Design cohesion creates trust and credibility, and you only have seconds to make a good first impression.
To achieve this:
- Embrace simplicity and elegance. Choose a website design that is both memorable and straightforward and avoid unnecessary distractions. A clean, professional aesthetic will resonate well with the expectations of patients seeking your dental services.
- Provide an intuitive user interface. Design your practice website with patients in mind and make navigation intuitive and information easy to find. This approach reduces frustration and encourages people to stay longer on your website, which increases the chances of turning website visitors into patients.
- Use high-quality visuals and content. Incorporate professional images and well-crafted content that clearly communicate your services, expertise, and why patients should choose your dental practice.
- Prioritize responsive design. Ensure your practice website is accessible and navigable on any device, from desktops to smartphones.
- Ensure consistency across all platforms: Deliver a uniform experience whether a patient visits your practice website from a desktop, tablet, or mobile device. Consistency in design and functionality across all platforms reinforces your practice and helps build trust.
>> Here’s what all these elements look like when they’re brought together.
Prioritize Readability and Accessibility
Roughly 1.3 billion people (or 16% of the global population) live with a disability. Inaccessible website content means that people with disabilities are denied equal access to information. To ensure equal access, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design requires that all websites need to be easily accessible by those with disabilities (whether visual, motor, or mental). ADA compliance shows that your practice is inclusive, which naturally reflects well on your practice image and reputation. Failing to comply with ADA can lead to fines and other financial consequences like legal fees, possible settlements, potential public relations fallout that can damage your practice reputation, and the cost of rebuilding your practice website in compliance with ADA.
“What does ADA require?”
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) offer a set of standards that focus on four criteria:
- Perceivable – “Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in a way they can perceive. This means that users must be able to perceive the information being presented (it can’t be invisible to all of their senses).”
- Operable – “User interface components and navigation must be operable. This means that users must be able to operate the interface (the interface cannot require interaction that a user cannot perform).”
- Understandable – “Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable. This means that users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface (the content or operation cannot be beyond their understanding).”
- Robust – “Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. This means that users must be able to access the content as technologies advance (as technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible).”
“How do I check if my website is ADA and WCAG compliant?”
accessiBe.org is an option (and it’s free). Simply paste your website’s URL into the blank field, click Get Audit, and the site evaluates a range of accessibility issues, from clickables and menus to graphics and forms.
“What are some guidelines to make sure my website is accessible?”
- Keep sentences short. Readability is an accessibility issue. Short sentences make it easier for people to understand your website content. Within sentences, avoid confusing dental jargon and use language that’s easy to understand.
- Use bulleted lists to break up long paragraphs, just like we’re doing here.
- Use bold type to highlight important information.
- Use alt tags for images. For people who use screen readers, alt tags tell users what an image is.
- Use proper headings. Header tags in HTML help those using screen readers easily read your content. Use just one H1 tag for the title of content. Use H2 tags for the main sections of content, and other tags (H3, H4) as needed.
- Use descriptive links. When you embed a link in a blog post, for example, use full descriptive text (e.g., “Click here to learn more about how to make your website accessible”) so people with visual limitations can fully understand where a link will take them. For CTA buttons on landing pages, provide clear CTA text that provides the same, Examples: “Sign up for our newsletter,” “Schedule your appointment online.”
- Use contrast for text. People with color blindness or limited vision can’t read text when there’s not enough contrast (e.g., light-colored text against a light grey background). Use stark contrasts instead (e.g., black text against a light-colored background).
- Use captions for videos. People with hearing disabilities may have trouble understanding a video if it doesn’t have captions.
- Use field instructions in online forms. Field information requirements (e.g., “Name,” “Email Address”) help people with disabilities understand and fill out online forms and convey information to people using screen readers. Also, provide error indicators to let people know when a form field has been missed or has been filled out incorrectly.
- Use keyboard-friendly navigation. Because many assistive technologies rely on keyboard-only navigation, make sure your website can function without a mouse and operate smoothly using only keyboard functionality.
- Use resizable text. Devices that allow users to resize text are helpful for people who are visually impaired. Make sure your website design supports this functionality.
Ultimately, integrating readability and accessibility into your website design involves more than legal mandate. It tells patients that in a world where some people can still feel excluded, your practice supports a barrier-free place of inclusion.
Keep Online Forms Simple
Short is better when it comes to any online form. According to findings by The Manifest, over a quarter of people (27%) have abandoned an online form because it was too long. So, keep forms as short as possible to encourage patients to complete whatever action you want them to take because as Business Insider writes, “When someone abandons an online form, they are unlikely to return. Nearly 70% choose to abandon the process entirely, compared to 20% who follow up with the company later.”
In tandem with short online forms:
- Let people know their data is secure. Per The Manifest, privacy and security reasons are the leading reason why people abandon online forms. So, be transparent about why you’re collecting information and how you’ll keep it secure once information is submitted.
- Make sure patients can easily find forms. When patients must hunt around for online forms, they often abandon the hunt and a website altogether, meaning opportunities are lost. To avoid this, place online forms on your home page and/or in your top navigation bar so patients can easily find them, and label them clearly (e.g., “Schedule an Appointment,” “Update Your Medical History,” “New Patient Registration”).
- Let patients know about special offers. If your practice is offering same-day appointments, for example, or free products with complete oral examinations, place this information in immediate proximity to online forms to incentivize patients to complete forms.
- Provide confirmation messages. After a patient submits information through an online form, provide a confirmation message to let them know their action has been successful. Example: “Thank you for booking an appointment. We’ll be in touch shortly.” This underscores the patient-focused nature of your practice and doesn’t leave patients wondering whether their action was successful.
What about chatbots to collect information?
Businesses of all kinds now use chatbots to mimic human behavior and collect information, and news magazines like Time have written headlines like, “Why People Are Confessing Their Love for AI Chatbots.” Yet as ScienceDaily recently noted, this only represents a slice of the pie, such as when people are too embarrassed to speak with someone about something they regret buying online. The overall picture is different. Per Forbes, 86% of people prefer humans to chatbots, and SurveyMonkey recently reported, “90% of people prefer to get customer service from a human rather than a chatbot.” So, carefully consider the big picture when thinking about chatbots, and if in doubt, the data points toward not using a chatbot as the safer choice.
What about live chat?
Live chat is a different story. According to Forbes, people are increasingly satisfied with live chat because they know they’re speaking with a human and they can quickly and conveniently get answers to questions, and satisfaction plays a key part in converting people into patients. Simultaneously, live chat has been shown to help improve productivity and efficiency for businesses.
Whatever you choose, make sure you always include clear, straightforward, and compelling HIPAA-compliant forms on your practice website.
Listen to User Feedback
Analyzing user engagement patterns with your website can help you make informed decisions to improve and maintain an optimal user experience design, and there are plenty of tools to help you.
>> We cover 3 important tools in our blog User Analytics for Websites.
Yet in keeping with what was mentioned earlier under audience demographics, data patterns can only show you so much. You can use heatmap tools, for example, to see areas of your website where patients interact more than other areas, but heatmaps can’t identify crucial specifics.
- Perhaps it’s the wording on a clickable button.
- Perhaps it’s an appealing color choice.
- Perhaps it’s the unique style of a graphic.
So, reach out to patients to gather information to add to user engagement patterns and other analytics. Email them short surveys using tools like SurveyMonkey to ask them what they like about your practice website and what they don’t so your practice can serve patients as best as possible. You can even incentivize patients to complete surveys by offering thank-you rewards. The more information you can gather from people using your website, the better you can make informed decisions about your website to ensure an optimal user experience design.
Summary
More dental practices now place a high priority on user experience design to attract more patients and keep their chairs full in an increasingly competitive dental landscape. To help ensure your website delivers and maintains an exceptional visitor experience:
- Get to know your audience beyond basic demographics.
- Prioritize patient-centric content.
- Design for mobile devices.
- Make sure your website loads quickly.
- Be consistent in your website design.
- Prioritize readability and accessibility.
- Keep online forms simple.
- Listen to user feedback.
One final thing—time.
Implementing UX design principles and maintaining them takes time when you factor in the changing nature of technology and user preferences, and if time feels challenging, we’re here to help with that.
We’re ProSites. We specialize in building and maintaining dental websites with UX baked right in so practices can focus on patient care, and our results are why over 7,500 dental practices trust us.
>> Request a free website demo.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the purpose of UX website design?
A: The purpose of UX design is to create a positive overall experience for website visitors, which encourages them to return to your website again and again.
Q: What are some of the most popular UX design frameworks?
A: Popular UX design frameworks include user-centered frameworks, agile frameworks, lean UX frameworks, component-based frameworks, and material design frameworks.
Q: What is the easiest UX design framework?
A: There’s no single answer to this because your choice of framework depends on your unique practice needs. Each framework offers its own ease of implementation. Yet the Easy Button, if you will, depends on different things. If you’re planning on creating your own website, the execution and success of the framework you choose depends on your skills and experience designing websites and the time required to maintain your website. If you choose to work with an experienced and proven website provider like ProSites, the easy part is built in. All you need to know is your goals and the right framework is built to get you there. In the end, easy is an outcome based on what you decide to do.
>> All ProSites websites are designed to instantly tell patients why you’re the practice for them.
Q: Is UX design worth it?
A: Given the importance and effectiveness of UX design, the ROI for dental practices (or any business) can certainly be significant. Per Forbes, every dollar invested in UX brings in $100 in ROI on average.
Q: Where do you go for user experience design inspiration?
A: Many websites offer user experience design inspiration. Yet to serve patients best, dental practices have unique user experience websites needs. For dental website inspiration, here is a selection of inspiring options to attract more patients and keep your chairs full.