There are a number of websites on the Internet. But what makes your site unique? Functionalities such as user-friendly, interaction, etc. grab more clients. So, users expect these minimum functionalities in a website. Not only the general functionalities such as navigation, good looks of the website, etc. matters but also the way in which way these actions are also performed matters. Here are some of the expected elements of web ambience:
Global navigation: direct me where to go
Many websites have a large amount of content that may be made to fit on one page. In this situation, to avoid ambiguity and confusion, clients need to be guided in a logical way to navigate through the content. For global navigation, users frequently look at the top of a webpage. Features such as rigorous, logical and consistent define a good global navigation.
Search: to find the unknown stuff
In many of the sites designed now-a-days; there is a search bar for easy navigation of content. If the user is confused or not able to find desired content, there must be a search function to find the data needed so that user can help herself / himself. Because of its importance, search functionality has been now embedded into many web browsers. Search engines are based on this functionality. So it is not unexpected if your users are expecting a search functionality on your website as it is what makes your website user-friendly and easy to use.
Reciprocity: it is expected to have output from the input given
Today, there is hardly any website that is not interactive or not dynamic. Many users are expecting to edit / delete / update data on the website using the same interface where they view the content. It should be easy for the user to both read and write the content. There should not be any difference in the way of viewing the data and creating data. These interfaces differ programmatically, i.e.; they can be build using different languages. It is just that user wants the site to be interactive, i.e., the user providing some information and the website responding to the user’s request.
How to implement it
Unless it is needed to implement that functionality on your service or product, users won’t specify such requirement, i.e., for ambiance explicitly. At the time of testing, users may ask you to provide a checkout link in the E-Commerce site, if it is not designed by you yet.
The Context of the sites should be setup by experience designers on the sites they are improving upon. Using of interaction design frameworks is one of the best ways to achieve this. Just like, we as customers have some kind of expectations from a shopping Centre or a store, clients or users also do expect some kind of minimum functionalities on social networking sites and E-Commerce sites. If your sites provide those functionalities, it is likely to have more traffic.
