Top 6 Website Features People Value

Updated July 8, 2022

People are becoming more selective about the time they spend online. With the average adult spending almost 6 hours per day on digital media, people are becoming wary of the internet's impact on their lives.

Today, companies compete for users who want to curb their time online. This means businesses must incorporate website features users want without sacrificing functionality.

Clutch surveyed 612 people to discover which website UX features are important to them and which they can live without.

We found that people prioritize access to content over trendy designs and features. Overall, people prefer design elements and website functions that help them discover relevant content.

Looking for a web design partner to implement top website features? Team up with a top-rated web design company on Clutch.

People Want to Limit Their Time Online, Which Requires More Engaging Websites

People spend a significant amount of their work and leisure time browsing websites, and they’re beginning to question the internet’s impact on their lives. Because people may spend less time online, businesses must make the most of the limited time they have with their audience.

One in three people (33%) will spend 1-3 hours online every day for leisure.

Almost two-thirds of people (63%) spend 4 or more hours a day browsing the internet for leisure. On the high end of the scale, approximately 1 in 5 people (18%) spend 10 hours or more browsing online. On the low end, 4% of people spend less than one hour of their free time browsing websites every day.

Between browsing the internet for leisure and using it at work, people spend most of their day online. Studies show that excessive screen time can be detrimental for adults. Social media websites, in particular, are facing backlash for their habit-forming design and disruption of quality, in-person social connections.

It’s now commonplace for studies and mental health services to recommend reducing screen time to improve quality of life. 

To pre-empt a wave of anti-screen sentiments among consumers, companies like Apple, Facebook, and Instagram are making it easier for users to break the addictive cycle of their apps and devices.

Apple’s latest iOS update, for example, allows iPhone users to limit the time they spend on certain apps and websites. When users reach the time limit, the software blocks the app or site.

The backlash against the most popular websites and the rise of “digital wellness” may result in challenges for businesses looking to attract people to their websites.

Jordan DeVries is UX director at BraveUX, a UX design company in Washington D.C. He believes digital wellness could lead to a decline in website browsing.

“Customers who might have come across your website in passing may not be there anymore,” DeVries said.

Still, he sees the potential for digital wellness to benefit businesses.

“On the other hand, customers limiting their time on, say, Facebook may be hungry to fill that void, leading them to sites they may not have visited otherwise,” DeVries said.

Customers who want to limit their time on websites and social media platforms may direct their attention to other sites, opening an opportunity for businesses to expand their content’s reach.

Incorporating the top website features people want will help companies stand out in the increasingly limited time they get with people browsing online.

Top 6 Website Features

Consumers surveyed stated that they look out for these website features most when surfing the web.

1. Easy navigation
2. Trendy, intuitive design and user experience<
3. Relevant, authoritative website content<
4. Product visuals and descriptions<
5. Social media as an extension of the business website<
6. Company blog<

 

1. Easy Navigation Is the Most Useful Website Feature

People prefer websites that are easy to use and navigate.

Almost everyone (94%) believes easy navigation is the most useful website feature.

To determine which website features people consider useful, we combined responses for respondents who selected either “extremely” or “somewhat” useful. If survey respondents rated a feature as “slightly” or “not at all” useful, we did not consider their responses in our tally.

A website that’s easy to navigate provides users with faster, more efficient access to content they want.

People prefer a website with a clear menu structure that makes it easy to maneuver between pages. Amazon is known for being easy to navigate, despite its high volume of content.

On its homepage, Amazon presents options for users to navigate and explore the site. By making menus easy to access and darkening the rest of the screen, people can focus on shopping categories and bypass the tempting offerings on the home screen.

Businesses should follow Amazon’s example and prioritize functionality and navigation for their users. Not doing so could mean losing potential customers.

 

2. A Trendy Appearance Means Website Engagement

Trendy web design elements can attract your target audience to your site. Beautiful and appealing designs enhance website content and establish a good reputation for your brand.

Most people (83%) think that a beautiful and updated appearance on a website is useful.

It’s important, however, for businesses to prioritize the user if they redesign their website. People appreciate beautiful and updated designs, but not when the trendy design interferes with their ability to use the website and access the content they need.

3 Popular Web Design Styles

Three of the most popular web design styles are:

• Flat Design: Removing drop shadows, gradients, and other textures to make objects appear two-dimensional
• Skeumorphic Design: Making digital elements resemble their counterparts in the physical world so they look more familiar
• Rich Design: Making elements feel more tactile, three-dimensional, and usable to people navigating a website

Website Features In Action: Apple’s Flat Design Style

Ubiquitous platforms like Windows and Google make users expect updated and interesting designs that aren’t overwhelming. Windows contributed to the minimalist, “flat” digital design trends that have been popular for the past decade.

Flat design uses two-dimensional elements and bright colors to draw the users’ eye to content on the page.

Apple released the iOS 7 software update in 2013, changing the appearance of icons and Apple apps. The update removed bevels and shadows from icons on the home screen, leaving flat buttons behind.

The new buttons, however, still have rounded corners – visually signaling that the shape is a button.

Some experts believe that flat design is on its way out. Adam Conrad is founder and principal of Anon Consulting, which works with marketplace and e-commerce businesses.

“I think we went a little overboard with a very flat design,” Conrad said. “It was originally popularized by the Windows 8 updates in 2012, but users were definitely confused by the stark contrast to the bevels, curved edges, and drop shadows.”

Website In Action: Windows Design Updates

Windows 7, shown below, had rounded corners and beveled buttons on the toolbar, including the round start button around the Windows logo.

Windows 8, pictured below, replaced the traditional Windows design with two-dimensional shapes that are sleek and colorful.

The design elements in Windows 8 are responsive but have a more modern feel than the previous iterations. “Tiles” replaced the traditional icons and menu items in the toolbar. Even the iconic logo became flat.

The abrupt departure from earlier design, however, caused confusion among some users.

“You can’t really tell if elements are clickable because they don’t have any bevel or shadow,” Conrad said.

Instead, Conrad recommends adhering to design conventions that have stood the test of time.

How Do You Blend Traditional and Modern Website Styles?

There are pros and cons to committing to a 100% flat design, even if consumers find the website feature trendy. 

Dan Burke is a UX and product manager at Getfused, a full-service digital marketing agency in Boston. He agrees that we may soon see the end of truly flat design.

“Flat designs were missing well-established visual affordances for interactivity,” Burke said. “Sacrificing accessibility for attractiveness is never a good trade-off.”

Burke proposes an alternative – a blend of flat design and the more traditional, rich design, where digital design elements are more tactile and intuitive for users. He calls this combination “flat-ish” design.

“’Flat-ish’ design makes use of subtle drop shadows, gradients, and animations to bring depth to the screen,” Burke said.

Flat-ish design offers an opportunity for businesses to improve their websites’ usability without confusing the user with drastic design shifts.

Combining the sleek, digital look of flat design with subtle gradients and shadows provides a timeless – but not invasive – design that companies can use for years.

 

3. Website Content Must Establish Brand Authority

People visit websites to access content. Accurate content tailored to a specific audience establishes brand authority for businesses.

Half of people (50%) will leave a website permanently if the content is irrelevant.

More website users will leave a site permanently because of irrelevant content than because of elements that interrupt content, such as advertisements (35%) or unintuitive design (28%).

3 Main Types of Website Content

There are three main types of content that you will find on a business website:

1. Basic Company Information: A company “About Us” page or external links to a company’s social media profiles
2. Product Descriptions and Visuals: Text or images that showcase a company’s main offerings
3. Blogs: Long-form written or video content that discusses current business trends, company news, or other insights

Why is Content Important to Web Design? 

Because content is a priority for most people, companies must understand what people want to watch or read to understand their intent. User intent is a digital marketing term that refers to the purpose of people’s search queries online.

UX designers map “user journeys” to make sure the content on each page in the domain is relevant to the user and has a logical flow.

“A lot of the time, companies design without content,” said Rahul Kondi, a senior UX designer at Lollypop Design Studio, a design firm in Bangalore, India. He sees designers create wireframes, or mock-ups of web designs, without understanding what content the user will be looking for on that page.

“They’ll allocate space for blog posts, for example, but designers do that without really understanding the nature of that piece of content,” Kondi said.

Instead of designing around a blank space where content will be, help your UX team blend design and content by sharing a sample blog post or product page.

To hold users’ attention in 2022, UX designers need to map users’ journeys and incorporate content in a website's design phase. This will make sure content is relevant and useful for website visitors.

 

4. Product Visuals and Descriptions Are Equally Important

Consumers think product and services visuals and descriptions are equally useful when they visit a company’s website.

Nearly everyone (91%) believes both descriptions and images are useful when browsing a website.

This indicates that consumers are looking for both attractive and informative content when browsing company websites. Businesses should make sure to remember that visuals are a key website feature that shouldn’t be ignored.

What Makes a Website More Attractive?

In order to find the right balance between informative and visual content, companies should contemplate how to create an attractive website design. 

Steve Vest is the senior user experience designer at Small Footprint, a software development company in Winston-Salem, N.C. He finds that these simple features make websites more inviting to customers:

• White space: unmarked design space on a web page that remains blank or white when published 
• Large images: combined with whitespace, large images naturally break a page up into skimmable parts
• Mobile Considerations: making sure that your website features are just as helpful to mobile users as they are for eople browsing on desktops (ei. Add a menu bar for easy navigation on mobile versions of a site)

White Space & Large Images Create Natural Design Layouts

Vest says that using unmarked design space, or “white space,” can help companies present both written and visual content effectively.

“We use white space to help the user focus on what we need them to see,” Vest said. “We keep the images as large as the design allows and then use white space to separate things so that the layout is easily scanned.”

Companies should apply this approach to both the mobile and desktop versions of their websites.

Mobile Features Enhance a Website Experience

“On a mobile phone, we try to utilize a single image in a column,” Vest said. “On larger screens, we may expand this to three or four rows and columns. We try not to overtax the user’s senses.”

Most users are browsing on mobile, so it’s important for businesses to develop mobile-responsive websites that don’t overwhelm the user.

For example, 24 Hour Fitness’ home page on mobile only has one image, a menu bar in the top right corner for easy navigation, and a large form where users easily access the content they want on mobile – the location of the nearest gym.

24 Hour Fitness doesn’t force users to enter information in multiple contact forms. Instead, it presents one contact form for people to enter their zip code and find the facility closest to them.

Because descriptions and visuals of products and services are equally important to users, companies must make both elements stand out on the page with clever web design.

 

5. Social Media is an Extension of a Company’s Website

Links to social media accounts are important for people browsing a company’s website.

More than two-thirds of people (67%) think that links to social media accounts are extremely or somewhat useful

Almost 40% of website users (37%) think social media profile links are extremely useful. Only 13% think they are not useful at all.

Social media account links fall below descriptions and visuals among users’ favorite website features but above “About Us” pages and company blogs.

This preference for social media may be due to the immediacy offered by platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Company social media profiles typically offer the same information as an “About Us” page on a more accessible medium.

Social Media Conveniently Drives Engagement

Especially for busy small businesses, social media may be a more convenient way to appeal to their audience than other website features more demanding of time. 

Conrad believes that website users gravitate toward social media out of convenience.

“It’s more convenient for users to learn about companies and products on social media,” Conrad said. “Companies are only going to use a social media platform if it’ll help their business grow. Their presence on social media depends on the industry and if the platform converts.”

Businesses should use social media to connect informally with their users. Content on a company’s social media page should be just as current and useful as the main website.

Social media integrations also provide valuable social proof, allowing users to verify a company’s legitimacy across platforms. Icons for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram tell people where they can find the company on social media.

Companies can even customize the social media icons to match their branding and seamlessly blend into their website.

People want more personal interactions with companies, so companies should repurpose content for social media. Companies can also use interactive features like direct messages to answer users' questions or direct them back to the main company website.

Facebook, for example, includes colorful text showing how quickly a business responds to messages on their page.

Social media also generates word-of-mouth leads. Nearly three-quarters of people (72%) would recommend a company if they have a positive experience with that company on social media.

People spend a lot of time on social media, making it a good place for companies to connect with potential customers. It’s important for businesses to extend their online presence on the social media platforms that best meet their needs.

 

6. Company Blogs Are Still Valuable

When it comes to website content, people prefer product descriptions and visualizations over company blogs – but that doesn’t mean businesses shouldn’t invest in creating blog content.

Overall, website users are split equally on whether company blogs are useful – half think they are valuable and half think they are not.

Nearly one-quarter of people (23%) find company blogs extremely useful, but 21% of people don’t find company blogs useful at all.

This ambivalence toward company blogs can be attributed to the rise of social media and other external outlets for company content, according to Brian Lacey, CEO of Mobomo, a web design company near Washington D.C.

“Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are now the main aggregators for companies’ long-form content,” Lacey said. “Rarely do you go to a site and get their stuff directly. You’re just going to one source like Facebook, and it’s pulling all that information for you.”

Website Features in Action: Medium’s Blog Content

Companies can also now host their blogs on external platforms like Medium. Medium had 60 million monthly readers in 2017, so businesses use the platform to reach a wider audience and associate their brand with high-quality content.

Though Medium is an easy way to get content in front of more people, it’s a crowded field with a competitive algorithm that prioritizes articles based on quality, topic relevance, and user interaction.

Companies that host their blog content on Medium miss out on important SEO benefits. Company blogs hosted on a company's website help SEO by targeting long-tail keywords and providing opportunities for both external and internal linking. Backlinks improve a site’s ranking in Google search engine results.

To create successful blog content with strong SEO benefits, blog posts must be thoughtful and well researched. Blog posts that provide specific, actionable takeaways for a business audience enhance a company’s brand authority and keep a company website fresh and current.

Even though users have mixed feelings about the usefulness of company blogs, high-quality content is still an important tool companies should use to boost search engine rankings and establish their brand’s authority.

Honorable Mention: Call to Action and User-Friendly Buyer Journey

Calls to action encourage prospects to become paying customers. Typically, a call to action (CTA) is displayed on a landing page and invites its audience to do something.

CTAs give you and your team the space to directly state your intentions to potential customers. Using words such as “Sign Up,” “Subscribe,” or “Learn More,” these features tell site visitors exactly what they’ll be doing by clicking on a button on your site. In doing so, you can encourage them to engage further with your business.

Take marketing agency BellaVix, for example. They encourage prospects to move forward with their marketplace management services by including action-driven copy alongside a CTA.

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The bright, large "Find Out More" CTA button prompts visitors to schedule consultations and take the next step with the company.

By promoting engagement, incorporating CTAs into your website allows you and your team to cultivate user-friendly buyer journies for your potential customers. Whether in the awareness, consideration, or decision stage, calls to action will provide the impetus for interested parties to travel further down the marketing funnel with your business and eventually turn into clients.

As a guiding force for the buyer journeys of your clients, CTAs are a useful addition to any website.

Honorable Mention: Testimonials and Case Studies

With widespread technology and the accessibility of the Internet making information more available than ever in today’s world, buyers want to gather as much background data as they can before making a purchasing decision.

To this end, testimonials are a powerful feature of any business’ website. Showcasing real stories of customers you’ve worked with, testimonials allow potential clients to read the unbiased opinion of someone who’s actually worked with your company.

These stories are often featured on a banner on a website’s homepage or on a dedicated page of their own. However, they should be in a location that‘s easy for potential customers to organically visit.

When working testimonials into your site, you and your team will also want to make sure the stories they tell are concise enough to maintain readers’ attention and accurately reflect the current goals and value proposition of your business.

If you’re looking to showcase your work at a more in-depth level and with your team in control of the narrative, then you may also decide to work case studies into your site.

A case study is a clear, industry-specific demonstration of how your company helped a previous client solve a problem or overcome a challenge. They can be worked into your website in a manner similar to that of testimonials.

Digital marketing company Social Driver features case studies effectively on its site. Below, you'll find an organized study that emphasizes the problem at hand and solution in their work for a city park organization.

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The case study exemplifies their ability to build a website that meets client needs.

When putting together a case study, you and your team should avoid sounding too much like you’re making a sales pitch.

The focus should be on the process you followed during the engagement and the tangible results delivered for your client. As such, any relevant statistics that illustrate your company’s impact should be included.

Testimonials and case studies don’t have to be viewed separately from each other. Rather, a testimonial from a satisfied customer can be worked into a more lengthy case study to strengthen your credibility.

Website Features FAQ

There are tons of important features out there, so it can be difficult to narrow down your options. Here are a few feature FAQs to get the ball rolling.

How does a content management system (CMS) benefit websites?

Content management systems allow users to easily build out their website without the need for large-scale coding projects. With CMS software such as WordPress or Drupal, your team can use both templates and custom-designed content to shape your online presence.

How does search engine optimization (SEO) factor into website success?

SEO is a major factor in website success. By incorporating SEO-related initiatives such as content marketing campaigns and properly-optimized meta descriptions into your digital marketing strategy, you and your team can drive traffic to your site. Additionally, you can take these efforts a step further by using Google Analytics to track first-time users and returning user engagement.

What elements should be included in every business website?

Once they‘ve secured the domain name you want, all business websites should include the company name, landing pages, header navigation, an FAQ page, and contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses.

Should companies hire a website builder to create their site? 

In short, yes. Because your website serves as the first impression to your businesses’ digital customer base, you’ll want to bring in a seasoned professional to ensure that the first impression is a positive one. They should be able to handle the more technical aspects of website building such as HTML, plugins, and mobile device compatibility.

Businesses Should Prioritize Users’ Preferred Website Features

Companies considering a new website design should take people's preferences to heart. Because people want to spend less time online, companies must create websites that offer the features potential website visitors find most useful.

Easy navigation features should be companies’ top priority when creating a new design. By adding simple, responsive navigation toolbars and menus, companies can create an intuitive user experience. Businesses should also incorporate a blend of current trends and timeless design elements for an evergreen design that people will still find modern.

Website content remains key to engaging users and driving conversions online. People want both images and written product descriptions, so companies should use design techniques to display content in a way that isn’t overwhelming.

Although people aren’t spending as much time online reading company blogs, websites need thoughtful, relevant blog content to rank in search engine results.

By making website users’ needs a priority, companies can increase their web traffic and conversions. All it takes is listening to what people really want.