UX Design for Websites UK

What UX design means for a business website

User experience (UX) design is the work that makes a website easy to use. It answers practical questions. Who is landing on this page? What were they searching for? What do they need to see before they trust you? How many taps until they can ring you or book? A site can look lovely and still fail every one of those questions.

For a small business, UX is rarely about clever interactions. It's about putting your phone number where thumbs can reach it, writing menu labels customers recognise, and removing the steps that make people give up. That's why it sits alongside UI design, which handles the visual layer, rather than replacing it.

Heuristic reviews: a fast health check

If you already have a site, we start with a heuristic review. We walk through your key pages and score them against Jakob Nielsen's ten usability heuristics, a set he developed with Rolf Molich in 1990 and settled into its current form in 1994. In plain terms, we check that:

• visitors can always tell where they are and what just happened, such as a clear message after sending a form
• labels use your customers' words, not internal jargon
• it's easy to go back or undo a mistake
• buttons, links and headings behave the same way on every page
• forms prevent errors before they happen, for example by showing the expected phone format
• people can recognise options rather than having to remember them
• pages carry only what helps the decision, with nothing competing for attention
• error messages say what went wrong and how to fix it

You get screenshots of each issue, why it matters and the fix, sorted so the cheap, high-impact changes come first.

Journeys, top tasks and information architecture

Next we work out your top tasks. A plumber's visitors mostly want to know if you cover their area, roughly what it costs and how fast you can come. A solicitor's visitors want to know if you handle their kind of case and whether the first call is free. We map each journey from the search result to the enquiry and count the steps.

That feeds the information architecture: the page list, the menu and the way pages link to each other. We keep main navigation to around five to seven items, group services the way customers think about them, and give every service its own page so it can be found in search. The result is drawn as a sitemap and then as wireframes.

Testing with real people

Opinions in a meeting are cheap. Watching someone use the site is far more useful. We run small moderated tests, usually five people, each given a realistic task such as finding the price of a boiler service and booking it. We watch where they hesitate, what they click first and what they say out loud.

Five sessions rarely cost much and they almost always reveal the two or three problems that matter most. We test the clickable Figma prototype before build, so changes are quick and cheap, and recheck the live site after launch.

Small details that change behaviour

• Tap targets: buttons at least 44 pixels high on mobile, comfortably above the 24 by 24 CSS pixel minimum in WCAG 2.2.
• Sticky contact bar on phones with call and enquiry buttons.
• Short forms: name, contact detail and message. Extra questions only if you'd genuinely use the answers.
• Inline validation that flags a mistyped email as the visitor leaves the field, not after they press send.
• Clear next steps on the thank-you page, such as when you'll call back.
• Readable text: body copy at 16 to 18 pixels with line lengths around 60 to 75 characters.

These sit at the heart of conversion-focused web design.

Price

UX planning, journey mapping and wireframes are part of every Business website, from £500 + VAT. If you want a heuristic review or usability test of an existing site without a rebuild, we charge £45 an hour + VAT and agree the number of hours up front. Most small-business reviews take a day or less. See pricing or get in touch.

What you get

• Visitor types and top tasks agreed in a short workshop
• User journey maps for your most valuable enquiries
• Heuristic review of your current site with screenshots
• Navigation and page structure plan (information architecture)
• Wireframes of key templates in Figma
• Five-person usability test of the main journey, with notes
• Prioritised list of fixes ranked by effort and likely impact

Prices and how it works

Websites from £250 + VAT, business websites from £500 + VAT and ecommerce from £750 + VAT. Small changes are £45 an hour + VAT. You get a fixed quote before we start.

1. Free chat

   Tell us about your business, who your customers are and what the website needs to do. No charge, no obligation.

2. Fixed quote

   You get a fixed price and a clear list of what is included, in writing, before anything starts.

3. Design

   We plan the pages and design the site around your customers, then share it for your comments.

4. Build and test

   We build it mobile-first, write or polish the copy, set up SEO foundations and test it on real phones.

5. Launch and hand over

   We launch, connect analytics and Search Console, and show you how to update it. You own it all.

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