It’s estimated that around 18 million websites are built with website builders, and even more use a hosting provider with some website-building tools.
While they were once expensive and limiting, they’re now seen as highly economical. Some of the best website builders today have sign-up bonuses, competitive rolling monthly prices (many non-building hosts are annual contracts only), yet boast the ability to generate truly unique websites. In other words, it’s now difficult to tell who is using Squarespace and who has built their own. These website builders also provide a wide range of templates and customization options, allowing users to create websites that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. In addition, they often offer user-friendly tools for integrating SEO, e-commerce features, and mobile optimization, making it easier for businesses to manage their online presence effectively.
UX design principles in website builders
User experience (UX) is at the core of website builders. This is their primary value proposition, which is to make it exceedingly easy for users to build a site with no coding knowledge. A clunky UX would defeat the purpose of using a builder.
As a result, some basic design principles have emerged. Intuitive navigation and a clear information architecture are at the forefront. Responsive design is also a necessity, to make sure that the website can be edited and amended across various different devices (a truly cloud-based solution). Before a website builder can deliver good website visitor UX, it must deliver good UX to its paying customers using their drag-and-drop features.
Accessibility and inclusive design practices are something that is gaining more traction and slowly becoming the norm. We are slowly seeing the use of AI to create dynamic, user-centric experiences that speed up the process. While not a core practice yet, they’re slowly being integrated and could end up becoming a revolution to UX, making it a matter of speaking to a virtual consultant who will then follow your worded instructions.
This is, for now, just a springboard in which edits can be made afterward. Hostinger is one example of a provider that is trying out AI building.
The importance of end-user experience
What’s clear is that a strong UX on the builder itself can reflect in a good UX for the website visitors. Simpler building can lead to faster iterations, and pre-built assets have been tried and tested.
The importance that a websites visual design has on the user experience is clear. Research shows that UX plays a mediating role in usability and pleasure, ultimately leading to better outcomes for the website.
E-commerce revenues are at stake too, with UI and UX having a significant correlation with increased traffic and conversion rates, which ultimately led to more revenue growth. User-friendly interfaces created more customer loyalty and satisfaction, ultimately reducing things like abandoned carts.
Achieving such modern design from scratch is not only out of reach for most website owners, but it takes a large investment of time. Having no-code builders to with presets can mean focusing more on design and visual storytelling while knowing that UX is, to some degree, taken care of.
Personalization and user-centric features
As website builders evolved, they moved away from rigid themes and towards personalization. To some degree, it can be said that as you move from pre-built themes towards personalization, the greater freedom and creativity creates more scope for poor UX choices. More can go wrong.
However, the big difference here is the reduced time it takes to iterate. It’s possible to gain feedback on a website’s UX and make adjustments easily. This is because while there may be more assets and choices, it’s still baked into drag-and-drop techniques and the fantastic UX of the website builder itself.
This allows websites to focus more on brand identity and their target audience. More experimentation can occur, and it may also be possible to provide adaptive content depending on the end user. It’s also made incredibly easy to create a responsive site that accommodates the user’s device.
Looking forward
As we study and learn about user behavior and their preferences, website builders are generally quick to adapt. Because of their economies of scale, if they create a new iteration of a web asset like an FAQ page, it can reach millions of websites. This incentive means that they invest lots in R&D, and it’s much more profitable for them to make these efforts compared to when companies build websites in-house.
As a result, we expect website builders to remain on top of new trends and become increasingly relied upon. While LLM models may be able to produce simple static pages – and in the future, more complex websites – they remain difficult for non-coders to make edits and iterations. As a result, it makes more sense from a UX perspective for website builders to host AI features, but under the parameters of their own drag-and-drop framework.
Featured image credit: Dylan Gillis/Unsplash
