Internet of ThingsBig data is a term to describe large volumes of structured and unstructured data that are too big to be processed by traditional means. According to the sixth edition of the Data Never Sleeps report, over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created each day. The report also estimates that by 2020, for every person on the planet, 1.7 MB of data will be created every second and 40 zettabytes of data will exist.

All these statistics are portraying a very clear picture, big data is inevitable and will shape the future of the internet and our lives.

The Importance of Web Design and User Experience

The most important aspect of modern web designing users with a responsive and smooth experience. This is achieved by web designers and webmasters who optimize the web pages for the best browsing experience across all kinds of devices. A big chunk of this traffic is generated by mobile devices, which accounted for over 52% of the total internet traffic in 2018. With mobile traffic being responsible for over half of all web traffic, it is increasingly more important for any business to optimize their web pages for mobile view. An online search for “web design melbourne” or anywhere else will yield results for reputable companies in your area who will tailor your website to the unique needs of mobile users.

According to internet usage statistics, more than 4.4 billion people are active internet users and over 3.5 billion of them own a social media account. This means that around half of the world’s population is using the internet. The main goal of big data is to take all the data created by the surfing habits and activities of these users and generate actionable information that can be used to optimize the user experience and generate profit. The benefits of big data are countless; with such potential, more and more companies are adopting big data technologies to propel their businesses to the future.  

How Big Data Can Improve Web Design and User Experience

Big data has the potential to drive new web designing technologies and change the way users interact with web pages and applications. Here are five ways you can use big data to improve your website’s design, responsiveness, and overall user experience to increase your customer base: 

#1: Heat map analysis

This tool uses one of the most important aspects of big data statistics, the number of people who use specific web pages, how much time they spend on those pages and how they interact with them. You can use heat map analysis to monitor which content drives the most traffic, on what links do visitors click and much more. 

This information is significantly important for optimizing your website, as it can help you understand what is your most trending content and what most people skip. With all this data, you can not only understand which parts of your site need to be improved and gain insight on how to do it but also make a much better business model and increase your earnings.

#2: Website search analytics

One of the best tools to understand what users are looking for and what is trending in your site. When you add a search box to your website and use website search analytics to keep track of what user searches, you can gain valuable insight into their mindset. By looking into the most searched topics, products and pages, you can improve your business model, expand it in certain areas, and give your customers what they desire.

You can also use this information to optimize the user experience on the website, showing the most trending searches, allowing for easy access to most searched pages, showing customers what other customers also searched based on their searches and offer much more quality of life improvements. 

#3: Traffic Analysis

Another tool to help you gain a better insight into your customer’s mindset and drive your sales forward. With traffic analysis, you can learn how users behave on your website, which commercials and pages drive more traffic, and are more engaged by users and which commercials and pages are not trending as you much as you hoped and need to be improved.  

#4: Responsive Images 

According to research from 2011 that is still cited by publications, it takes users half a second to form an opinion on the website and decide if they want to spend more time on it or move on. The biggest impact of this study is for web designers, as the design of the website is almost always the only thing that people notice after such a short time. This study stresses the importance of a design that should be both eye-pleasing and engaging. 

One of the best ways to achieve this is through responsive images, a major part of modern web page design. These images can adjust instantly to fit the dimensions of the screen on which they are viewed to provide the user with great with an optimized web page browsing and user experience. 

On top of that, responsive images can also adjust their quality based on the screen’s resolution to reduce the amount of bandwidth required to load the image at its natural high-resolution quality. It is important to note that this does not reduce the quality of the image the user experiences, just lower the resolution to fit the resolution to the maximum the device is capable of showing and reducing how heavy it will be to load the image. It also ensures mobile users can view graphics clearly, which is vital nowadays if businesses want to present themselves as a modern company. Of course, it’s tricky to ensure responsiveness if your company has no web design expertise, but simple YouTube videos can show your team How to create a website using Bluehost and WordPress, helping them to craft the perfect site. The last thing you want is for a potential client to be put off by your clunky website, so it’s important to get everything, including images, perfect. 

#5: Data Visualization

Big data gives you the opportunity to directly represent the visitors of your website with valuable and interesting data you have gathered on your site in a wide variety of ways including graphs, figures, charts, and diagrams. This makes data visualization different from other ways big data can improve your website. 

While most use cases of big data for websites revolve around using the data you gather to gain a clearer insight into customer trends and be the founding stone of your design overhaul, data visualization puts big data visibility on your website for all your visitors to see. For example, you can create graphs or charts that show how your site has been trending lately, what are the most trending topics and topics on your site and what items or plans customers purchased the most.

Wrap Up

All these big data possibilities are just the tip of the iceberg. If you are looking to grow your business and propel it to the future, using big data to improve your website by making it more visually appealing and user-friendly is the right way to go.