Users never behave the way you planned
Developers often think they have built a perfect interface. The designer handed over the screens, the code matches them pixel for pixel. Then real users arrive and do something nobody expected.
That was the heart of this talk in Valencia: audit your website with real behaviour in mind, not the behaviour you hoped for.
Plan for every kind of user
Think about how many visitors you expect, what they want to do and what they need from you. Then think about the parent buying a gift for a child, the user on a cracked phone screen, the person who doesn’t read English well. A good experience for one isn’t automatically good for another.
Black-box testing is your film trailer
Before you launch, show the site to someone who has never seen it. A neighbour, a friend, anyone. Give them a task and keep quiet. It is the trailer before the film comes out, and it tells you how the audience will react.
Navigation is where users land
One of my examples was a university site with tiny menu items, a huge logo and an oversized cookie box, while the chat widget kept loading in the background without consent. Each issue is small. Together they tell visitors you didn’t think about them.
Most businesses ignore maintenance and continuous improvement. The ones that don’t are the ones that keep converting.
