Yet some of the most effective principles of UX design haven't changed in decades. (Don’t Make Me Think, written by Steve Krug in the early days of the internet, is as relevant to UX now as it was 25 years ago.) The designers who understand this—who can blend timeless usability insights with modern design execution—are the ones creating websites that both delight users and drive business results. Here's how to join them.

Why UX-focused design matters (and aesthetics aren’t enough)

What does any designer want? To delight users, of course. Many designers, perhaps mindful that users form their first impressions in just 50 milliseconds, tend to work toward this goal by focusing on beautiful aesthetics. And to some extent, this works: users rate attractive designs as more usable even when they’re not. (In user research, this is known as the aesthetic-usability effect.)

Still, flashy microinteractions and trendy color palettes can only get you so far. As Aarron Walter, the former director of UX for Mailchimp, explains in his book Designing for Emotion, deep user delight can only happen once the foundational boxes for functionality and usability are checked. Once those elements are placed, you can layer on beauty.

Brands that ignore this advice might still make a good first impression, but it’s likely to go to waste if customers struggle to navigate the website and accomplish tasks. And once they leave, they’re probably not coming back.

Fortunately, there’s a solution: user-centric design. Here are seven timeless UX-focused website design principles that deserve to be sticky-noted to your monitor for daily reference.

1. Use clear visual hierarchy to tell users what to do

Most websites fail because users can't figure out what to do first. They land on your page, scan for three seconds, and leave confused. The problem isn't that your content isn't valuable—it's that your visual hierarchy isn't doing its job.

Show what’s important using size, color, and contrast

Pull up your homepage and conduct an attention audit. What draws your eye first, second, and third? If it's not your value proposition, social proof, then CTA, you have a hierarchy problem.

Size, color, and contrast are your primary tools for creating hierarchy. Your most critical call-to-action shouldn't be the same size as your privacy policy link, for example. Use scaling ratios to create consistent relationships between heading levels, creating a rhythm that feels natural to users.

Fix the fundamentals:

• Make your primary CTA the highest-contrast element on the page

• Use size to signal importance—your main headline should dominate

• Group related information with proximity and spacing

• Design for scanning by putting key takeaways in your headings

• Create clear visual pathways that guide users to your CTA

Use whitespace as a design element, not leftover space

Whitespace is a powerful tool for directing your user’s attention and reducing cognitive load. While crowded web pages overwhelm users, whitespace creates visual “rest stops” that prevent user fatigue. You can also use whitespace to group related elements through proximity, isolate important calls to action for maximum impact, and reduce visual noise that competes with your message.

Here’s a good rule of thumb for whitespace: use tight spacing for related elements, and generous spacing around conversion-critical content.

Avoid visual design mistakes that disrupt flow

Common hierarchy mistakes that hurt conversions:

• Weak call-to-action contrast

• Making every element equally bold

• Poor contrast that fails accessibility standards

• Desktop-optimized hierarchies that fall apart on mobile

• Random spacing patterns and inconsistent gaps between elements

Test your hierarchy with the five-second rule: show your page to someone for five seconds, then ask what action they think you want them to take.

Tip: Take the time to wireframe your design if you’re serious about nailing your site’s information architecture. Since wireframes don’t have any creative distractions, they’re the perfect place to figure out the core elements of your layout like spacing, alignment, hierarchy, contrast ratios, and font sizes. With Framer Wireframer, you can use AI to create clean, responsive prototypes in seconds.

2. Make your site lightning-fast so your users never have to wait

As designers, we influence performance more than we realize. Unfortunately, that means many designers unknowingly sabotage website loading time through well-intentioned creative choices. Every custom font, high-resolution image, and smooth animation adds weight that translates to lost revenue.

The good news: there’s plenty you can do to speed things up.

Don’t add unnecessary weight to your site—and optimize everything

Plenty of sites are burdened by enormous video and image files or unwieldy animations. Use a page speed test like GTmetrix to gauge whether your site has any unexpected files slowing it down.

Here's where to focus your optimization efforts:

• Images: Use WebP format for 25-35% smaller file sizes than JPEG

• Videos: Host your videos on a third-party platform, then embed them

• Animations: Keep them lightweight and purposeful—if an animation adds more than 100ms to load time, question whether it's worth it

• Fonts: Limit font variations and use system fonts when possible for instant loading

Design for perceived performance

Sometimes making things feel faster matters more than making them actually faster. Loading animations and skeleton screens reduce perceived wait time while content loads in the background. Users will wait longer when they understand something is happening.

Tip: Outsource as much optimization as you can to your website platform so you can focus on user experience design. Framer automatically serves responsive images, lazy loads assets, optimizes font loading, and converts image files to next-gen formats like AVIF. By going to Menu → Site Settings → Versions, you can make sure the most recently published version of your site is optimized.

3. Design responsive experiences that match user intent

It’s no secret at this point that mobile phones have become the web browsing device of choice for many users. But before you start that new “mobile-first” web design, keep in mind that the reality is more nuanced: many B2B sites have a high percentage of desktop traffic, for example, since users often access them at work.

Your design approach should be driven by your specific personas and how they actually engage with your product.

When mobile-first makes perfect sense

For consumer-facing websites, eCommerce, content sites, and local businesses, mobile-first remains the gold standard. With 64% of all web traffic coming from mobile devices, your mobile experience is sometimes the only version users will see.

When adapting your site to mobile, focus on essentials like:

• Content that directly supports conversion goals

• Touch targets that are big enough to hit with your thumb

• One-handed navigation patterns

• Simplified conversion flows

When desktop-first might serve you better

B2B software, data-heavy applications, professional tools, and complex workflows often benefit from desktop-first design. Consider desktop-first when your users:

• Spend extended periods in your application

• Need to view large amounts of data simultaneously

• Perform complex multi-step tasks requiring precision

• Use keyboard shortcuts and advanced features regularly

Financial dashboards, design tools, project management platforms, and enterprise software often perform better when optimized for desktop workflows first, then thoughtfully adapted for mobile check-ins and notifications.

Using context-driven design

Context matters just as much as screen size. When you shop online, for example, you might use your laptop for researching and comparing products and your phone to check order updates. A project management app might prioritize desktop for deep work sessions while making sure mobile excels at quick updates and approvals.

If you want to take this context into account—and have a better shot at delighting users—then adapting desktop to mobile (or vice versa) isn’t enough. Instead, you need to strategically add and remove visual elements, creating unique layouts that make it easy for users to find the features they’re looking for on each device.

Tip: Framer makes it easy to create different experiences for different breakpoints—not just smaller versions of the same design. You can prioritize different content, interactions, and layouts based on each device’s capabilities while keeping branding consistent.

4. Create accessible designs without sacrificing creativity

With one in four US adults living with a disability, accessible design ensures you reach the widest audience possible. Only 3% of the web is considered accessible, which means that your brand can easily set itself apart through thoughtful UI design.

People without disabilities benefit from accessible design too: captions on videos help users in noisy environments, good contrast improves readability in bright sunlight, and clear navigation reduces cognitive load.

Start with the fundamentals of accessible design

Understanding core WCAG accessibility principles helps you make better design decisions:

• Ensure a 4.5:1 contrast ratio for normal text, 3:1 for large text

• Use alt text to provide useful image descriptions for humans and search engines

• Replace “click here” link text with descriptive text that explains destination and purpose

• Use proper heading hierarchy (H1, H2, H3) that makes sense to screen readers

• Create touch targets that are at least 44px for for mobile interaction

• Every interactive element should be reachable via keyboard

• Offer visible focus indicators for keyboard navigation

Test real-world accessibility

Once you’ve got the fundamentals in place, there’s plenty you can do to make sure they’re actually creating an accessible experience.

The easiest place to start is by running a few tests yourself:

• Keyboard navigation audit: Navigate your entire site using only the Tab, Enter, and arrow keys.

• Screen reader testing: Experience your site using VoiceOver (Mac) or NVDA (Windows) to understand how content flows for users with visual impairments.

• Technical validation: Deploy tools like aXe DevTools or WAVE to catch code-level accessibility issues.

• Color and contrast verification: Use a contrast checker to instantly check WCAG compliance.

If you’re doing user testing before launch, make sure to get user feedback from visitors with disabilities. You can also record user sessions using tools like Hotjar to uncover areas of your site where visitors run into trouble.

Once your design is accessible, add creative expression

Build your core experience to be fully accessible, then layer on enhancements that might not meet every guideline. While you should never break functional accessibility, you might need some leeway on visual accessibility guidelines (like contrast) in order to serve the larger goals of the project.

For example, a photographer's portfolio might use low-contrast overlays for artistic effect, while making sure navigation is still keyboard accessible and images have meaningful alt text. Edgy brands might use bold typography and unconventional layouts while ensuring screen readers can effectively navigate the site. Some website builders, like Framer, allow you to show the full version of your design to most users while serving a lightweight “reduced motion” version to users who need a more accessible experience.

Tip: Framer automatically applies semantic tags (like <H1> and <p>) to your text styles. You also get access to a wide set of accessibility controls for every element via the Accessibility tab, including image alt text, video descriptions, frame tags, tab order customization, and ARIA labels.

5. Keep your navigation simpler than you think it needs to be

A UX principle known as Jakob’s Law suggests that it’s usually a bad idea to veer away from what users are used to. Since your users spend most of their time on other websites, they expect yours to line up with what they’re used to. That means navigation is usually a good place to follow convention—and a bad place to get experimental.

Remove friction by sticking to what users already know

Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, your task with navigation is to use a standard experience that’s familiar to users, and improve on it if possible.

Start with these standard navigation elements:

• Top horizontal navigation for primary sections

• Hamburger menus for mobile (when implemented thoughtfully)

• Breadcrumbs for complex sites with deep hierarchies

• Menus with just a handful of primary sections (to reduce choice overwhelm)

• Search functionality that behaves like Google (fast, forgiving, with helpful suggestions)

Expand on these basics with small tweaks that improve the user experience, like adding icons to your labels to help users navigate your menus faster. Many designs also benefit from sticky menus (especially on mobile) so users spend less time scrolling.

Make your menus instantly understandable

UX experts have come up with all sorts of shorthand phrases—like “design as if the user is drunk” or “make it so easy your grandma can use it”—to remind themselves that users hate complicated designs. Remember this as you create your navigation system and menus; once you’ve finished, try going back and making it even simpler.

A couple things to watch out for:

• Over-explaining: Labels and tooltips are good, but if you find yourself needing to add lots of them, your design might be too complicated.

• Friction: If there’s a learning curve when users attempt to navigate your design, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Know when to break conventions (hint: rarely)

Departing from navigation norms should be done rarely, and only to solve specific pain points. Before jumping away from standard patterns, ask: “Is this genuinely good UX, or does it just look different?”

If you’re creating a user interface rooted in immersive storytelling, for example, or launching a minimalist app, a standard navbar might take away from the experience. And conversion-oriented landing pages sometimes remove navigation elements entirely so end users can focus entirely on the call to action rather than getting distracted.

Tip: With Framer, you can design navigation elements like dropdowns, breadcrumbs, and mobile menus without writing code. By dragging prebuilt navbars and responsive menus directly onto your design, you can quickly iterate and test navigation elements across devices.

6. Use components to build a design system that scales

Inconsistent design experiences confuse users and hurt conversions. When buttons look different on every page, or forms work differently in different sections, users lose confidence in your site. They start wondering if clicking that button will actually work, or if entering their information is safe.
There’s a two-part solution: design a reusable component library, and apply systematic design rules across your site.

Create consistent design rules

Most designers start projects by creating everything from scratch. This approach works for one-off projects, but it becomes unsustainable as your website grows. You end up with dozens of slightly different button styles, inconsistent spacing, and a maintenance nightmare.

Essential rules to set in your design system:

• Button hierarchy: Primary buttons for main actions, secondary for supporting actions, tertiary for less important tasks

• Typography system: Consistent heading sizes, body text, and spacing that creates clear content hierarchy

• Color usage rules: Specific colors for different types of actions (primary actions, warnings, success states)

• Form patterns: Standardized input fields, labels, and validation messages

• Layout grids: Consistent spacing and alignment rules that work across all screen sizes

When brand standards change, you can update these centralized rules and changes will propagate throughout your entire design system automatically.

Design a reusable component library

Recreating the same element multiple times across your site has serious disadvantages: it takes more time, it creates inconsistency for users, and it’s a pain to update (especially at scale). By creating a component library early in your project, you can avoid duplicating your work and make your UX design process much more efficient.

Components can range from simple to complex elements:

• Buttons

• Footers

• Navigations

• Page sections

• Interactive graphics and elements

When you update a master component, all instances update automatically.

Tip: Using Framer, you can keep components consistent across multiple projects by updating the “master file” in your component library, then clicking “update” in individual projects where the component is being used.

7. Pay close attention to form optimization and friction

By the time users reach a form, you’ve already gotten them most of the way to a conversion. Unfortunately, this is where things tend to fall apart.

In the world of eCommerce, a full 70% of users abandon their carts without completing their transaction. Simpler website forms don’t have as much friction, but every unnecessary field or confusing interaction still represents lost conversions.

The solution: reduce friction and provide immediate feedback.

Use friction-reducing form design techniques

Every form field you add increases the likelihood that users will give up. Before including any field, ask yourself: “Is this information absolutely necessary right now, or can we collect it later?”

Start with these form optimization basics:

• Minimize required fields—only ask for information you need immediately

• Use single-column layouts (multi-column forms increase completion time and error rates)

• Provide smart defaults like pre-populating country based on IP address

• Make field labels clear instead of using placeholders that disappear

• Size fields appropriately for the expected input length

Advanced techniques that reduce friction:

• Break long forms into steps, showing only a few fields at a time

• Auto-suggest email domains after the @ symbol

• Automatically format phone numbers and credit card numbers as users type

• Clearly mark which fields are optional rather than marking required ones

The goal is to make form completion feel effortless rather than like work.

Handle errors without frustrating users

How you handle mistakes makes the difference between a user who corrects their error and one who gives up entirely. Poor error handling is one of the fastest ways to kill form conversions.

Error prevention strategies:

• Provide immediate feedback when users move to the next field

• Show examples of correct formatting (like “MM/DD/YYYY” for dates)

• Use appropriate input types that bring up the right mobile keyboards

When errors do happen:

• Be specific: instead of “Invalid input,” explain exactly what's wrong

• Preserve user input—never make users re-enter information they've already provided

• Use clear visual indicators and place error messages close to the relevant field

• Provide examples of what correct input should look like

Tip: Using Framer, you can drag forms anywhere on your website and easily customize aspects like validation states, layout, and redirections. You can also create complex multi-step forms using plugins like Formflow.

Create delightful experiences that keep users coming back

You know you've designed something special when users say “it’s so easy to use” instead of “it looks amazing.” UX design principles allow you to create websites that people actually want to interact with. Instead of superficially beautiful designs that frustrate visitors behind the scenes, you'll build user-friendly experiences that feel intuitive, accessible, and genuinely helpful.

When users can effortlessly navigate your site, find what they need, and complete their goals without friction, they'll keep coming back. That's the difference between designing for aesthetics and designing for real user behavior.

Ready to put users first? Join thousands using Framer to build websites that prioritize user experience without sacrificing visual appeal. Sign up for a free Framer account, choose from hundreds of templates to get started fast, and start creating experiences that both delight and convert.