14 eye-opening UX statistics that will transform your website design

User experience (UX) shapes how visitors and potential customers interact with your brand. With good UX principles, you can create a fast and effective website, develop intuitive portals for online services, and ensure users enjoy interacting with your company.

UX can often be deprioritized in favor of projects that seem more urgent, daily escalations for operational tasks, or simply a lack of clear insight into the strong web design’s transformative benefits.

Whether you’re preparing your 2025 roadmap or considering brand-strengthening projects, these 14 eye-opening statistics will show just how significantly UX can impact your business.

UX encompasses multiple facets of your website’s design: navigation, speed, functionality, aesthetics, accessibility, and more. But visual appeal matters to most users.

A study asked 2,684 people to assess website credibility. Participants commented on the website’s design more often than any other feature. 46.1% of participants’ comments addressed the site’s design in some way.

Bear in mind that users all want different things. Some users prefer moody color schemes, while others want elegant fonts and vibrant pictures. Start with the universal principles of great visual design (white space around visual elements, high-contrast fonts, and crisp images) before testing to zone in on your target market’s preferred aesthetic.

UX is most important for businesses that rely on ecommerce as a core pillar of their sales strategy. Good UX can increase your conversion rate by up to 400%一an important statistic for small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners because it gives you two frameworks:

1. Good UX is a critical factor in buyer decisions. If your site has low conversion rates, start your troubleshooting process by assessing your UX.

2. As you make changes to your site, track your conversion rates. This will tell you if and to what extent the changes have a positive effect.

Cart abandonment rates are problematic for most online businesses and storefronts, with shoppers abandoning almost 70% of carts. Different industries have different averages, and poor UX doesn’t cause all cart abandonment. However, devoting resources to investigating a high cart abandonment rate can quickly reveal UX improvements. For example, you might be able to optimize your checkout flow by:

• Reducing the clicks needed to take the user from the product page to the finished transaction page

• Adding auto-fill fields

• Adding more payment options

• Making your checkout and payment pages look more reputable

According to GoodFirms, “53.8% of web designers cite ‘not being responsive on all devices’ as a top reason for a website to be redesigned.”

Web design can be a complex process, and putting it on the back burner when you have other priorities can be tempting. However, businesses in every industry are prioritizing mobile and responsive design because they see how consumer behaviors affect sales.

Your website shapes how people see your brand, gets them interested, and encourages them to become customers. Their first impressions of your website matter, and in 94% of cases, users base their first impressions on website design.

It’s not easy to change a negative first impression, so get off to a good start with a smooth, fast, well-designed website.

We already know that first impressions are mostly design-related, but it only takes 50 milliseconds for your user to assess your site’s visual design and form a first impression.

Waiting for a web page to load can be frustrating. Wait too long, and you might give up and try your luck with a competitor. The conversion rate for ecommerce sites decreases by 0.3% on average per additional second it takes the site to load.

74% of respondents to a Google survey said they are more likely to revisit mobile-friendly sites.

When users enjoy visiting your site and have a seamless experience, it can convince them to return. They may come to trust your brand for repeat purchases. This is critical for mobile users, where unsatisfactory experiences can quickly deter potential customers.

On the flip side, bad UX sends visitors away. 88% of visitors are unlikely to return to a site with a poor visual design, slow load times, or sticky elements that make navigation challenging.

Augmented reality (AR) is one of the biggest trends transforming the ecommerce market. By 2026, the AR market is expected to surpass $36 billion in value—around triple its 2021 market forecast. 

Incorporating new technologies smoothly and before your competition is just as important as tried-and-true methods. As more users shop on their phones, many businesses enable them to “place” virtual goods in their homes, “try on” clothes, and experiment with custom product configurators. Now is the time to start rolling out AR tools and experiences to keep up with user expectations.

Framing your projects in terms of ROI can help stakeholders decide which to prioritize or invest in. UX improvements can yield a considerable ROI—9,900%, according to some studies. That’s nearly a $100 return for every dollar spent.

That ROI might feel too good to be true, but if you’re seeing a large discrepancy between forecasted sales and online activity, UX spending to uncover critical issues can be hugely valuable.

Your business has invested in marketing to attract users. You don’t want them to leave once you’ve got them through the door.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) found that 35% of sales are lost through ineffective UX—bad news for all businesses, especially those in competitive industries. Users won’t necessarily give up on a purchase because of a bad experience, but they may use your competitors instead. 

Frederick Reichheld, inventor of the net promoter score, found that boosting customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by 25%. That’s because customers generate more profits the longer they stay with a company. Returning customers buy more over time while costing you less. They refer others and are often happy to pay more to stay with a familiar company.

With this statistic in mind, you can zero in on causes of churn and eliminate them. Your stakeholders will be motivated by understanding how less churn = more profits:

• UX improvements are long-lasting. Eliminating churn through better UX is more efficient than achieving it through other means.

• UX improvements that create a better first impression mean you don’t have to try and win frustrated customers back after a negative interaction.

Toptal cautions SMBs against using big headers that stick on the screen as users try to scroll down. This can block some of your features and widgets on mobile devices, frustrating users and making them give up on your website or app.

Not all sticky elements are bad. Having some navigation buttons and a sticky menu can help users. But they shouldn’t dominate your UX.

Avoid the most frequent mistakes by:

• Replacing hard-to-read text with accessible fonts

• Choosing high-contrast colors for text

• Avoiding highly complex elements that will behave differently depending on the screen size and operating system

Intelligent website design is an asset for B2B and B2C organizations. It can increase customers’ trust in you, encourage them to return, and give you more for your marketing and sales efforts. It all starts by realizing just how much UX impacts user behavior.

Kick-start your 2025 efforts by elevating your web design and putting UX front and center. Identify the most sensible changes for your business and customers and analyze their outcomes.