Why people leave your website, and the small UX fixes that keep them

A lot of the redesign enquiries we get start the same way. "The site looks fine, but nobody calls." When we open it on a phone, the problem usually shows up in the first ten seconds. The headline is a slogan, the button is somewhere below three banners, and the phone number is hidden in the footer.

None of that is about taste. It's about how quickly a visitor can understand you and do the one thing they came to do. So before we talk colours or fonts with a client, we go through a short list. Here it is.

Decide what the page is for

Every page should have one job. A quote request, a WhatsApp message, a sign-up, a download. We write that job on top of the Figma file before drawing anything. Then every section has to help with it. If it doesn't, it goes, even if it's the prettiest part of the page. This is the step clients find hardest, and the one that makes the biggest difference.

The first screen has very little time

Someone landing on your site wants to know what you do, whether it's for them, and what to click. A plain headline does that better than a clever one. "Logo and packaging design for food brands" will beat "Crafting dreams into reality" every single time. Add one supporting line and one clear button, and you've done most of the work.

Hierarchy does more than decoration

When a page feels messy, adding more graphics rarely helps. What helps is fewer sizes of text, more space between sections, and one accent colour that's only used for things you can click. If your buttons and your decorative shapes are the same orange, people stop knowing what's clickable.

Also check your grey text. Light grey on white looks elegant on a big monitor in the studio and becomes unreadable on a phone in sunlight.

Design it for a thumb

Most first visits we see in analytics come from phones, so we sketch the mobile version first. Buttons big enough to tap without zooming. The main action reachable with one thumb. Phone number fields that open the number keypad. It sounds basic, but it's the area where we find the most problems on existing sites.

Use animation to explain things

A button that reacts when you press it, or content that slides in as you scroll, makes a site feel cared for. Too much of it makes the site feel slow. Our rule is simple: if the animation doesn't tell you something (this is clickable, this just changed, this came from there), we cut it. And if someone has turned on reduced motion on their phone, the site should respect that.

Put proof near the button

People decide whether to contact you based on whether they trust you. Show real work and real reviews close to the contact button, not on a separate page nobody opens. Make WhatsApp and phone easy to find. And keep the site fast. Huge uncompressed images are still the most common reason a site feels slow.

Where AI fits for us

We do use AI tools, mostly for research, rough copy options and trying out layouts quickly. They save time. But they don't know your customers, and left alone they produce sites that look like every other site. The choices about what to cut and what to make bigger still need a person who has spoken to the client.

“When an interface feels obvious, it's usually because someone made a lot of small decisions very deliberately.”

Try this on your own site

Open your website on your phone, on mobile data, and ask a friend who doesn't know your business to look at it for five seconds. Then ask them:

• What does this company do?
• What would you click if you wanted to get in touch?
• Did anything make you trust them, or doubt them?

Their answers will tell you more than any audit. If you'd like us to take a look as well, send us the link. We're always happy to give honest feedback.