There are hundreds of online bingo sites. That’s not including the online casinos and sportsbooks that also offer bingo as one of their products. But not all bingo sites and sections are created equally. Each is trying to attract and retain customers but some sites are built on the principles of UX design and are more likely to reach their objective.
While some designers are only concerned with how a site looks, UX designers look at user satisfaction. This includes some basic functions that can be seen on the best bingo websites.
Placement
This could be related to how many banners should advertise each product or offer. It could also be where the bingo product should sit among other offerings such as ‘Games’, ‘Sports’ and ‘Live Casino’.
Some sportsbooks opt for different colours for each product, making them easily identifiable. Others, such as Betfair, favour a less cluttered design. The text and buttons are all one or two brand colours. This means there is no differentiation between the players looking for a bingo website and those who prefer sports or casino. By colour coding areas such as bingo (often in pink) other sites run the risk of alienating some players.
However, for each site, it is likely that these decisions have been informed at least partly by UX design. The brands know their customers and will make any design changes or updates with their target audience in mind. It is also probable that different designs have been tested and tweaked accordingly.
As with any product, you are looking for a way to display your product that will appeal to your customer and invite them to make a purchase. Placement also looks at in-text or anchor text links to other pages, information pages, and contact methods. For example, should live chat support be a static button or a pop-up?
Navigation
No matter how good your website looks, if a customer can’t find their way around they are likely to get frustrated and go elsewhere.
UX design includes factors like:
• How many clicks a player has to make to find what they are looking for
• Whether a drop-down menu will save space or risk confusing customers
• Should links be in bold to help navigation?
The design itself can be clean and simple, flashy or innovative, but it needs to be intuitive. Gimmicks are fine, so long as they don’t detract from the site’s usability.
Calls to Action
You will usually find that these calls to action (CTAs) are presented as buttons such as ‘Login’, ‘Register’ or ‘Play’. They will usually be in the brand colours but differ from the main text. They should be easy to spot and access. The text may be in bold and should be a contrasting colour (usually black or white) to the button for clarity. The written content will also be analysed, e.g. whether a CTA should say ‘Join’ ‘Sign Up’, or ‘Register’.
A/B Testing
One of the main aspects of UX design is A/B testing. This involves testing two slightly different versions of a design to find out which performs better. A/B testing may be performed on all aspects of the design, from headers and footers to text, images, CTAs and more. Often it is small changes that are being tested, such as the colour of the CTA buttons.
A/B testing helps brands to stop dealing with opinions and use quantitative data to inform their design choices. As it is randomised, the answers produced are definitive.
The only real drawbacks of A/B testing are that it can be a lengthy process with UX designers testing small changes. It can also be quite complicated to set up. Finally, you need a significant number of testers to make the data statistically viable.
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