the UX tactics i use on my own website, with the reasons
dev · Oct 6, 2026 · 5 min read
advice about UX is mostly unverifiable, so here is the verifiable kind: tactics i actually shipped on this site, the reason for each, and one i got wrong for months. run them as a checklist on any site you are building or buying.
one: the phone number is the interface
the highest-value element of a local business site is the phone number, in text, above the fold, tappable. not in an image, not behind a contact page. i would put it above any logo animation. most italian small-business sites bury the one action that pays for the site.
two: contact shortcuts where the eye already is
on mobile, this site carries a mail button in the first viewport, right under the hero card — not in a footer that needs a scroll and a hunt. the reasoning: contact is not a destination, it is an impulse, and impulses die in about three seconds. a contact form behind two clicks is a form nobody fills.
three: the fold is a design tool, not a myth
"nobody scrolls" is false; "nobody scrolls past junk" is true. this site measures the fold: the first viewport ends where the content earns it, and the next section starts past it, enforced by a build-time layout that pushes the next card below the fold on every screen size. you do not trick people into scrolling; you give the first screen a complete thought and let the second one start clean.
four: motion must never gate correctness
the tactic i got wrong for months: an exit animation could make a navigation click land on the wrong page in edge conditions. the fix taught the rule i now apply everywhere: correctness properties never depend on animation timing. motion is decoration; when decoration can veto a destination, the decoration has been given a rank it did not earn.
five: contrast is UX, not compliance
every dimmed label on this site is measured, not judged (see the color theory post for the mechanism). the UX reasoning is not the legal one: low-contrast text is text a reader skips, and skipped text is a message you paid to write and hid. if a label is not worth reading, delete it; if it is, it clears 4.5:1.
six: language switching in one tap, with the URL telling the truth
each language of this site has its own URL (/, /it/..., /de/...) instead of a cookie remembering a choice. the URL is the only honest carrier of state: shareable, bookmarkable, and — this is the SEO half — indexable. a site that switches language without changing URL is invisible in the other language's search results.
what to run on your own site
- can a stranger tell what you do, for whom, and how to reach you within five seconds of landing?
- is the primary action reachable where the eye already is, on a phone?
- does anything move that could ever be mistaken for the site failing to respond?
- is any text so dim that you, honestly, skip reading it?
- does every state change have a URL you could send to someone?
UX is not taste. it is a set of decisions someone made on purpose — or did not make at all, which is also a decision, just one nobody signed.