The web and mobile development bandwagon are scaling newer heights with more customers shifting base to the online domain. Even retail outlets have gone online with the distinct promotional strategy of attracting more clients. In the scope of such brimming opportunities and a multitude of possibilities, clients are coming across choosy and informed on creating interactive design aspects. In this scenario, the development companies who bank on their development skills feel the restraint of design-oriented professionals.
Development companies have realised the importance of the design aspect and the specialisation it calls for. The UX team is not only about the look, feel and usability of design but, extends well beyond its scope to undertake research, understand customer engagements, analysing user experiences and building prototypes that are conveying.
While developers are more of the technical coding league, designers come to enhance aesthetics. Like an architect builds and an interior designer decorates. The tech team might come with strong coding expertise, they will, however, be superficial in the user design aspect. The tech team or the developers are inclined towards the latest technological updates, building backend, support technology and, cloud storage etc. The UX designers come to fill the need for a comprehensive design that is aesthetically compelling and technically sound.
Tech start-ups who are creating their platforms are looking for creating unforgettable experiences. User design, text, sound, interfaces and usability are
the key elements UX designers came to create. However, these elements are not superficially created to adjust to the different client requirements, but research- oriented strategic planning goes before defining the scope of the project. www.forbes.com states that the number one reason start-ups fail is that they fail to understand, "No Market Need.”
While start-ups are all geared up to create experiences that will create a stream of clients, UX designers play an important role in this journey. UX designer has evolved as a profession as well the role quintessentially generates ROI that is the need of every organisation. But primarily, UX designers understand the need of the consumers and build it in their products for a satisfactory experience. User experience is a term common to both the consumer and the client. While the consumer banks on great user experiences for a memorable experience, the client at the same time wants to create such user experience to have the consumer come back, we can refer this as customer experience (CX). In this, the common link is the UX Designer / Agency who creates the user experiences.
While User Experience is such an important element of the product life cycle, it is imperative that the process is supported by the right finances and timelines. While the technical team might understand the need for good design, the other stakeholders - the owners or investors might not totally understand the need for good UX expertise. The stakeholders involved in the process need to be convinced on the positive and efficient outcomes User Experience can generate. The stakeholders need to be on the same page as the UX team before initiating the process.
Pineapple Studios states, 'According to Analysis 101 start-up post-mortems, ignoring the users, their needs and not accounting for great user experience is the reason why 17% of the start-ups fail. 17% is a huge number and can't be ignored. While other studies show the effect of UX/UI of a product in a company amounts to 30% of its success. This overpowers the contribution of a good business model towards the company's success.’
UX designers begin a process with thorough customer-oriented research before even delving into the design aspect of the project. A UX designer is a multi- faceted role which is sometimes defined by one person or mostly by a set of professionals including –
Research
The UX researcher conducts concise and consumer-oriented research for the deep-rooted problems consumers are facing with the current similar products in the market. Research is carried around the parameters that will be the essential elements of the final design. The process involves interviewing sales support and training staff as well as listening to customer support calls that are filled with all possible inputs for the system being not functional to customer expectations. Testing competitor sites of possible design flaws and gaps and ensuring such experience is eliminated from the client site. Preference, goals, behaviour, patterns, needs and market dynamics all broadly form a part of the research. Research on compatibility, time and effort reduction with efficient framework suggestions is also the need in place. Research also includes taking feedback on design flows and paper prototype before advancing to the advancing phase.
Creating Buyer Personas
This is an interesting element of UX designing. Designers create buyer's persona depending on the research analysis. This creates a pool of the predictive consumer base that is going to buy your products and the design team can design around their expectations. This helps streamline process and efforts.
UX Design
A UX designer based on the research, buyer’s persona and other input at hand comes up with a constructive design plan. The UX designer designs wireframes
from the research information available. The UX design process begins with idea generation and then refining on that idea. The process includes building frameworks that are structural forms explaining the flow of the ideation.
Visual Design
Visual designers offer muscle to the wireframes with lines, shapes, colours and textures. They make designs appealing by using the right typography and use of design elements like unity, dominance, scale, contrast and hierarchy to influence design experiences.
Content Creation & Development
Specific, clear and fresh content will keep the consumers captivated to your site.
Product Testing
Once the prototype is ready it can be tested for flawless outcomes. User experiences means smooth and conditioned interactions between the consumers and the system for a comfortable experience.
The content creators and developers work hand-in-hand with the UX team to create the difference. The process should be implemented in line with the above listing. Some stakeholders might drop the research phase, moving directly to the design. They would want the research to be done once prototyping is done. This might then create a set of challenges, making the design team rework on the modules or start fresh killing the time, efforts and finances involved.
Start-ups do not have the leverage of time and finances and need to act wisely on their spends. UX designers come as a promising choice when designing products because of the comprehensive yet specialised nature of solutions that they can provide.
Interesting reading: How to Hire a Great UI/UX Designer
About Author
Amalendu Harjaa
Founder & CEO | Web2UI
Amalendu is an experience design specialist with 18+ years of experience, most of those years he spent exclusively as a User Experience Designer (UX Designer) with major IT agencies and E-Commerce portals. He has worked on a variety of projects including financial and forex web and mobile apps, e-commerce, brand and marketing sites, financial dashboards; user-generated content, social networking, and on-demand mobile applications for various clients. Pepperfry.Com, Funds-SP for S&P500, Porsche, Walmart are some of the clients he has worked with.
He is located in Mumbai, India and trying to help SaaS and tech start-ups with user and customer experience design via his company Web2UI (http:// web2ui.com).
In his free time, Amalendu loves to work as a short an ad filmmaker and he has won several awards for his film works and his short films have been selected in multiple prestigious film festivals around the globe.
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