As technology and techniques continue to improve, the way in which websites and mobile apps are built have become increasingly sophisticated. Regardless of how much has changed in the development process, the success of a website is still determined by one major factor, user experience (UX).
How your consumers perceive your website or app when they’re using it, directly influences whether they become a regular visitor or not. But just what is UX design? In this blog, we explain what UX design is along with its fundamentals, plus we share some tips to creating an engaging and rich user experience for your customers.
What is UX design?
Firstly UX, or user experience, refers to how individuals engage with a particular product. For example, when we wish to turn on a light in a room, we interact with a light switch. The switch’s design may affect our perception of the encounter, including its colour, material, and physical appearance.
In a digital environment, UX refers to everything that influences a user’s engagement with a digital product in digital design. When a consumer wants to purchase a product online, they frequently rate their buying experience using the following criteria:
- Value – is this product valuable to me?
- Function – is the product effective?
- Usability – is the product simple to use?
- Perception – overall, is it comfortable to use?
As well as this, consumers will rate their overall online experience when purchasing their product. Visitors have a goal in mind when visiting a website or app and if they can’t complete their goal with ease, you can guarantee they won’t intend to visit again. That’s where effective UX design comes into play.
What are the fundamentals of UX design?
When it comes to UX design, there are certain aspects of UX to be aware of. Humans are both intellectual and emotive, which both influence how users perceive a product. This is why user experience needs to be concerned with what people think and how they feel.
Additionally, UX is context dependent so it’s important to understand the role a product plays in your consumers lives. If you’re able to convince your audience your products bring value to their lives and are functional and easy-to-use, this is the first step to creating excellent UX design.
The next fundamental of UX design is how easy your customers can purchase their product on your website or app. This is where user experience is concerned with website speed, functionality, ease-of-use and checkout process amongst other things. Ensuring these elements are seamless is key to a consumer becoming a return customer.
3 factors to consider when creating exemplary UX design
As we’ve mentioned, UX design is all about how effortlessly a website or app enables users to accomplish their goals when visiting your online business. Here are a few factors to consider when creating exemplary UX design.
Experiential intuition
If your business owns an app, it’s important to ensure your users can launch and use it with ease and they don’t need much advice or instructions to be able to use it efficiently.
A key factor to consider here is the fact that it will undoubtedly take time for your user to use your app and therefore you need to consider experiential intuition with your UX design. A user’s intuitive use of an app will be influenced by other interactions they’ve had with other apps and those experiences will almost certainly be comparable to your app.
In this instance, it’s vital to ensure your app is easy-to-use. For example, ensure your content is rendering correctly for different devices, your navigation is easy-to-use and that all functionality works correctly and as it should so your users can enjoy a positive experience when using your app.
Continuity and coherence
Coherence should be a key consideration with your UX design. There are UX design standards that should be adhered to which are influenced by platform manufacturing rules, otherwise known as criteria for Human Interface Design (HID). Some of these standards have been set based on previous UX designs from other brands, where successful UX designs have been used for inspiration and bad designs have been ignored.
As well as coherence, continuity should also be a key consideration and this tends to stem from user expectations. Based on previous experience with other brands, websites and apps, users will become accustomed to certain design elements and functionality of a website or app, and this is something that UX designers need to factor into their work.
For example, a customer may expect to see a CTA button in a certain place on a page and if it’s somewhere different than where they’d expect, it can lead to a bad user experience and potentially cost you a conversion.
Specifications of the platform
The type of platform you are creating can have a significant impact on your UX design, as interface methods will differ in many ways. While the difference between two mobile devices may be minimal, the interface between a smartphone and a desktop for example will be significantly different.
Not only will HID guidelines differ widely between platforms, they will also differ between brands. Certain organisations may have highly specific and stringent criteria for app developers to follow, whereas other businesses may offer more open-ended criteria that allow for new, more efficient designs without jeopardising design consistency.
So when it comes to your UX design, it’s important you’re clear on your brief and what you want to achieve from your user experience and also be mindful of the huge range of platforms and devices available as this will impact the overall design.
Let us help with your UX design
As we can see, UX design is a nuanced science influenced by various circumstances. However, getting it right is vital to a website or app’s success. We hope we’ve been able to answer the age old question: ‘what is UX design?’ and we’ve been able to give you some tips to creating successful UX designs.
By simply putting your customers’ needs first, learning about their expectations, and then exceeding those expectations, you’ll develop a bank of devoted consumers who will sing your praises and help spread the word about your brand.
If you’d like us to help with your UX design, be sure to contact us today. Our UX design specialists will work closely with you to understand your brand and your customers and devise you a UX strategy that is sure to provide your audience with a seamless user journey.