Have you ever bought something that broke the moment you took it out of the box? Or have you used an app where the buttons are not well-positioned and you cannot click on them properly? Even worse, the interface was hard to look at because of the bold and bright colors? The same goes for software that makes completing tasks harder, not easier.
These are just a few examples of bad design that we all experienced at some point in our lives. Design is everywhere, and so is bad design. Wondering why?
Because business owners often forget the importance of designing for their end-users and understanding their needs, instead of focusing only on the product functionalities.
What is the difference between UX and UI?
Before talking more about the importance of design for your business, it is necessary to outline the difference between UX and UI and how each is crucial for the success of your product.
User experience design (UX) refers to the interaction between the user and your product. In other words, UX is all about understanding the needs of your users, as well as all the elements that shape their experience when they interact with your product.
Its goal is to create an easy, pleasant, and efficient experience for the user. Therefore, the UX designer will ask himself something like:
How easy is it to use this money transferring app? Is that appliance easy to set up and use every day? How complicated is it to choose your favorite coffee from that coffee machine? As you can see, UX applies to anything that can be experienced and felt by the user.
In order to develop a successful digital solution, a UX designer will create user personas (that represent your end users), wireframes (visual representations of how your product will look like at the end), and customer journey maps (defining how your product will fit into user's life). When taking all that into consideration, you can see that a good UX represents the backbone of the product development process.
On the other hand, UI or User Interface design refers to the design of the user interface of a product. The UI of a product is changing and developing alongside the product. It represents the connection between the users and your product.
UI designer’s job is to create as intuitive and easy-to-use interface as possible by keeping in mind the icons and buttons, their position on the interface, color, imagery, typography, etc. In other words, the UI designer optimizes your product for enjoyable use.
It is important to remember that both UX and UI are user-centric . Great UI grabs the attention and attracts the users to your product and great UX enables them to easily navigate through your product and become a loyal customer.
What is the core of designing a successful product?
Psychology plays a big part in the users’ experience with your product. Therefore, in order to provide the users with the experience that will make them buy, designers need to be psychologists, too.
It is important to get close to your target users, to understand the needs and problems that your product should solve for them. After researching the needs of the users, UX/UI designers design products that the users will find appealing and useful.
It is not the same creating an interface that will be primarily used by children on tablets and creating one that will be used by women in, let us say, administration. Since children have different needs, the interface and the layout of design elements need to be different from the ones used by women who have to type fast, for example. UX/UI designers have to keep all of those specific needs in mind if they want the product to be successful.
The benefits of investing in design
Take a look at these statistics:
- 75% of people judge the quality of an app or a website based on its aesthetic design
- Every $1 invested in UX brings $100 in return (that is an ROI of 9,900%!)
- A design study from 2016 that included 408 companies showed that the more a company invested and focused on design, the more sales they accumulated
- 8 out of 10 customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience
- 10 seconds - that is how long it takes the users to decide if they are staying or leaving your page
These numbers should be real eye-openers for those who think that only functionality is important and disregard the design.
Today, customers are more and more experience-drivenand providing them with a memorable, pleasing, and easy experience is the key to success. Users prefer products that are user-friendly and intuitive to use over those that are highly functional but not attractive to them!
Maintaining the balance between the functionality of the product and its UX/UI can seem demanding, but those businesses that do not adopt that mindset might find themselves falling behind their competitors.
Here are some of the ways good UX/UI benefits your business:
- Attracting users: The design is the first thing your users will experience, so grabbing their attention from start and ensuring they do not choose another competitor can be done with an appealing UX/UI design.
- Turning users into loyal customers: If your product is attractive and provides a positive experience, more and more users will be interested in buying or using it and that will increase your traffic. What makes the users loyal to you and not replacing your product with another one is the satisfaction they experience when they use your product.
- Increasing product recognition: Ensuring a great UX/UI of your product is crucial because that keeps your customers engaged, your ratings go up, as well as the reviews from satisfied users who will recommend your product to others. In other words, it will help you grow your brand name.
- Reducing costs and saving time: If you invest in UX/UI best practices from day one, there is less chance that your product will need to be updated and maintained in the future. This is crucial to understand because often even the developers themselves do not grasp the importance of design.
Even though the development is extremely important, if you do not invest in the design of the product from day one, the chances are you are going to build a product that has useful features but no one is going to buy it (remember the statistics above!).
Keep in mind:
The way a product is designed and what experience it provides to your users affects their decision whether they will buy and use your product.
If you disregard the design, you risk the ultimate success of your product and that in turn reduces the chances for your business to grow. Proper UX and UI design that is primarily user-centered ensures the product is appealing, intuitive, and fits the users' needs will always bring revenue and loyal customers to your business.
We have already recognized that being design-oriented is crucial for any digital product to succeed, so we would be happy to share our knowledge with you and help you develop a successful digital product.
Not sure where to start? Book our free team call and learn all about it.