If you own a business you must know that running it without a website or a mobile application in a smartphone-powered generation can make you irrelevant no later than needed. In an era where the world sums up over the palm of your hands, it becomes critically important to have a website or even better, an app for your business. But, just owning a website or an app isn’t enough, only a well-developed website or a mobile application in accordance with the UI/UX design can bring you better results. Today UI/UX design, which is an abbreviation of User Interface and User Experience, holds greater significance than ‘just creating a website’. A good UI/UX design enables the users to feel an uplifting experience, making UI/UX pre-eminent. As Steve Jobs once said, “The design is not just what it looks like and feels like. The design is how it works”, this, to date acts as an explanatory quote to the basics of UI/UX design. Furthermore, in the user and consumer-centric market UI/UX acts as a tool to strengthen your brand value and gain an instant edge over your competition.
Before we move onto the importance, let's try and understand what exactly UI/UX is.
User Interface or UI is simply a process of manoeuvering and engineering the interface and making it intuitive. To put it simply, UI is designing an interface, which is attractive and user-oriented. Buttons, icons, menu bars, typography, colors, etc. are some elements to be focused on while creating an ideal UI. In the much broader perspective, it is all about presentation and interactivity and also how uncomplicated it is. There is one thing that needs to be kept in mind that users hardly care about your design, they care about getting their work done with minimum effort.
Compared to UI, UX is a much broader concept. UXD which expands to User Experience design is, in many ways, self-explanatory. Although UX extends to various industries, we will only focus on its digital aspect. UX design is a complete procedure of understanding and supporting user behavior providing them with a relevant and integrated experience. An ideal UX designing process involves factors such as branding, design, usability, and function. It also helps shape a customer's perception of a brand. The aim of a good UX design helps the user to navigate through what he/she desires.
Now that we know what UI/UX design is, we shall move on to its importance. A good design provides people with clear directions, navigating them through each page of information while displaying relevant calls-to-action so that decisions are simple and straightforward.
UI/UX is all about having a better understanding of your audience. Ultimate goal is always user satisfaction so all designing is done keeping in mind the comfortability of the user and especially the target audience. UI/UX allows you to segment and stratifies the customers/users based on the gathered data, giving you further insight into your key audience. While, many might believe that UI/UX is about designing, on contrary, it is more about studying and analyzing the users. With personas in your hand, you are equipped with vital information which gives you access to a stronger understanding of your audience which will prove beneficial all along the way.
There will be no mistake in saying that a quality UI/UX builds your brand reputation like no other thing can. When you give your user a beautiful interface that requires minimum effort and helps the user where he/she wants to, doubtlessly the user is going to think highly of your brand. The process of UI/UX involves usability checks on the product, either through user tests or through design evaluations, all acting as factors that further strengthen your brand reputation. Not just that, an ideal design allows the user to hold high regard for your brand. A good brand reputation gives you an edge over your market competition.
Wondering why you aren’t able to retain the visitors on your app or website? UI/UX is the answer. The User Retention Rate provides you with numbers about time spent by a user on your application, website, or on a specific feature. The better your approach is to UI/UX, the better user retention numbers you will get. Easy navigation improves the customer experience and enables the user to spend more time at your website or app ultimately building his trust for your brand.
In the business world time is money and UI/UX saves you time not just in the short but also in the long-run process. A website or an application designed following the UI/UX requires no or minimum changes and is hardly ever infected with user glitches. In meeting sessions, the designer brings wireframes and prototypes that serve as a visual demonstration before any coding starts. The process of careful analysis and understanding of the data, user behavior, and need results in a flawless product saving you all the time which would have been needed in changes and updates. The figure below displays a UX/UI process, which will give you an idea of how UX/UI works.
We now know that User Interface is all about how it looks and User Experience is all about how it works. UI/UX design is a process of improving the overall experience of the users establishing a greater scope of growth with minimum drawbacks. Understanding and meeting the needs of your key audience and making your website or mobile app more engaging is usually the goal of UI/UX design. However, it can be a little tedious to work with UI/UX while stressing your other business operations. Companies often opt for UI/UX design services (hyperlink) which not only helps them in uplifting elements of growth but is also cost-efficient.