UI/UX design is a sole determiner of your business’s growth and acts as a visual medium that instantly connects audience to your services and products.
The way a good design does wonders, missing design mistakes hampers your business’s design-led growth.
Covid-19 pandemic made the use of digital mediums an integral part of our day-to-day lives and with this increase in familiarity with the digital mediums, adaptation to digitalization has only been on the up.
This growing market brings in with it a plethora of competition, making UI and UX crucial factors for success.
A study carried out by Forrester in 2016 says, a well-created UI & UX could boost up your conversion rate by 400%.
Investing in a good UI & UX has hence become imperative in improving how your brand is being perceived, crucial in customer retention, and ultimately increasing revenue.
Also, many companies have not been able to catch up with this fast-evolving market need of a simplified and engaging UI & UX, and it has crucially hit their growth and success.
Below we will dive deep into exploring how poor UI & UX affects the success factors and also talk about remedies for its improvement.
What makes a poor UI/UX design?
A poor UI & UX is a combination of many factors, key amongst which are:
1. Lack of functional UI/UX design strategy:
Design should be carried keeping in mind the end-user, adding ease to the user, and engaging him furthermore.
Such user-centric and advanced UI&UX could only be created with thorough research carried out on the end-users and their need.
2. Not producing client-centric design:
Client feedback is an important factor in the success of a UI&UX design. Although an important factor, it shouldn’t overpower standard design principles set by designers.
Any counterproductive ideas from the clients must be pushed back by the designers, providing insight into why it is so.
3. Compromising on an investigation in design:
Creating a great UI&UX involves thorough research and inputs which amounts to a sizable amount of investment and time.
Cutting back on these factors can have an impact on design and overall success.
4. Not conducting enough tests:
Designs based on usability tests have become a norm due to their ability to get design feedback directly from users.
Such exhaustive tests give power to the user and give the designer more insight into the expectations of their app design.
What approach do professional UI/UX designers follow?
UI/UX designers follow Nelson Usability Heuristics to guide the process of design thinking. Let’s get an insight into it.
1. Keeping the user updated:
Every action should be correlated with an appropriate response.
Users should be always informed about the current state on the screen, whether it be loading or experiencing connection difficulties. Such information about the status prevents frustration born out of waiting and guesswork.
2. Matching the app to set standards:
Matching your app design to the standards the end user is familiar with and expects is important to how intuitive the app feels.
The app designers should, therefore, pay a sizable amount of attention to ensuring users can navigate their way around the app with ease and accomplish their end goals in as few interactions as possible.
3. Aesthetic and minimalist design:
User-centered app designs as you might have noticed from your use of the most famous apps today do not need to be complicated.
It can be very simplistic and help the end-user achieve their goals speedily.
4. Giving the user control over the app:
A good app UX is when the user has mastery over his actions within the app and can either interact or undo the said interaction.
Such freedom to undo and/or redo gives control to the user and can go a long way towards the overall UX one experiences.
How to improve UI/UX design?
Along with the factors causing a poor UI & UX, there are several remedies for improvement. We will look into this one by one.
1. Know that poor UI & UX designs do exist:
User expectations and needs must be prioritized and kept in mind by the designers. Usability tests with a sample of end-users must be conducted to ensure whatever that is discovered through the market and user research matches the actual expectation. The goal is to carry out design iterations driven by the user whose success can be measured.
2. Take inspiration from top players:
Visually appealing design might compensate for the lack of user-friendly flow. This, however, will be short-term and not last long especially with a client having a global audience where competitors are trying to outrun you at every step. Taking inspiration from the top players who are highly popular to understand what it takes to make it successful and popular.
3. Get into the end-user shoes:
User-centric UI&UX needs user input and for which it is recommended to create user personas and scenarios to understand how a user perceives a particular design, what their needs help in knowing how to engage the user further. Another trick is to create a minimum viable product (MVP) and let a sample of end-users use it before asking questions on expectations and improvements.
4. Sketch:
Constant constructive iterations are the key to making a great product, as even the biggest brands go through the same process towards their success. Get the user involved in the design process with user tests and solve problems together.
5. Test, test, and test:
Emphasis should always be placed on the usability test with a certain group of users. This will provide a fresh insight into improvements and issues you might have missed due to familiarity with the design.
To Conclude
In the age where customer experience is a sheer difference-maker and customers vie for seamless buying funnels, the role of UI/UX design becomes crucial.
Offering entry, the efficiency of your UI/UX design governs the course of customer interaction and plays a huge role in building a successful customer lifecycle framework.
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