If you want to create a website that brings in the sort of visitors you want and encourages them to do the actions you want them to take, then it has to be customized to meet the needs of those visitors. It goes without saying that the goals set for the brand also need to be accomplished. On the other hand, if the website cannot turn visitors into customers, those objectives will never be achieved. Because of this, user experience (UX) designers are an essential component of the web design process. By creating from the point of view of the customer, they increase the likelihood of commercial success for a brand.
Goals
The goals of UX designers may be broken down into two categories:
- Create website experiences that put the user first and don’t have any obstacles.
- Assist their customers in accomplishing their professional goals with the help of the website
The Process of UX Design
Research
Data collection to develop testable hypotheses about a website may be carried out in several methods by UX designers.
Examining competitors is one component of this process; it is of particular use when developing a website for a new company with very little or no client data from which to draw.
Another useful measure to use throughout the research process is the industry’s statistics. UX designers make use of this data to, among other things, learn much more about the audience, spot trends in the industry, and so on.
Some user experience designers will additionally participate in field research. However, this is not always necessary, depending on the scale of the website. The designers will get first-hand knowledge of who the intended audience is, their challenges, and what drives them via user surveys and interviews.
User Personas
User experience researchers often make up imaginary users to utilize as user personas. They take what they’ve learned about their client’s target audience and then use that information with their identified qualities to develop a potential customer (or personas, if they have numerous user segments).
The objective is to provide a depiction of the user that is as accurate as possible so that the designer can promote and sell products to the customer more successfully.
The Architecture of Information
When building a website, UX designers use a methodical, gradual, and carefully measured method. Consequently, after the investigation’s completion, the information system’s planning will begin.
Card sorting is a technique that is used by UX designers to devise the most effective website workflows, arrangement of information, and overall structure. Users are required to provide feedback directly on this aspect of the UI design.
Wireframes
In most cases, wireframes are little more than skeletons. In plenty of other words, you can see the layout in addition to the blank spots on the page that are designated for the placement of photos, text, and other components. The end, as they say. In the mock-up stage of the project, it is much simpler to concentrate on making creative and strategic design decisions if the page’s basis has already been sketched out.
You may create wireframes by sketching them by hand, you can make them using tools designed specifically for wireframing, or you can generate your wireframes from inside Elementor.
Analysis, Usability Testing, and Iteration
UX designers participate in a continuous cycle of labour. They don’t just speculate about what may be successful on the internet; instead, they test their ideas. They tried them out and saw the results.
UX designers may undertake usability testing in several different techniques, including the following:
- Interviews conducted face to face
- Surveys
- Forms for providing comments on websites
- Heatmaps
- Recordings from sessions
They adjust the website by the input from actual users and the statistics gathered from the live website. UX design is an iterative process. Its primary goals are to continually enhance the quality of the user experience and to assist the company in surpassing its objectives over time.
What is User Interface Design (UI Design)?
There is no shadow of a doubt that the accessibility and usefulness of a website are critical for the individuals that visit it. However, the experience of browsing around or using a website is not the only factor affecting the conversion and abandonment rates of the website.
The manner that it appears is another essential consideration.
The Aesthetic-Usability Effect is a web design concept that provides evidence for this assertion. Users generally feel that aesthetically pleasing interfaces perform better than those that do not.
Therefore, user interface design plays a significant part in establishing a positive initial impression and leading people into the actual experience that the user experience designer has laboured so hard to develop.
Goals The following are some of the aims of UI designers:
- Develop user interfaces capable of effectively capturing the personality, voice, and core values of the brand
- Design user interfaces that are visually beautiful and evoke a favourable reaction from the end user
- Create user interfaces and interactions that increase conversion rates as much as possible
The environment will be considerably more user-friendly and pleasurable to use, thanks to the work of a skilled UX designer. An experienced user interface designer will ensure that the user can navigate the environment without difficulty or confusion, so they won’t have to aimlessly walk about attempting to get the information they need.
To the minutest degree, user interface designers are concerned with the aspects of a website that are visible to site visitors. In addition, it is their responsibility to create the interactions that keep users interested in the information and allow them to move fluidly from one page to the next.
UI Design Process
Research
Research is the first step in the design process for user interfaces. Although a portion of it includes doing user analysis. If the customer already has a website, further research will be required.
The purpose of doing competitive research for UI designers is to find out what the most successful organisations in a particular industry are doing with their websites and observe how they seem and function.
Additionally, they do the study designs. When it comes to user interface design, creativity and memorability are both essential components. However, the users’ faith in the interface is just as vital. In addition, deviating too far from established standards might create significant issues for many websites.
A significant portion of this information will be common knowledge to them, such as the most recent tendencies in web design and the most current web standards demand topics like responsive design, accessibility, and code standards. But in addition to that, it’s possible that they need to brush up on what’s currently popular within their field of specialisation.
Because psychology plays a significant role in user interface design, UI designers will need to brush up on both the fundamentals of website design and user psychology to guarantee that their designs effectively evoke the desired emotional responses from end users.
Brand Identity
Building a brand identity is not limited to creating a logo; UI designers might be required to assist customers in this regard.
Building a visual identity for a brand entail formulating a plan for how the branding of a website will seem and ensuring that it conveys the appropriate messages to the consumers who are intended to view it.
Therefore, UI designers will first need to determine what the personality of the brand is and what its visual style is. After that, they will organise the brand imagery that corresponds with them, which includes various components such as the colour palette, typography, images, iconography, and patterns, among other things.
Style Guides/Design Systems
No of the kind of website you want to create, you really need to have a style guide. On the other hand, a design system is most suited for use with more prominent websites or those that need continuous upkeep and changes.
Working alone makes no difference whether you are a user experience or user interface designer. A style guide is helpful for several reasons, including the following:
- It’s a written strategy that will assist you in maintaining your momentum while you work on the website you’re creating.
- It may be distributed to other contributors so that you can verify that their work adheres to your set standards.
- Because you won’t have to start from scratch each time, updating or redesigning your website in the future will go much more quickly and easily.
Things will advance further thanks to a design system. A user interface designer will specify those styles inside your design system. Still, they will also store their elements in a library, which will, once again, cut down on the amount of work needed for future designs and redesigns. Design systems also provide a concise summary of the project’s aims, the values of the brand, and how the website will implement them.
Mock-ups
The UI designer will take all of the findings from their research and planning sessions and mix them with the foundation established by the UX designer.
The mock-ups of the website will be representations in full size, full colour, and in their entirety of what each individual web page would look like in the final result.
They can construct them using design or mock-up tools, similar to how user experience designers draw wireframes for a website. They also can design their mock-ups directly in Elementor, which will be a straightforward process if the wireframes are already present in the editor. Additionally, it will help the development process go more efficiently.
A/B Testing
As soon as the website is live, the UI designers need to closely check the website’s traffic metrics to see whether or not there may be possible friction preventing visitors from converting. They also have the option of working with UX designers to conduct heatmaps and session recordings on the website to determine whether they can identify UI roadblocks in real-time.
On the other hand, rather than implementing a solution that is here to stay based on these insights. A user interface designer will first establish a hypothesis about the problem, such as “the CTA button is too far down the page,” and then conduct an A (control) and B (variable) test to see whether or not an alternative design is more effective.
In all likelihood, the user interface designer will be able to conduct A/B testing throughout the lifetime of a website. They are helpful not only for eliminating problems with the website’s visual design but also for enhancing its overall appearance and atmosphere.
What’s the difference between user interface design and user experience design?
We hope that you are now beginning to grasp how user experience and interface design are two entirely separate things. But we’ll let Dain Miller explain the link between user experience design and user interface design in a nutshell:
The user interface comprises the saddle, stirrups, and reins. The user experience (UX) is the sensation of someone being allowed to ride a horse.
Dain Miller, Web Developer.
It is essential to understand that user experience and interface are inextricably linked; you simply cannot have one without the other. However, to be a UX designer, you do not need to be skilled in UI design, and vice versa; UX and UI design are two independent positions, each with its own processes and responsibilities!
