How often have you opened an app and closed it because it doesn’t fit your screen, or doesn’t look that appealing, or is just too complicated to navigate? Or do you remember how you felt when you opened an app – excited, bored, or irritated?

So what happens when your app doesn’t match the consumer’s expectations and they face any issue related to your application design – of course, they would choose to uninstall and look for better options. This is where an experienced UI and UX designer comes to your rescue. The design and development industry has withstood the test of time and has evolved to become experiential, innovative, and immersive.

While there are many brands like Swiggy, Airbnb, Uber, Instagram, etc that are actively updating their app designs depending upon the consumer behaviour, there are still few brands that are not giving the attention to the app design that it deserves. Such brands or companies will slowly fade away from consumer’s smartphones and app stores.

In this article, let us look at what is the importance of UI and UX design for mobile apps. But before that, let us understand what does UI and UX mean. User Interface(UI), is a way through which a user interacts with the application. The developers usually aim at providing easy, and effective interactions through UI. User Experience(UX), is about creating a system or application which provides the best experience to the users. UX design aims to keep users engaged by enabling a positive journey on the application.

Why does your app need an efficient UI and UX design? 

Living in a fast-paced world, the attention span of customers/users is limited to just a few seconds. It is in these 10-15 seconds that you have to sell them your application and keep them hooked to it. A hooked user will spend more time on your application, and if both of you are on the same page he/she may become a loyal user. So, what is it that can grab a user’s attention in no time? Is it the content or service offering or visuals? Well, it is the UI and UX of the application that helps them to be hooked to an app. A favorable and relevant UI and UX design will help you in keeping your users engaged.

So apart from captivating users, here is what UI and UX do:

Enhances customer satisfaction and improves ROI

An impressive app with easy to navigate design and compelling content will keep your users satisfied with the services of your application. A happy user is likely to recommend your app to their peers, folks, and friends. This will increases your user database, thereby helping you increase ROI.

Understanding audiences and user behaviour 

UI and UX of an app are designed by keeping audiences or users in the core. Once you design your application keeping that in mind, your app will automatically attract the audience it is built for. Furthermore, UI and UX design can help you customise your application for different audience segments, thereby keeping all your audiences sets engaged and happy. Therefore, this is what helps you to convent your prospects to your loyal customers.

Also, the user journey through your app will help you analyse the flaws in your application’s UI and UX design and you can take corrective measures to bridge the gaps.

Builds your brand 

A great UI and UX design will keep your audiences engaged, happy, and loyal. People like sticking to applications that make them feel happy and will be the best ambassadors for your band. They add more credibility to your business, which increases your business and brand value.

Now you know how crucial the role of UI and UX design is in the success of your application. The only way to ace at your UI and UX design is to understand the pulse of your audience. If you are looking to have a compelling UI and UX design then reach out to us at contact@goodworklabs.com or call +91- 9863077000 and our creative UI and UX design team will you build an efficient and effective UI and UX design for you application.

An introduction to Enterprise Application

Beyond streamlining business processes and functionalities, enterprise applications are now featured with remote mobility and real-time knowledge transfers. They are the oil in the corporate system keeping functions intact and are saving a lot of money, time, and effort. No doubt the dependence on enterprise applications is increasing and they have become indispensable in the contemporary world. As the enterprise apps have a very crucial role to play in the overall operations of any organization, special attention is paid to every aspect of the UX design for enterprise applications. 

These apps can be categorized across several platforms like across intranets, internet, or corporate networks. Usually, enterprise apps are customized to meet the requirements of multi-layer organizations. 

To create one full-fledged dynamic enterprise app, hundreds of separate requirements are knitted together to design a flawless app that delivers assistive, functional, and delightful user experience. As easy and cheesy as it may sound, the designing process of an enterprise app is tiresome and requires patience, commitment, and endless hours of designing. 

Why put serious thoughts into designing enterprise apps?

Do you ever buy a piece of clothing that misfits your body? No right?

Precisely why some serious thought process is required while designing enterprise apps! It has to perfectly solve the issues faced by real users. The UX is designed after full comprehension of user requirements, user behavior, user preferences, and pain points that were not addressed by the existing software. Intelligent design will extend the benefits of utility to users, employees, and organizations at large.

If your enterprise app is updated and agile to adapt to changing user requirements, you are already ahead of your competitors who are still using legacy apps. A well-integrated enterprise app that is designed to fulfill the requirements of all business departments is a high-grade tool to boost your business revenues.

Find out how UX design can help increase the performance of enterprise applications:

1. Improves Efficiency: Usually, the enterprise apps are not user-friendly as they are designed based on how the top management wants employees to work. A more productive enterprise app will be the one that assists employees in their work and improves their productivity. 

A user-centric approach is required to bridge the gap between the existing enterprise apps and the actual requirements of the users. A customized UX design will drive better and faster workflows that are easy on the users and will improve the efficiency of the tasks at hand.

2. Data Optimization & Forecasting: Enterprise apps backed by big data capabilities helps in unlocking business insights and actionable opportunities with a single click.

Contrary, corporates of all magnitudes are leveraging big data analytics to drive better comprehension of customer’s needs and behavior. Based on these insights, companies are building products and services around user needs.

3. Less cognitive load: It is often seen that enterprise apps have a cluttered home screen. This inflicts users to deal with confusing options to accomplish a rather simple task. With a cautious effort put in designing, such confusing interfaces can be simplified to minimal and most relevant choices.

It is essential to simplify the home screen. Human abilities to perceive and process data are limited and access to unnecessary information diminishes efficiency at work. With a well-designed interface, the possibility of errors reduces and information can be accessed at a very fast pace.

4. Cost-effective Solutions: The cost benefits of good design are indisputable. With an intuitive interface, little or no training is required for the user to learn how to operate the app. Also, scalability issues and technology redundancy that can lead to ad hoc investments in the future can be optimized by an agile design. This, in turn, will also help to optimize maintenance and set up costs to a major extent.

5. Greater Employee Satisfaction: A digital tool should assist users rather than burdening them with the requirement of understanding complex functions. Hence, simplified interfaces are the most essential elements of user interaction. An intelligent UX design directly relates to lowering the stress levels of the users. Lesser efforts, in turn, result in better productivity.

Roadblocks while designing an Enterprise application

There are sizeable roadblocks in creating a UX driven enterprise app and these require the immediate attention of a UX designer. Also, a proper UX driven app requires investment in terms of time, efforts, and funds. 

Below, we have listed a few roadblocks that you might face while designing an enterprise app.

1. Cross-platform Integration: The purpose of an enterprise app is that it has to be a single point platform for all organizational needs. It is supposed to be integrated with different types of software, processes, and frameworks, and remain user-friendly across different verticals. This purpose is defeated when the organization proceeds to buy different software at the time of development without considering the integration challenges that can arise at the later stage. At this point, cross-platform integration is a big challenge for UX designers.
2. Training Sessions: An enterprise application is built to suit the needs of employees from different departments and across different verticals. Separate training sessions will be required to demonstrate the functionalities of the enterprise app. These sessions will also require additional resources.
3. Iterative Process: As the enterprise app serves multiple purposes at the same time, it is bound to undergo several iterations to achieve a near-to-perfection operative stage. Hence, when you design an enterprise app, be prepared for a long-term association with the project.

With the correct UX design strategy, enterprise applications can do wonders for your organization. Want to build a custom enterprise application for your business? Let’s talk!

Customized UI frameworks offer a bunch of benefits over ready-to-use frameworks, which have influenced many companies to switch to customized solutions. Both ready-to-use and customized frameworks provide their set of advantages and drawbacks, and it all boils down to your business objectives and challenges. Let’s dive into the comparison between these two types of frameworks, along with some tips to create a custom UI framework in JavaScript.

UI Frameworks: An Overview

UI framework refers to a software suite that provides the users with APIs to build new UI components or customize the existing ones. A framework, in general, is a platform for developing applications. UI framework is used to speed up the development process of a front-end application. It enables the developers to develop stunning, responsive and unique multi-device applications without having in-depth design, development, and technical skills. 

UI frameworks are entirely based on web standards, like CSS, HTML5, and JavaScript. For example, Twitter created a custom UI framework of Bootstrap Framework, which is an open-source, free-to-use, responsive, compatible, and customizable. UI frameworks are typically categorized into:

• Ready-to-use UI Framework
• Customized UI Framework

Both have discreet advantages and disadvantages — ready-to-use frameworks are easy-to-use and stable but consist of limitations and lack of control, whereas, customized frameworks offer optimization and full control but require time and expertise and need frequent updates and bug fixes. But, the comparison between the two goes way beyond these factors; thus, let’s discuss the difference between ready-to-use and front-end solutions in detail.

Front-end Frameworks: Custom vs. Ready-to-use Solutions

Ready-to-Use Solutions Advantages

One of the primary reasons people prefer sticking to ready-to-use solutions is its simplicity and functionality. Let’s look at some of the significant benefits of these types of frameworks. 

Plug-and-play functionality: In ready-to-use frameworks, all you need to do is type some markup and you will get a functional code without bothering about factors like dynamic behavior and styling. 

Stable and well-tested code: When you download a ready-to-use framework package, you can be rest assured that the code is stable and well tested. Thus, your website or application will perform well on all the platforms and browsers supported by the particular framework. 

Regular updates: Another significant advantage of ready-to-use frameworks that makes it a go-to choice for most developers is the frequent updates, new features, and bug fixes it receives. 

More significant Community: Ready-to-use frameworks usually have a large community, which you can rely on in times of troubles and doubts. These communities readily provide articles, tutorials, FAQs, add-ons, and extensions for framework learning and website & app development process. 

Ready-to-Use Solutions Disadvantages

The advantages of ready-to-use frameworks look appealing, and you might be on the verge of downloading one for your next development task. But, hold on for a second, as it offers some drawbacks as well, which you cannot look beyond. Here are a few disadvantages of using a ready-to-use framework. 

You still need to learn: Although these frameworks don’t require a lot of technical expertise, you still need to invest time and effort to learn to use it to make the most out of the plug-and-play functionality.

Excess of code: Ready-to-use frameworks are developed for a large segment of users; thus, it attempts to provide functionality for all kinds of developers. It might sound good on the surface, but this one-for-all approach results in a lot of unnecessary code, which might be a burden to use. 

You will need to modify it: Since it is made for a large number of consumers, it comes with a standard set of features, which, in its general form, might not be able to cater to your requirements. Therefore, you will need to tweak a ready-to-use framework to make it functional, which will take additional time and effort.

Standard-looking websites: If you are not able to tweak the framework and stick with the general one, your site will look generic like every other website made using that framework. The look and feel of your website play a vital role in attracting visitors, and having a dull site will damage the reputation and image of your brand.  

Third-party integrations: Since these types of frameworks have limited functionality and usable components, you will need to add third-party integrations.

You can’t change the code: The primary disadvantage of ready-to-use solutions is the limitations you have while using it. If you want to use a component of the framework, but the development team decides to remove it,  you cannot do anything but accept the change.

Customized UI Frameworks Advantages

Custom solutions provide seamless functionality and accessibility. More in-detail benefits are discussed below. 

Less time and effort required: When you develop a custom framework, you do so as per your objectives and long-term requirements, which helps to save a substantial amount of time and effort in the future. 

Control over the code: Since you have made the framework, you have full control over its code and design implementation; thus, no features will be removed until you remove them yourself. 

Uniqueness: Customized solutions allow you to give your website a unique touch, which makes your site look more attractive and responsive.

Customized UI Frameworks Disadvantages

Apart from a plethora of advantages, custom solutions offer a few drawbacks as well, as discussed below. 

Time and effort: You will need to put in time and effort in the early stages of requirement; however, after the framework is ready, you will save a significant amount of time and resources. 

Testing and maintenance: For the browsers you are targeting, you will need to test and maintain the code regularly.  

You are responsible for bug fixes and updates: Since you have made the framework, you will be responsible for all the updates, bug fixes, and new features you want to add to the framework. 

The Best Solution

So, as you can see that both types of frameworks offer their set of benefits and drawbacks, and for a beginner developer, making the right call can be a tedious task. However, there is a third solution as well, which many refer to as a semi-custom solution. It can be achieved by performing customizations on ready-to-use solutions like Bootstrap. 

Best practice to create Custom UI framework in JavaScript

Creating frameworks can take a lot of time and effort; therefore, make sure you do it rightly and smartly. Here are a few practices you should keep in mind when creating a custom UI framework in JavaScript. 

Don’t create a framework similar to an existing one: Many developers do this — just because they don’t want to use a ready-to-use framework, they create a new one with the exact same features and functionalities. There are already a lot of excellent frameworks available, and if you create one that does the exact same thing that any other framework does, you have done nothing but wasted your time and effort. Therefore, take the matter in your own hands only if you feel no other framework out there caters to your requirements. 

Make sure you are solving a problem: You can consider this point as an extension of the above point. Every good framework is created under the shadow of a problem, and if you are contemplating designing a custom framework, make sure it helps people overcome some common challenges. You can either create a solution that no one is talking about or create a better version of an existing framework that is in demand. A few common examples of frameworks that solve problems are:

• jQuery: provides seamless selection and manipulation of DOM 
• Modernizr: helps effortless identification of features a browser supports

If you know what your framework is all about, you can make it worth it. 

Don’t rewrite: If you feel you can solve a problem better than some other framework, make sure you don’t end up rewriting it but entirely modify it to cater to your requirements. 

Chase Stability: Unless you are creating a custom framework targeted to cater to highly specific requirements, don’t play around with the code. Avoid experimenting and making the code unstable as it will slow down your framework along with making it incompatible with previous browsers. Instead,  keep it simple and straightforward. 

Make it open-source: Making your source openly available is a great idea — giants like Google have invested years in creating open-source frameworks like AngularJS. Making your framework open-source will help you gain the attention of fellow developers that are willing to contribute to your project. This, in turn, will enable you to speed up your development process, along with making the final product better and bug-free.

Wrapping It Up

Customized UI frameworks offer excellent functionality and flexibility to develop websites and web applications, whereas ready-to-use solutions offer stability and uniformity. Selecting the best among the two can be a challenging thing to do, and you should make a call depending upon your capabilities and requirements. If you feel you are capable of creating a custom solution and you think it is worth making a new one, go for it; if not, stick to ready-to-use frameworks.

To create custom UI frameworks for your business, get in touch with us at contact@goodworklabs.com or visit us at www.goodworklabs.com.

A best UI UX design studio that offers comprehensive aspects of design and quality can help you attain an edge over your competitors. It might take you a while to figure out the studio that best caters to your needs, but waiting for the right one is worth it as every company needs a strategic UI UX design partner to ensure its brand and products achieve quality exposure and growth.

If your business needs a design partner, but you confused about how to choose the right one, this piece of information can help. Let’s dive into an overview of UI UX design, and a few factors to consider finding the best design studio for your business.

UI UX Design: An Overview

User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) refers to the overall experience of a user while using a website or an application. This experience plays a vital role in determining several aspects, such as engagement, conversions, and retention rates. If the experience is clunky, confusing, or frustrating, the user is likely to discontinue using it, whereas, if the experience is pleasant and simple, the consumer will love using it recurrently. The UX design of a product includes several aspects, such as branding, usability, technical side, and of course, the design. A lot depends on the user’s requirements and preferences as well; therefore, make sure to create an accurate buyer persona before commencing the UI UX design process.

Before Choosing a Best UI UX Design Studio

Create a base for your design project before contacting a design agency. Here are a few points to include in the short brief you compile.

•         Your new project end goal
•         What is your budget
•         Expected timeline
•         Exact features list
•         Target audience and buyer persona

That being said, let’s dive into a few factors to consider to choose the best UI UX design agency for your business.

Past Experiences

The primary thing to consider while choosing a design studio is the portfolio of the agency. Having a glance at the past work helps you determine the work style, skillset, and the approach of a company, and it can be a major factor in determining whether the studio suits your requirements or not. A few points to take note of while analyzing the portfolio of an agency are:

•  Number of projects completed: Be sure the experience the studio claims to have is recorded and is not merely a concept.
•  Uniqueness: Does all the projects of the agency follow a similar pattern or design trend? It is always better to choose an agency that takes a unique approach to every process.
•  The Quality of Design: Quality of work is one of the significant aspects to consider while looking at the past work of a studio. Be sure to analyze the spacings, sizes, and navigations used by the agency in its previous designs.
•  Genuinity of the case study: The ultimate motive of UI UX design is to improve the user metrics apart from enhancing the experience. Check whether the case study includes data like retention, engagement, and conversion metrics.
•  Explanation of the process and end design goals: The studio should always describe the design process precisely, and if they don’t, they might lack knowledge of their previous work, which is negative. Look for agencies that are connected with their past projects and know their processes along with stats and facts. You can emphasize asking concrete examples of how did they manage to reach specific ends design goals like increased engagement or conversions.
•  Criticism and Feedback: Hit the web to get a clear idea of what do people talk about the studio, and how does it react to feedback and criticism.

The Quality of Communication

The way a studio communicates with you provides an evident idea of the professionalism of the studio. Ideally, an agency should demonstrate enthusiasm and determination to work with you, and if you cannot spot that kind of excitement, maybe you should look for other design partners.

Also, ask them the frequency with which they contact their clients. Transparency and involvement of clients are necessary to ensure project success. A studio should always update you concerning each day’s process and plans for the upcoming days.

Design Task Understanding

If a company wants to know the ins and outs of your projects, it is a good sign. A company showing interest in detailed questions and research indicates its involvement and enthusiasm to work with you. Thus, if a studio wants to have a full understanding of your business objectives and requirements before they start, stick to them, and if the agency is willing, to begin with, mockups, look for better options.

Project Management

A company’s project managing skills determine how well they can manage a project. A few questions you need to get answered by the studio are:

•         Will the agency deliver the final design as per the schedule?
•         How frequently will they update you regarding the progress of the project?
•         Does the company has some prerequisites or is there anything the company needs?

Having answers to these questions helps you determine how the agency will deliver results. You can also get a vague idea of a studio’s management skills by seeing if they sent the proposal on time, and how often do they communicate.

Testimonials

Client reviews are one of the best indicators of a studio’s performance. If you know someone who has worked with a design studio, talk to them to gather evidence about how did the agency perform. You can also approach a recent client to get feedback and information. Most importantly, ask if they are willing to work with the company again and the reason for them to do so. Lastly, you can refer to the web and refer some review websites such as Clutch and LinkedIn to get individual ratings and feedbacks.

The Team of the Studio

You should always ask for detailed information regarding an agency’s team, product managers, project managers, and creative directors that will be responsible for handling your project’s deliverables, end quality, and communication. The team of the studio might be located in an office or may work remotely; both cases have their set of advantages and disadvantages.

Most importantly, when looking for an agency, talk to the agency lead designer and not just the salesperson or project manager before finalizing.

Look for Specialization

Branding solution providers can also provide UI UX design services, but they might not be able to provide best-in-class services like a dedicated UI UX design studio. If you want your product design to have a significant impact on your audience, don’t get lured for one-for-all services and stick to an expert design studio. Even if you are looking for a multi-service agency, make sure its primary skill set is UI UX design. Lastly, the quality and ability of the studio to deal with the desired range of fields or subjects are also essential.

Assurance of Quality

The management of quality assurance plays a significant role in UI UX design by ensuring that the delivered products meet the specifications of design and interaction. The studio should plan, direct, and coordinate design quality assurance programs to make sure the final project meets the expectations of the end-users.

User Research, Audit, Testing, and Benchmarks

Before hiring a design studio, ensure it has exhaustive experience with the following skills.

•         User testing and user research
•         Usability testing and usability studies
•         UX audit
•         Usability benchmarking
•         Wireframe and interaction prototype design
•         Personas reports
•         Mockup design
•         Sitemap, experience Maps, and Information Architecture
•         User Flows
•         User Journeys
•         Final visual design

These skills are essential because the majority of UX UI design is based on user research, testing, personas, and flow designs.

Wrapping It Up

Design is one of the most critical factors in branding your business and determines how your brand is presented in front of its target audience. It also plays a vital role in attracting, engaging, and converting customers, which makes design the topmost priorities for brands and enterprises. Therefore, it is essential to wisely choose a UI UX design studio to ensure your business gets the performance you desire.

To know more about UI UX, visit us today at GoodWorkLabs, and get a free consultation.

We all have heard people chatting and walking around the streets of tech cities, talking about the great UX service, about the bad websites, or experts talking about UI and UX Design. UI makes interfaces excellent whereas UX makes them helpful and useful. In this article, we will share the major and primary difference between UX and UI design.

‘Are you never going to be privy to a secret language? Or these people are using slang to look cool!! Let us see what UI vs. UX is in detail.

The User Interface (UI) is at the most basic level a set of screens, pages, and visual items such as buttons and icons which allow a person to interact with a product or service. 

User experience(UX), is a person’s own internal perception when communicating with every component of the products and services of an undertaking.

UX is not UI

The process through which a pain point or user need is identified is UX design or user experience design. A raw prototype is drawn from there that is subsequently validated (or invalidated) by testing.

The product is produced when both the business model and the value offer are validated.

User Interface Design = Interaction Design + Visual Design

Visual design is the look and feel of the website. 

Visual Design provides look and feel to your site. The way people communicate with your page is interaction design.

Designers of both UX and UI can still consider UX designers as architects of macro-interactions while UI designers can look after specifics, as developers of micro-interactions. 

A UX developer would typically model the interface experiences, such as steps to register for your newsletter. Which actions are they going to take, and how are they going to know if they succeed?

The model is passed to the user interface programmer. In the newsletter registration process, the UI developer will enhance these experiences with color and focus on the original design. It is a crucial point to consider when it comes to UI vs. UX.

User Interface makes the interfaces beautiful whereas UX makes them useful

A valuable service meets the need which is not already being met in the market. A UX designer’s research process includes a competitive analysis, the recruitment of working individuals, and then the production of a minimal, viable, product, or more appropriate, suitable, valuable product. It is confirmed by trials throughout the product’s life cycle.

Upon prototyping and checking the user flow and wireframes, it is the duty of the developer to make them appealing esthetically. It involves choosing an appealing and easy to use color scheme and typography. 

Color choices, typography, and interactions, however, are not based on the personal preference of the designer but on clearly expressed reasons for the people created by the UX developer. 

UI developers create a graphical hierarchy. It directs users to know what to do and when to do so to achieve their goals.

One main goal per page is illustrated by a well-designed hierarchy, which makes clear where and what the user is on the web.

You are going to do this with user-known conventions or patterns. Such patterns can act as instructions for the consumer on how to get there.

UX helps users meet their goals, UI allows emotional connections

People visit your site in search of information. You ask questions, you observe people, you interview people, and you can create samples and run a guerrilla experiment to see if you can verify your ideas for company and goods.

How do UX and UI designers work together during the design process?

The first step to determine whether to create a service or application is typically UX development and analysis. Most of the work by UX designers is validated or invalidated and guides product development.

After several prototypes have gone through the model, the UI designer has now substantially completed the project and begins the visual design and the micro-interactions.

Many factors depend on this. It may never be a straight road, however. Who manages UX and UI, for example? Is it the same person or another team?

UI pertains to interfaces whereas UX employs across the interfaces, services, and products

The design of user experience is a vast field and becomes increasingly popular every day. Today, not just web-based companies, but many others who develop products and offer services can gain an understanding of their customers and test their hypotheses before building them up.

The development of the User Interface is, of course, for UIs only. This doesn’t mean it’s limited to laptops, tablets, and handheld phones’ graphical user interfaces. We also see interfaces for many other items such as watches, washing machines, dashboards, sales machines, ticket kiosks, and many more these days.

You must have read about the application on the iPhone, which unlocks your car door. This array of interactions proves to be much more complicated than just using your key to open the car door. 

We should be vigilant to (again) hold our users at the center of our design process, whether we design for interfaces or experiences.

The user experience covers all aspects of the engagement of the end-user with the business, its services, and products

It is a wide definition that includes the interaction a person could have with a product or service— not just a virtual experience.

Many UX practitioners have chosen to call on the expertise of their customers, and others have taken a further leap to refer simply to the field as experiential design.

The original definition of UX is the essence of every logical application layout, all-encompassing, and always human-centered.

UX developers ensure that the organization provides a product or service that meets the customer’s expectations and enables it to reach the desired result smoothly.

UX developers work closely with UI designers, analysts from UX, marketing, and product groups in their research and experimentation on their clients.

We use their observations to iterate and refine services consistently on the basis of both quantitative and qualitative user research.

Significant Difference between UX and UI

UI comprises all the elements that allow someone to connect with a product or service at the most basic level. On the other hand, UX takes away the whole experience from the person who interacts with this product or service.

For example, take Google. Its familiar Spartan interface shows how a pleasant experience does not need whistles or bells.

Through focusing on the client, Google knows that they are after one thing: data when they come to the web. 

The fact that Google is a generally-accepted term demonstrates the success and ambition of the business. Almost anything a person has ever wanted to know can be found at a glance, and few other search engines still exist.

Imagine now that it took 15 seconds to get a result each time you searched for Google–the question could not be answered instantly anymore.

The interaction with Google would be quite different, even if the interface remains the same.

Does UI weigh  more than UX?

• Different people take on this subject differently.
• UX focuses on the experience of the user; the user interface focuses on how the surfaces of a product look and work
• The UX developer deals with the development issues so that the client concentrates on more specific elements
• UI is the bridge we want to get to, UX is our feeling of arriving.
• UI concentrates on the service, a selection of images in time. UX focuses on the consumer and the brand journey.
• UX covers all the interactions that the user has with a product or service, and UI is unique to how people interact with a product or service.

In a nutshell

When UX began to be a household term — at least on a corporate level— it was not rare for people to mix and swap words. Although the user experience sector will no doubt continue to develop, the vital role played by each discipline in the broader domain of human-centered design is crucial to understand.

What do you think? What is UI vs. UX? Does this mean different things, if it is used interchangeably? Think about it and visit us today at GoodWorkLabs. 

One of the best phrases from the world of design is

‘if a picture is worth 1000 words, then a functional prototype is worth a 1000 meetings.’

From pure experimentation to see your vision turn into a tangible project, prototypes help a lot in the phases of testing and building. The best thing they do is the fact that also take care to preserve the overall design uniformity too.

Designers are under an obligation to design things according to the description of their clients, but not all understand the requirements clearly. Several meetings, emails and phone discussions then follow. All of these are done to arrive at a final design.

This hassle, though, can be avoided to a large extent by the use of correct prototyping tools.

Prototyping tools help the designers and clients to collaborate in a better way and not have any creative differences. The clients get a visual idea about what will get created. The teams too, build a better understanding and explore options becoming visible, only after building and testing.

The most crucial advantage of prototyping tools is the risk involved, because the sooner we get a failure, the faster we can learn. Failing in the initial stages gives us a soft landing. You have the opportunity to work and improve on those errors.

How are Prototyping Tools Used?

We know very well that user experience is a critical metric for the branding of any company. Companies, therefore, use different prototyping tools to show different versions of a product to clients as per their requirements. It allows the UI/UX designers to put a ‘Proof of Concept’, an essential factor for a stable commercial relationship between the customer and the client.

How to Choose the Right Prototyping Tool?

Choosing the right prototyping tool is the key to describe your thoughts and collaborate in a better way with your clients. However, getting the right prototyping tool is not easy. This is because there are too many tools available online; enough to confuse you to pick the best one.

Every tool is different from the other because each one either lacks a particular feature or has an added one to stand separate from the others.

To choose the right kind of prototyping tool for design, a few factors need to be evaluated to check if the tool addresses our requirements or not-

A LEARNING CURVE

It is essential to analyze how easy the tool is to adopt. In other words, a learning curve where it is determined how long it takes for a designer to understand the tool.

SHARING ABILITIES

Because collaboration is crucial in design, the perfect tool will be the one to provide a collaboration feature for multiple people and stay in sync with each other.

USAGE

This is another point to know when choosing a prototyping tool, about how well it merges with your design process and other tools you use regularly.

COSTS

There are several prototyping tools, and many of them have niche features. A lot of these tools fail to meet our budgetary needs, though. Hence, it is better to choose the tool according to costs and not just by the features on offer.

The 11 Top Prototyping Tools for UI/UX-

INVISION

Invision is the most popular prototyping tool available today. With its project management page, it is effortless to organize the design components into a status workflow.

Invision has simplified every single aspect of the workflow and collaboration between design and development. Better, faster and more collaborative design in real-time is what Invision does best.

ADOBE EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Adobe XD allows you to draw, reuse and remix vectors and create artwork and build wireframes, interactive prototypes, and screen layouts in the same app.

With Adobe, designers can be more productive as they can import files from their Adobe tools without any trouble at all. Clients too, can make comments on your shared prototypes and look at the designs in real-time.

ORIGAMI STUDIO

Facebook initially created this tool for helping teams build and design products. Origami enables you to show your designs in a presentation on full screen on various devices.

You can also export prototype components by a single click, and engineers can copy-and-paste in the project. The tool is more suited to freelancers just starting, due to lack of collaboration features.

SKETCH

WebSketch has a lot of similarities with Photoshop, allowing the user to edit pictures. The fully vector-based workflow makes it easy to create beautiful and high-quality artwork from scratch.

With Sketch, the reusable elements like lines and bubbles can be automatically copied and pasted.

AXURE

Axure is a tool providing some very powerful prototyping without any coding. It also makes the process of sharing a prototype for the team or client very easy.

Axure will also publish all your diagrams and prototypes to Axure Share on the cloud. With a single link, others can view your project in their browser.

WEBFLOW

The most significant benefit of Webflow is that the tool provides a very high degree of functionality without the need of writing a single line of code. The tool heavily focuses on web animations, interactions and very responsive web design.

You can either host a prototype with Webflow or even export the code in HTML, CSS or JavaScript.

FRAMER

Framer has the premise that with the right code, it is possible to prototype anything, resulting in beautiful designs. It provides an effortless workflow, further eased by version control, device previewing and easy sharing.

Framer also makes it possible to import graphics directly from Sketch, Figma or even Photoshop.

ATOMIC

Atomic is a web-based prototyping tool and requires Google Chrome. The tool provides you with the flexibility to tune your interaction. There is easy access on offer for all developers with a simple shared prototyping system.

The best feature is the history option, allowing you to rewind to previous designs and create new versions from any point.

PRINCIPLE

Principle has been built for OS X and has an iOS app to watch live prototypes. The app appears a lot like Sketch and other aspects like alignment, art-board creation and real-time previews.

Principle also permits designers to work offline at increased speeds so that you do not have any problem with a slow connection.

JUST IN MIND

A significant advantage of Just in Mind is that it can be downloaded on your system for offline work as well.

The tool comes packed with tutorials and guided videos for everyone, who is a beginner or even an expert. You also have access to use items from UI libraries and then download several other add-ons.

BALSAMIQ MOCKUPS

Balsamiq Mockups replicates the speed and convenience to create mockups on paper but at a digital medium. Designers get to choose from more than 500 pre-made icons or components.

If you are not a professional designer but looking for a tool allowing you to create static and straightforward wireframes, Balsamiq is ideal for use.

Still not sure, how to get on with it? Let us assist you, Contact us.

UX design is the backbone of a website. The whole UX design process is responsible for creating your site the way you always visualized it, and how a customer will see your website on accessing it.

UX design is a procedure of enhancing the user experience, or user satisfaction by increasing the overall efficiency, and usability of a website. When we talk about conversion rate, it is directly related to the UX design of the website. This highlights the importance of a great UX designer for any business.

What is very important to note that a great UX design involves several factors than just an intuitive user flow and an appealing layout. A good UX will entirely change the way a user browses a website. It is bound to bring more traffic and increase conversions.

An improvement in the User Experience will convert your website visitors to business leads, buyers, and even brand loyalists.

Ways to Improve the UX of Your Website:-

It is not very difficult to look after ways to boost the aggregate experience of your website.

These four ways serve the purpose for you just as effectively:-

1- Have an Easily Visible Call to Action Button

Call to action (CTA) buttons have a significant role in guiding the users for conversion. The most commonly used CTA’s are: to sign up for updates, start a trial, download the app, schedule an appointment, and a lot more.

Furthermore, having a clear and appealing CTA button always provides excellent experience on a website. This Call to Action attribute deserves a space on every website page. There is no denying that sites with clear CTA buttons bring more conversions with them.

To add to it, if your website has several folds, your CTA button should be above the fold for easy visibility to the users.

You can keep a few more things in mind for CTA buttons-

• The color of a CTA button has a lot of importance. The use of specific colors can provide a lot more visibility to the button. Try to use contrasting colors for CTA’s when compared with the color scheme of the complete web page.
• The text on a CTA should be action-oriented. Passive verbs are strictly not advisable. This text needs to be subtle but active enough to make the user take the desired action.
• The word count, while writing the CTA text, should not exceed more than five words.

Having a visible Call to Action button is very imperative to provide users with a great experience.

2- Control your 404 Errors

When a user looks for something on the web, they expect to land on the exact web page they were looking for in the first place. If they fall on a page error, like 404 in most cases, it will take them no time to switch over to another website for a faster experience.

It becomes very apparent that 404 errors have the potential to take active users away from your web page. What is also evident is that these errors can never be completely taken care of.

This is why a question arises- How to accurately take care of this problem?

• The first way is to find out those pages where the search results show 404 errors and fix them as quickly as possible.
• Instead of allowing your website to display a standard ‘404 error: page is unavailable’ message, you can get some customization done for the error messages to make things a little friendly for the visitors.
• You can take the help of some relevant, pleasing, and entertaining images for the error page to reduce the anger and frustration of a user considerably.
• Convey to the users that you are the provider of a very smooth and comfortable browsing experience. For doing that, personalize the error text to add a personal touch to it.

It is crucial to know that you cannot eliminate these error texts, but taking enough care not to irritate the visitors will always be an added advantage for your UX.

3- Make Use of Authentic Images

Images have the potential to enhance the appeal of any web page instantly and make the content more authentic and believable. The kind of images you use can easily make the entire call of the page is good or bad.

To be sure about the images you use, the first advice is to keep away from stock pictures. Using them is always cheap and very easy, but they tend to be more harmful than beneficial in the long run.

These stock images do look professional, but it is never difficult for the users to understand that they are stock images, and such behavior will make them lose their interest.

Original and authentic images always attract more visitors because they bring a realistic touch with them and ensure connectivity with the users. The stock images, of course, become repetitive and bore the visitors.

If you use stock images for your web page, it sends a wrong message that you were lethargic in investing your efforts to design your website. Stock images will not allow your site to look unique, as users will most certainly have come across the pictures before.

You should make it a point to use only original images, irrespective of how basic or simple they look. The key here is to stay away from stock photos at all costs.

4- Ensure a Quicker Page Loading Time

If your web page is guilty to load slowly, it is enough reason for users to eventually abandon your site and go to a website having a quicker response time.

So, if your landing page is slow, there is a high probability that visitors will not even go through your website entirely. Also, you should also take care that just improving the loading speed is not going to be enough. Optimizing your website for mobile users is also very important.

Conclusion

Providing a lot of relevant information is not what User Experience is about. It is about how interactively, and how engaging are your efforts to ensure that information.

You might have a great product to show, but if you fail to catch the attention of the user, it will never be enough.

If you wish to have a website with all the trending practices for a great User Experience, we can help you. Get in touch with us!

The Importance of UI Design in Dashboards

‘Why to put a lot of thought into dashboard design?’

The answer is simple! Because your dashboard is the first thing that users will look at while interacting with your product.

It has to be understandable in one glance to be usable. Besides, all the brilliant technologies such as AI, Blockchain, Machine Learning are useless to the users if they are not presented in a user understandable way.

This is why dashboard designs require a thorough thought process.

Given, the importance of the dashboards, today we would like to address the popular query i.e. ‘how to make a great dashboard UI’.

But, before we dive into  the tips to make a perfect dashboard UI, let’s discuss the characteristics of a good dashboard:

• An effective dashboard is a visual board for simple conclusions of a rather complex set of information with a call to action. This means the dashboard provides information on which the user can base his decision on.
• A great dashboard is easy to understand and presents all the key insights.
• Besides being extremely intuitive, a good dashboard is easy to customize.
• In a very limited space, great dashboards exhibit all the crucial piece of information

Now, the point is how to come up with a dashboard which can pass for the above characteristics. Here are a couple of notes regarding the visual design that one must keep in mind while designing dashboard UI.

1. Be consistent

To be consistent means to have undeviating design across the dashboard. The design should be consistent on all the devices of varying sizes.  The functionalities in terms of fonts, colors, elements’ placement, navigation and style charts also need to be consistent.

The golden rule is to design the smallest screen first.

This approach helps in creating appealing spaces for more important information first and then leads you towards creating a great UI which enhances the abilities of the UX as well.

2. Simple customization

‘One size fits all’ approach is not the road you would want to take. Simple Reason being, usually there are multiple user roles with varying priorities and needs. Also, the designs ought to be scalable. Users should be the choosers on how they want to customize the design as per their business needs.

A good dashboard design should be able to accommodate all sorts of complexities and should allow for easy customization as and when required.

Some design tips that you could use:

– Permit easy modifications like field addition/ deletion

– For a customizable dashboard, use easy drag and drop interaction

– Cater the user with multiple color themes, if feasible

– Allow multiple options for viewing/downloading data

3. Communicate the necessary information first

With visual design, the vital information can be communicated to users in a usable and appealing manner. Also, with the crucial content placed and finalized, the design guidelines and layout can be easily defined.

Points to remember:

– The card layout is recommended because it allows concise data classification, along with scalability and flexibility.

– Users perceive the center portion first so the central alignment is preferred.

– Maximum font size should be 18 Pixel

– To highlight any important information a distinctive color should be used.

4. Prefer simple charts

Usually, in order to come up with fancy visual representation, designers get drifted and adopt complicated charts. Keep the charts simple and try to present all the variety of ideas in an easily understandable form. The main reason being charts are the prime data visualization tool for the users and should be easy and concise so that the user can perceive the information in one go.

Points to remember:

– Prefer pie charts, bar charts, and line charts as they are easy to understand and fit well in complex places.

– Use flat design charts instead of 3D charts, they are neater and easier.

5. Pay attention to the iconography

Icons are very small components of the dashboard but they hold great significance. A great dashboard should have icons which are familiar.

The reason being that a dashboard is frequently used by users and are accessed for prompt information or actions. Therefore, familiar icons reduce the processing time and deliver better performance.

6. Keep color psychology in mind

Colors are more vocal than you think.

Just as how traffic signals communicate to us with red lights signaling us to stop and green lights allowing us to drive, color psychology is important in UI dashboards as well.

A great dashboard should be designed with mindful colors and any possible confusion should be avoided.

Points to remember:

– Avoid going overboard with the colors used

– Try and leverage contrast colors for better visibility

7. Use the right font style and size

It is very important to keep both font style and size consistent while designing the UI and UX of a dashboard. It is highly recommended that not more than two font styles should be used. With minimal variations in font style, the dashboard holds a neater appearance.

It is advised to create a visual hierarchy of the written content for better visibility. This can be done by placing the crucial information in the larger font size and probably with different color and less important information in relatively smaller font size.

Summing up

All the above tips will help you to come up with a great dashboard UI but studying the user’s requirement is the first step before all these. It is easier to design a dashboard once you are through with user’s preferences and style because then you can customize the dashboard around the specific needs of the user. A useful dashboard is way better than a well-designed but unrelatable or complex dashboard.

An unrelatable dashboard is one which is not knitted around the individual business needs of the user. For example, a corporate dashboard for a school. The UI of the dashboard makes it great or just okay, the choice is yours!

At GoodWorkLabs, we have some awesome dashboard designs to exhibit for your perusal. Our team of experts can help you bring life to your ideas and create eye-catchy UI and UX designs.

How to design for Blockchain Technology

You might have read thousands of articles on how Blockchain is proposed to bring transformation in the world we live in today. In the next few decades, the possibilities will unfold into opportunities, it’s just a matter of time. Currently, we are just beginning to understand what Blockchain is and how it can be applied for our benefit.

If you are a designer, it will be a really tough task for you to design for a concept which is barely understood by its users or potential users.

But, an early bird always stands at the favorable side. Today, we are laying down 5 simple rules to follow for creating the UX design for Blockchain. After reading this feed, your curiosity about design for Blockchain will get satisfied.

Let’s begin:

1. No Jargon

Jargons can make any concept difficult for a layman to understand and use. As only a handful of people are involved in using this concept, your focus should be on how to attract more people to use Blockchain and how to benefit from it.

Terms which are already floating in the market such as Dapp, DLT, and altcoins make Blockchain overly technical and highly complicated. Also, the Blockchain industry has a bad reputation of being a phony scheme of getting rich quick.

To subside all these barriers is not easy and making Blockchain easy is the first step towards design. As a designer, it is your responsibility to make your project more likable and user-friendly. To achieve this, promote ‘no complicated jargons’ approach and focus on the value that can be delivered to the users.

In short, unexplained jargons can kill your design.

2. Break Down Barriers to Entry

The market is currently segregated in two kinds of people. The minority of them are determined and excited about the Blockchain and majority of them have no idea what it is and feel like outsiders. It is like an impenetrable bubble for them to understand and get excited about the whole Blockchain technology.

To penetrate the bubble is like to walk past a Bermuda triangle and not get lost. As a designer, you will face terrible UX and might feel completely blank at several stages. The reason is that this technology has hardly evolved much and there are only a few people available to explain the core concepts and walk you through the process.

The key to get through this is to make the Blockchain usable to the layman. Simplify it to the core!

Make it so easy that every person with internet access can use it. Here, ‘Coinbase‘ can serve as an example for you.

3. How strong should your security be?

People consider security as a major setback of cryptocurrency since all the funds are in a digital wallet, and if stolen, there is no way back and nowhere to complain. There is no authority regulating this. This makes the security of the funds very crucial in order to make the users feel secure and to trust your product.

To keep the account secure, you should offer 2-factor authentication (2FA).

But, here is the twist. If you mandate the 2FA for all the users there will be a lot of friction at user’s end and then you won’t be able to deliver a seamless experience.

To overcome this problem, keep 2FA recommendatory and mandatory for new users. Also, 2FA should be mandated for major fund movements to keep the security tight.

This approach will keep the users at peace and deliver the optimum amount of security.

4. Maintain transparency with the users

In Blockchain, if you deploy something, it usually takes time to process and get finalized. The length of time that it will require is never fixed and it also depends upon how busy the network is. The time taken for completion may range between 5 minutes to 2 hours.

In this situation, to deliver an acceptable user experience, don’t keep the users waiting around. Be transparent with them as users like near-instant actions.

To manage the user expectations ask them to come back in few minutes and report the current status as accurately as possible. Even better, send them an email update when it’s done.

5. Design Thinking

Blockchain has been promoted as the problem solver technology for many industries. Most industries have begun to turn to blockchain technology for solutions now. As a designer, it is important for you to define the problems precisely and design products that can actually solve such real-time problems.

Promote the practice of researching and user testing to indeed create valuable products. It is essential to penetrate through the hype and get original user insights.

Final words

A product designer’s real job title is ‘Problem solver’. As a product designer, you are bestowed upon with authorities and even bigger responsibilities. Blockchain technology may pose some friction in your already smooth design career but it will be a great learning opportunity.

Till now, the Blockchain technology has been more focused on the development part. The design on many exchanges and Blockchain websites is still in the latent stage.

To make the Blockchain technology usable for the layman, designers should work on simplifying everything. With the effort directed in the right direction, Blockchain will no longer be a mystery but become a part of our daily lives.

Are you unsure of doing this on your own? Let us help you! At GoodWorkLabs, we have a team of radical designers who strive to deliver simplified Blockchain solutions. Let’s have a word!

UI Design for FinTech Apps

Do you have a wheel swirling Fintech app idea and are wondering how its UI should be like?

You have stumbled upon just the right article as we are here to help.

We sure know that presentation takes a major pondering before launching an app. As an experienced team of mobile app designers, we would love to share our thoughts on ‘What should be kept in mind when UI of Fintech App is on the table’.

First of all, Fintech has emerged as a major industry in the last decade. Its significance can be sensed with the contribution of £6.6bn to the U.K. economy in 2016 and employment to 60000 people and growing. 

The signature products of this industry are digital banking, online trading apps, and e-wallets. Now is a good time for existing financial market players to launch their own app or to redesign their existing apps.

Most of the Fintech apps have either poor or confusing user interface which requires the user to take a pause and understand the app first. Such complexity of Fintech apps defies the basic purpose of having the app, i.e to initiate smooth interactions and hassle-free transactions. 

In this blog, we have created an exclusive list of notes for designers and entrepreneurs to deliver a widely accepted and user-friendly user interface for FinTech Apps.

We also created a video version of the blog to help you quickly glance through the top tips on UI designing for FinTech Mobile Apps.

1. Focus on User Behaviour

As the B. J. Fogg’s Behavioural Model suggests a user should be motivated to use the app.

Q1: Are you solving any problem?

If yes, how quickly and smoothly are you solving it?

The app should be able to solve a persisting user hardship or bring something new to the table like enhancing user convenience.

A best-seller app will be a combination of both. To achieve this, it is essential to study the business first.

It is very crucial to grasp the client’s product basics, knowledge of target audience, and stakeholders. If you can inculcate any tricks of the trade to the mobile Fintech app it will add an edge to the interaction of the application.

2. Simplify information 

The apps which are considered as leading mobile Fintech apps, condense the mass of data to relevancy and are very easy to use.

To make the app interactive and simple, you need to work on page layout, content display, and task flow to begin with.

Other important pointers are to keep the frequently used tasks upfront and easily accessible to the user. Also, transform bulky financial data to graphs, or charts.

Immediate call-to-actions should be placed to help users take the desired actions. Detailed information should be available when asked for.

This practice enhances the user’s confidence in smoothly handling their finances through mobile Fintech apps.

3. Choice of Background

App background is worth consideration as it is directly related to the app efficiency. The target audience should always be kept in mind before picking an app background.

While the light backgrounds are very popular in Fintech apps, dark backgrounds also come with their own set of pros and cons.

Dark backgrounds are great when it comes to presenting graphic content but are not very helpful when the app is operated on mobile devices with poor displays.

4. Font selection

Some recommended fonts are Lato, Roboto Condensed, and Titillium Web

You can always pick another font but ensure that the selected font should fit in compact spaces without affecting the legibility.

Also, check the appearance of individual characters like $. This is necessary because the finance world revolves around numbers and figures and you don’t want to have a leaning dollar sign in your app.

This conveys that the frequently used characters should be tested for flexibility and legibility.

5. Charting Styles

The key is to use simple charting styles which is comprehensive and familiar to the users. The Fintech apps come with various limitations like Frameworks and APIs, so there is not much that can be done with the charting styles.

To make it user-friendly just keep them clear easy to read and understand.

6. Gamification

We shouldn’t take the fun out of an app just because it’s a Fintech app. When you are making UI advancements on the app, it is good to consider gamification.

App gamification increases the user engagement and efficiency. Add colors to your imagination and gamify the app with elements which will not only help users enjoy the transaction journey but also enhance user satisfaction.

At this point, we would also caution you about loud elements that don’t support seriousness involved in financial transactions or things that can be a distraction for the user.

7. Color palette

You remember how they say, ‘take the world and paint it red’.  Don’t!

A color palette is the most crucial thing that can affect the UI of an app.

Fintech apps are for several purposes including banking and stock markets. One needs to keep the data visualization in priority while selecting the color scheme for the app.

In the case of any stock market-related app, red and green colors hold great significance but it is important to keep the rest of background in a light color so that these colors can stand out.

Enhancing data visualization is the key here.

Summing up

Last decade has witnessed some of the revolutionary Fintech apps with a smooth user interface and awesome responsiveness.

Besides the basic app functionalities, the user interface helps the app to stand out from the competitor apps.

However, for Fintech apps, the market is still not ready. Users resist opting for online options of banking or investment because of the risk involved.

Facts have that only 3% of  Indians are actually using the online versions of Finance handling, thus reducing your target audience.

To build user confidence, you need to keep your Fintech app simple and grievances-free because when money is involved user might not give your app a second chance.