Is your UX Design Consistent?

Consistency is an aspect that catapults a brand to the peak of success. Whether yours is a service-oriented startup or an exciting e-commerce venture, consistent approaches will lead to effective branding and highly accelerated bottom lines.

This remains true when it comes to delivering outstanding User Experience. Every brand has a digital representation today. It goes without saying that you have to leave indelible impressions in the minds of your target audience, and that’s only possible when you have an attractive website with impressive UX design.

Revealing the truth

User Experience design is an integral part of a website. A site that fails to make a mark and impress its target visitors will be abandoned by almost 88% of digital customers. Wish to know more? Well, the following stats will act as an eye-opener. Sites with poor loading speed cost a whopping loss of $2.6 billion to retailers. Now, that’s a huge thing for you if you are operating in the retail arena.

Inconsistent, unimpressive, and complicated UX design approaches will surely not lead to clean, streamlined, and clutter-free websites. That’s a fatal blow to any brand which plans to gain a strong foothold in the digital landscape.

The need for consistency in UX Design

Have you ever imagined stepping into a disorganized, cluttered, and untidy room? It is needless to say that the experience would be awful. Delve deep into the nuances of the matter and you will feel that the same thing happens to your target audience when the person comes across poor UX designs.

The prime accentuation should be on deciphering the true connotation of ‘consistency’. Flashy visuals, too many features, or loads of content won’t fetch you visitors. It is imperative to make your visitors feel special and comfortable while they take a look at your business site.

Defining “being consistent” in UX design

The literal meaning of the term indicates towards a systematic coherence between individual elements of a whole thing. In case of UX design, we can say that consistency should be the key to adding elements to the site. So, which are the aspects you should care about:

1. Site design: Captivating yet soothing colors; uncomplicated typefaces, and simple designs.
2. Interaction: Interactive and intuitive site design that helps you build a strong communication with target audience.
3. Content: Engaging and powerful articles, compelling blogs, and informative press releases.
4. Features and elements: Custom navigation, sidebar, footer, etc.

These are some of the crucial areas where you can adopt useful and consistent approaches. As a site owner, the goal should be to ensure comfortable browsing experiences for visitors. If you want them to have a decent experience and translate them into potential consumers, paying attention to these details would be important.

UX is important

There’s no denying the significance of excellent UX design when it comes to converting leads. What you should keep in mind is how consistent design approaches play the pivotal role in this regard, thus helping site owners come up with websites that elevate engagement and drive conversions.

UX Trends in 2018

The phenomenal business value provided by user experience cannot be overlooked. UX design trends have made a strong impact with their effectiveness and user satisfaction. After years of being relegated to the background, UX has received the attention from expert designers. Keeping in line with the energetic happenings in the world of UX in 2017, this year too promises a lot of action. Here are some UX trends to keep an eye on in 2018:

1. Voice-activated user interfaces

Interfaces are becoming lesser and lesser of visual elements. It is voice-based interactions that are ruling the apps everywhere be it Siri, Google Now, Cortana or Alexa. Voice-activated interfaces make the user experience less stressful by removing the ‘type’ factor. ‘Screenless’ UX designs are the future.

2. VR and AR

Virtual reality and augmented reality, as design features, are finding ways to get incorporated into apps and products. AR is already used by customers to see the products before they purchase them. This will be implemented in more ways than one.

3. Content at the center

Content experience is one of the top priorities of 2018, which iterates that visuals will be presented to make content reading easier. Removal of unwanted features that draw the attention away from content and using white space effectively will be some of the key design elements that we can look forward to this year.

4. Personalized UX

Users of all kinds of apps desire a personalized user experience. These include chat features in an app for interacting with other users, features that modify font size and color depending on the age of the user, login features enabling a quick access to users, in-app messaging based on previous interactions with the app, and push notifications that would be delivered when users are most alert.

5. Minimal design features

2018 will be all about users having a hassle-free experience. The upcoming UX designs will focus on reducing the friction and only display what is needed. Practically, this can be achieved by designing with the most frequent navigation patterns, show only specific features as and when users request for them, pop-up boxes that save the time of the users etc. Trends suggest that designs are now going to be inspired by predicting the user actions and implementing a linear design experience.

6. Biometric Identification processes

Biometric authentication adds that extra touch of security to applications. This eliminates the login requirement and interfaces that accept fingerprints, facial recognition, iris scan, etc. would be the next phase that UX would progress to.

7. Eliminating certain nuisances

Some designs are frustrating and annoying. For example, the Hamburger menu, which was initially thought as a good option to increase room space on a screen by not displaying the menu option soon turned into a confusing factor where users were not aware of the feature and kept looking for a menu.

Designers will be seen incorporating more user-friendly menus such as a tab-based menu. This year can also be the last which uses passwords. Designers would come up with authentication codes and captcha codes.

Thus, these are some of the expected UX design trends of 2018 but are not limited to just these. There is always room for innovation and with technologies advancing, user experience has always got to be right on top.

An Introduction to Design Systems, their uses, why we should use them and the nuances surrounding the topic.

What is User Research and Why should you do it?

Research, as we all know, is a crucial aspect of any undertaking, be it shopping for clothes or building your own backyard nuclear-powered submarine. Especially if you are a UX designer, research is quite important to understand the what people want from the product that you design. Without a clear understanding of what your users’ needs are and what they expect, you might as well be throwing darts in the dark. Unlike designing, user research is almost a never-ending process which needs to be carried out throughout the product’s lifecycle. However, in this article, we will focus on the user research for designing and what you need to know when you are starting out.

Where should you start?

There are a lot of points from where you can start your research depending on the nature of your product. A hypothesis of your current objectives will provide a picture of the goals you seek to achieve through the research.  

1. Introspection

Before starting the research process itself it would be a good idea to try and define your product, the basic function it would serve and the demographic it is intended for. At this point, discovering the problems users presently face in the market would help define your products’ purpose. Analysing the market demand and your chances of proliferation would also be a wise strategy at this stage because going back to the drawing board because of an overcrowded market is never a good contingency.

2. Conceptualization    

Identify various business demographics that you feel might be interested in your product and understand their real-time user goals. Conducting surveys, interviews, focus groups etc. are among the many methods that are commonly used. The data achieved through research can be broadly classified between qualitative, quantitative, attitude and behavioral. Using the all the information and feedback thus received to create a rough iteration of the design.

3. Research Methods

• Surveys

Surveys are often an easy way to start out with UX research. With online surveys being a huge trend today, it is not hard to find participants. However, the ease of finding participants hardly makes up for the level of inaccuracy involved in this process as most people tend to give biased responses. Short surveys with simple, well-worded questions involving both open-ended as well as multiple choice questions tend to work best with this method.

• Interviews

Interpersonal Interviews are one of the oldest, tried and tested methods of understanding users and getting to know them. Interviews offer a great deal of flexibility when it comes to questions and ensuing discussions that could lead to a higher level of revelation. Compiling a valid set of questions and putting them through a trial run before the interview to check their feasibility will help. As always the interviewer must remain calm and composed and make the user feel comfortable before the interview. Engaging the user to get the most out of them would be a good idea.

• Focus Groups

Engaging a small group of people in a discussion on your product and its potential can bring out valuable insights and ideas. However, this process has a good chance of backfiring as groups tend to follow a herd mentality eventually leading to supporting the popular opinion rather than their own which ultimately can produce inaccurate data. Allowing each person in the group to express themselves properly is the key to success when dealing with focus groups.

• Usability Testing

One of the most effective methods of UX research is usability testing. This method involves putting the target users through a set of tasks designed to demonstrate the features and functionality of your product. This process can be leveraged to derive valuable inputs. Although not as elaborate as with questionnaires, usability testing provides the most accurate data and feedback. There are several methods of usability testing as well as tools that can aid in carrying out the processes.

4.Analysis

The data derived from these research methods can be analyzed and compared with your initial hypothesis. By doing so you will get an idea of the changes that need to be done. One of the advantages of UX user research is that it can be done at any stage in the development process and it’s up to you to choose the most valid method at your current stage.

Conclusion

When it comes to UX it is easy to lose your way with designs and most of the time designers end up designing the product with their own needs in mind and that of their investors as well. Research here can offer a neutral perspective and bring out the best ideas that users can identify with. While each method has its own advantages it would be ideal to use them in combinations to paint a wholesome picture.

How to use Product Thinking in UX Design

The original premise behind user experience which is often understated is the fact that lies in its namesake itself- to make the user’s experience with any product better. Product designing is an intricate and complicated process where the designer could get lost in a coded web and in all the ruckus it is easy to ignore the user’s needs. Designers can hardly be blamed for doing so because every product has a fundamental purpose it tries to serve which defines its existence.

The features of a product are hardly of any consequence if they don’t satisfy individualized needs and goals. This redundancy factor is what prompts a need for more comprehensive strategies like product thinking.

What is Product Thinking?

To put it in simple terms product thinking is a strategy where the product is the sum of all the users’ expectations. Here the users are the instigating factor and the product becomes the end result. The common pattern followed with product thinking is as follows:

Start with the user

• What is the problem your product would seek to address?
• What is the target audience?

The Job at Hand

• The idea behind it?
• How would you go about executing it?

Your Expectations

• The goals you seek to achieve.
• The resultant features that come out of the aforementioned efforts that would go into your product.

Product before Features

A common flaw when it comes to designing is the amount of emphasis that designers put into features. While features are important, for most designers building a product means creating a preset of features that will eventually define it. This is where they lose touch with what the user actually needs. With product thinking, the idea is to visualize the product during inception as it will be presented to the users. The features are then added in to complement that idea and build the ideal product.

Defining the Product and its Purpose

The level at which user experience is today, understanding the user is not that much of a task. With such valuable resources at their disposal designers get a clear picture of their target audience, their issues, the vision behind the product and its end goals. However, this part is easier said than done because when it comes to users their problems are often latent and it is up to UX professionals to uncover them.

Once designers comprehend the purpose why people would purchase their product in the real world, they can create a rough idea of what the product would be like, what it would mean to them and what ends it would serve. Once this core aspect of the product is laid down, the features will automatically fall in place and the designers can tweak them in any way that would ultimately enhance the user experience.

Problem vs Solution

For a designer, there are many ways to go about solving problems with a product but understanding the heart of that problem is what sets the bar for innovation. Many see problems as a prosaic concept where consequence translates to causation. But, in the real world problems with a product can be anything. In some cases, things that are seemingly negligible could be causing people to walk away from your product.

The complication here is that people themselves seldom realize this fact. The users know that they don’t like the product, but they can’t explain why. So designers have to delve deep into the psyche of the users to understand the problem and fix the product and its features.

Conclusion

Product thinking in its essence is the combined effort of everyone involved in a project. It is as abstract as a concept as to implementing it. Yet without it, a design is nothing more than just a UI. The layers of research from both the product management and designing point of view leave little room for doubt when it comes to users.

Getting to Know User Persona for UX Design 

A vital part of User Experience design or pretty much any business-based technology, user persona can be defined in simple terms as a virtual representation of your typical customer. Derived from user research and web analytics a persona serves many ends for UX designers. A persona usually includes qualitative and quantitative information of a user’s personal attributes such as their behavior patterns, likes and dislikes, needs, ambitions and so on. A persona can also be defined as the collective representation of a particular demographic using a typical user which the designer can use to relate. This also provides you with a valuable tool while trying to pitch ideas to stakeholders, designers, and anyone who is involved in your project.

How do you Create One?

There are a multitude of ways for creating a persona. But the most commonly followed ones are those from user experience research methods. Through interviews, casual interaction and such, one can ascertain enough information about the user and build a profile of their general attitude, character, and behavior. While direct research methods are quite commonly used, web analytics also plays a large contributing factor. Social media websites and applications and search engines too are valuable sources of information to create such a profile.

A persona usually consists of the following aspects:

1) Personal Information

Vital information such as name, age, marital status, number of kid etc. are a staple in all personas. Usually accompanied by a photograph, this statistical information helps build a clear demographic profile of the user.

2) Environmental Data

Information pertaining to the users’ social life, work life and the technology they use and so on. This helps build a profile of the surroundings they live around and the kind of company they keep and their work ethics and profile as well.

3) Psychological Data

Information regarding their personal interests such as food, movies etc. along with their attitude, strengths, weaknesses and pain points can all be found in the persona as well. These give the profile a human touch beyond the rather mechanical statistics.

4) Personal Ambitions

One of the more inquisitive features of a persona is the information regarding goals and ambitions. While other information is quite vital, goals and ambitions provide an idea of exactly what the user needs, and how your product could influence if not help achieve it.

5) Scenario

This is the final aspect of a persona and is created based on all the aforementioned aspects. The users are put in a typical real-life scenario and an analysis is made on how they might interact with your product.

What are the different type of user personas

While most user personas are created from actual users, to serve your marketing and designing agendas, some organizations build personas without any actual information. These are called proto-personas. While proto-personas like regular personas are used as a means of actionable insights, their information is usually the result of guesswork and experience using which people create their own image of their typical customer. The reasons for this usually are either time or budget constraints or both.    

So what do you do with user personas?   

The most fundamental purpose of a persona like mentioned above is to serve as a communication tool while pitching ideas with your team and anyone else who is involved in your project. For a designer, a persona serves as a guideline and inspiration to design the product for a particular demographic. All the information pertaining to the users’ emotional and psychological state along with their interests and goals allow the designer to clearly conceptualize what the product should be doing and how it will be serving them. The organization as a whole can also gain valuable insights and stay in tune with their customers’ lives.   

Conclusion

Despite the many research tools available today, user persona serves as a reliable tool for both designers and marketers to understand the product and their users. The plethora of small information available in personas generally helps out more than elaborate details on a particular aspect of the user. Additionally, when you have access to multiple personas, the common points between them serve as a deciding factor.

UX Design for Chatbots

If you look at the market and business trends, Chatbots are available on almost every list. All the big businesses and brands are leveraging chatbots. On the other hand, small brands are planning to have one for their business.

Experts say that chatbots are going to cover about 85% of customer service related interactions in the coming years. However, the popularity has also increased the demand for a quality experience. Hence, businesses can’t compromise the UX design of their bots in any manner.

Sure the functionality of the bots matters a lot, but it is the user experience of the design that brings customers again and again.

Here, in this article, you will find the most valuable UX guidelines to create an impressive chatbot for your business.

1. Make it easy to understand

The initial impression matters the most in your chatbot design. The users should be able to understand the functions and the processes of the chatbot very easily. Only then, you can expect them to come back for further interactions.

So, make sure you include exciting and helpful elements in the onboarding process of the chatbot. This will make the design more impressive for the users.

2. Add elements to maintain the conversational flow

Many times, the users don’t realize that they are interacting with a chatbot. So, if the bot does not maintain a conversational flow, the users might leave and never come back.

To avoid this, it is important to add elements that can help you maintain a conversational flow. A chatbot can ask pre-defined questions or present suggestions to the user. These elements in the design help out the user throughout the conversation. Some of the advanced chat platforms such as Facebook Messenger and Kik leverage such elements in their chat methods. These platforms offer regular response suggestions during an ongoing conversation, which helps the users.

3. Give it a consistent personality

The personality of the chatbot is probably the most important UX design component. The goals should be to attain consistency. Plus, the bot should sound friendly during the conversation.

To achieve that, you need to focus on providing clear diction capacity and simple language to the chatbot. Use a vocabulary that is generally used in the common language. This will make the conversations more smooth and friendly.

4. Prepare chatbot for anticipated issues

A conversation between a human and a chatbot presents some difficulties. Sometimes, a user might ask an invalid question or a query, which won’t allow the Chabot to answer. However, that should not stop the conversation. Your design should get the user on the right track for the conversations to flow. For that, you can include polite reminders of the purpose of the bot. The bot can provide suggestions and tips to help the user ask the right questions and queries. This way, the conversation won’t end in the middle.

So, in this way a good UX can help you create an impressive chatbot and also create immersive user experiences for your customers.

The importance of UI and UX for Business

“88% of online customers are less likely to return to a website after a poor experience”

“94% of a website’s first impressions are design related”

These statistics demonstrate how UX drives the ROI of any business in today’s time.

UI and UX are undoubtedly the essential components of a website and it is crucial that businesses invest in good UI and UX so that their services can be easily accessible to the end user.

With an ever-increasing number of websites, the need for UI and UX is more than ever, because the competition is very high. Today, website owners prefer to hire people who have both UI and UX design experience, as knowing both provides the person better insights and facilitates more creativity.

But most often, people think UI and UX are similar. Through this post, we aim to change this notion and dive in deep into the differences.

UX and UI are Different

User experience and user interaction are two very different components of the design. The user experience of a site involves scooping out the general logical flow of a website, while UI  deals with the visual designs and graphics that go into design.

For example, when you access Gmail, it asks for your id and password, and only then it allows you to log in. This is the flow that Gmail follows or the UX of Gmail.

UI, on the other hand, is the website layout and visual designs that a user sees. This includes things such as interactions, themes, text areas, fonts, color schemes etc.

For example, in Gmail components such as the login button, your photo beside the mail id, text box, etc. are components which fall under UI design.

UX and UI roles on a website

The job of a UX designer is to basically study the market, analyze the competition and design a game plan that finally puts together a functional and cost-effective website. A user must be able to easily navigate through the website.

A UX designer concerns himself with the macro concepts of the site and makes sure that it is not cluttered or distracts the user from performing the main call-to-action such as: signing up for a service, downloading a guide, sending an inquiry etc.

UI designers, on the other hand, are more inclined towards creating an attractive and beautifully designed website for users. Also, UI design requires that you help users navigate by designing buttons in different sizes to show priority. Basically, UI designers concern themselves with the micro concepts of the website, like minute visual details to make the site look attractive.

Dropbox is an excellent example of UI/UX experience. The strong graphics and visuals on the website provoke the user to explore the website longer and browse through. The UX design of Dropbox was spot-on and it focused on encouraging the user to make just one action – to use dropbox’s cloud service for photo and document sharing.

However, in late 2017, Dropbox went through a major re-branding exercise where they moved away from the neat clean iconography and embraced a more retro-themed design which got a lot of mixed reviews. But, that is what it all boils down to – Design is not a software, it is more people-centric and hence it is important to have empathy for people when you design.

Which comes first? UX or UI?

The primary objective of any website is to showcase the products and services of any business in the most direct and innovative way. There are millions of websites that get published on the internet every hour. Hence it is necessary to create a website that is on par with the current design trends, competition and has a logical flow of the whole process.

For this purpose, UX is the first thing that designers dive into. They do a competitive analysis of the market and come up with insights which improve site functionality. UI design comes much later after all the wireframes are in place. Here is where the creative spirit of designers is put to test.

Thus, UI and UX are important components of design but play a completely different role. They are essential to drive user engagement and enable conversions.

UX Design Trends in 2018

Did you know that a whopping 79% of individuals abandon a particular site if they don’t like the content? Also, with marketers placing utmost importance to content, it is only imperative that design layouts, both mobile and desktop incorporate the content experience as a crucial factor of UX design.

If you are planning to create a website with unique design ideas and are letting customers be effective with their time on the site, then UX will emerge as the key success driver.

Here’s a quick look at the eight major design trends that will rule the world in 2018!

8 UX Design Trends to look out for in 2018

Building an exciting website in 2018 can be tough if you don’t know the latest trends on board. The following pointers will surely help you create a stunning, unique, and fully functional website:

• Use the power of  ‘negative space’ for Content Experiences

Minimalist design is the most widely accepted design trend and the whole purpose is to remove distractions and help the reader focus on the main thing – Content.

Negative space also known as white space is a crucial aspect while designing a web page. It offers room for creativity and also acts as the breathing space for the important elements in your website. This white space design also helps readers to navigate easily on the website without creating any visual obstacles.

However, the concept of ‘white space’ isn’t new. Crucial changes in reading habits have compelled  UX designers to incorporate this particular element. Open layouts and white space will increase readers’ focus, and it greatly improves the user experience.

The best example of using white space for a content centered experience is Medium – the single and utmost focus is to enable readers read long form blog posts without any visual distractions.

• Conversational bots

Facebook popularized Chat Bots to a great extent. The messenger app helped numerous individuals create operational bots, and the number has increased significantly. The initial figures were 30,000 and that has gone up to a whopping 100,000 today. With some of the leading companies embracing the idea of Chat Bots, effective marketing communications and customer service has become easier than ever!

Some brands have also seen a spike in orders because of the ease and convenience of conversational bots. Hence, it is safe to assume that 2018 shall see more of such interactive design features on their websites.

• Omnichannel UX

It is time we change focus from a mobile-first design. The number of connected devices are increasing and especially with Internet of Things (IoT) gaining more popularity, it is just natural that designers thing of an omnichannle user experience now. Today’s users are more goal oriented and are more concerned with completion of that goal irrespective of the devices they interact with.

While creating an omnichannel UX, a designer should be mindful of creating a seamless flow of user journey and make it easy for a customer to transit from one device to another without any hiccups in the user experience.

• Moving closer to Virtual Reality

Although there’s a lot to improve, VR will still make significant impacts this year. Companies will incorporate VR strategies while showcasing products. Also, designing gestures for a VR environment that are similar to the natural environment will bey a key focus to help the VR market grow. More and more brands are opting VR technology for their marketing strategies only to create a different ‘user experience’.

Hence, VR is definitely going to be a subset of the greater picture of UX design in 2018.

• Micro-interactions are common

If you wish to accomplish or complete a single-dimensional task, micro interactions will give you the perfect opportunity to do so. Here are some of the use cases of micro interactions:

• Feedback communication or the consequence of a particular action
• Accomplishing individual and isolated tasks, connecting one post to the other
• Manipulation of a particular setting
• Prevention of user error

The flexibility to add reactions to a particular post on Facebook is the greatest example of Micro-interactions.

• Voice User Interfaces

Technology is constantly evolving to make daily tasks of human life easy and 2018 is definitely the year where Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) are going to gain more popularity. Design is bound to slowly move focus from clicks on websites to screenless experiences.

We already have a range of VUIs such as Siri for Apple, OK Google for Google, Alex for Amazon and Cortana for Microsoft, and a Gartner survey also suggests that 30% of our interactions with technology will happen in a more conversational style.

Hence, designing fro VUIs is going to gain momentum in 2018 however there is still time for this technology to mature and replace graphic user interfaces as these AI systems still need to become more efficient at understanding ‘how’ people talk about topics and the conversational flows.

• Card-based designs are going a long way

Web designers and marketers are quite familiar with the ‘card-style’ design. The trend isn’t new and will continue to rule the design world. With Google implementing it into the material design, the trend seems to have a bright future.

The card design layout helps to showcase a lot of content in a clutter-free way on smaller screens. Also, the card layout helps to maintain design consistency across different devices such as mobiles, desktop and tablets.

A good example of the card-based design is again Medium where tons of content is displayed in a neat layout and it also makes it easier for the user to find what he is looking for click.

• Smart and Personalized designs

Brands are moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to a creating custom tailor-made experiences for each individual user. Also, with advancements in AI and Machine Learning, today companies have enough and ample data about user behavior, buying patters, interests etc.

Design also will now cater towards creating more personalized user experiences to enhance interactions with the brand. This is bound to take personalization and brand experience to the next level.

Conclusion

We looked at some of the key UX design trends that are going to take dominate 2018, but like they say, trends come and go, but what matters is that we continue to design and build products that touch people’s life. If you think there is an upcoming design trend that needs attention, let us know 🙂