To attract and retain customers, companies need professional UI/UX development services. In this post, we will talk about the benefits of UI/UX and how every startup can use it for their digital products to succeed.
What is the difference between UI and UX?
UI design and UX design are the terms that often create a lot of confusion. Is there a difference between user interface and user experience? They may sound similar but they are not the same thing. Both UI and UX add to the positive qualities of your app. Here is how.
User experience design
The purpose of an app is to help the user achieve their goals: book a flight, order food, or call a taxi. Designers have in mind the user’s needs and do everything possible to help the user achieve their goals with minimum effort. Using an app shouldn’t turn into a tedious IQ test. For example, imagine you are choosing what food delivery app to choose:
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- The first one only needs your phone number for registration.
- The second one makes you fill in a long form with many questions including your full name, address, email, phone number, etc. before you even place an order.
Which one would you prefer to use when you are hungry and just want to quickly order a meal in between your business meetings?
You would obviously choose the first option. It doesn’t require a lot of effort and doesn’t waste your time. Knowing how to break down the task into smaller subsets and never ask the user to do more than is absolutely necessary is the subtle art of UI/UX development. It is not about trying to guess what options users will like but using one’s professional experience and conducting thorough research for every element of the user interface.
User interface
The graphical user interface is the element of the mobile app that the user sees and interacts with directly. Some examples of interface elements are:
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- buttons,
- text fields,
- checkboxes;
- sliders,
- search fields,
- tags,
- icons.
UI design focuses on making the user’s interaction with the product pleasant and easy. Think of some apps that you like. Be it Airbnb, Telegram, or Uber, their interface is always simple yet quite beautiful.
Why are UX and UI important for startups?
Startups need a good UI/UX design to build their online presence. Here are three main reasons why you should budget for UI/UX at the startup stage of your business.
Distinguish a startup from competitors
Excellent UI/UX design is your big marketing opportunity. Sometimes, companies just copy each other, not even trying to upgrade the design or check the convenience of the user path. A thorough competitor analysis will help you define the pitfalls of similar apps or websites. This way, your startup can set itself apart from the competition, right from the start.
Another way to distinguish yourself is using interactive features. The same thing we did when we worked on a cryptocurrency wallet design. Our client wanted to integrate a game on a starting screen to encourage users to sign up. This feature helped the service stand out from dozens of similar web platforms.
We integrated a computer puzzle called “2048” on the app’s main screen. If you win the game, you can get a daily reward after registration.
Build a consistent brand experience
UI/UX should complement who you are as a brand and justify your claims of expertise. When the app or website falls short, it ruins the first impression and stops clients from reaching out.
For example, consider a design studio. Potential clients would expect this company to have a custom website design, not a mediocrity made with a no-code builder. The discrepancy between the website appearance and the claimed expertise will create a dissonance and negatively affect conversions.
Maximize limited marketing resources
Investing in good UI/UX may seem unnecessary at first, but eventually, it will help new companies cut down on marketing. How? By retaining users. A well-designed digital product enhances user satisfaction, increasing the likelihood that people will stay and share their positive experiences with others by word-of-mouth.
Stages of UI/UX design for startups
No matter if you decide to collaborate with a freelance UI/UX designer or a professional design agency, the process will go through certain stages. In our UI/UX studio, we have organized the process by iterative approach, keeping in mind effectiveness and flexibility.
1. Research
The first step of every successful UI/UX development is research. We conduct market research and study similar or analogous products designed by the competitors. This helps us to come up with solutions that are one step ahead of other players on the market. Moreover, this is the time when we familiarize ourselves with business logic and client requirements. If you have any style guides or references, provide them as early on as possible. This way we will manage to understand your requirements and needs much better.
2. Wireframes
A wireframe is a skeleton of your app that shows how all the screens are going to be connected and what elements they will display, from buttons and pop-ups to visual and textual content. However, the content is not added yet: photos, videos, copy, even colors and fonts will be added later. Right now, the wireframe serves to demonstrate the logic of the product and is in black and white so that nothing would distract us from the user flow.
3. Design concept
Having analyzed all the information we have, we present 1-2 visual design concepts that reflect the style and the core user flow. They display the layouts and key elements and are a great tool for presenting ideas to the customer. Before going further, we need to make sure that our client agrees on the chosen direction, so we set up a meeting with the team. If everyone is happy, we proceed with the next step.
4. Visual design
Visual design is the process of adding animations, logos, colors, custom fonts. As a result, you get an esthetically pleasing clickable prototype that corresponds with your brand style and tone of voice. It can be passed to the development team for coding the functionality or used to demonstrate your idea to the sponsors. If you haven’t found a reliable software development team yet, we can also help you with finishing your app development.
Is UI/UX development necessary for your project?
UI/UX development takes 1-2 months and costs additional money, that is why some startuppers think that they can go without it. However, trying to save up money on one of the most important components of your application (the only one that the user can actually see and touch!) is not the best idea. UI/UX design is the first thing that shows if your website is worth the user’s time. If not — they leave. According to Zippia, up to 89% of users abandon websites due to a poor user experience. Professional UI/UX helps avoid these alarming statistics. If you don’t want your clients to get frustrated, create an intuitive UI/UX design with pretty visuals, logical layouts, and clear navigation.
How does the design affect the app’s success?
Research by Forrester about the ROI of UI/UX design shows that on average, every $1 invested in UX generates $100. This is an incredibly good investment. Moreover, they also point out that the top companies that invest in user experience outperformed the S&P index by 35%. According to their research, a well-designed user interface increases conversion rates by more than 200%. Meanwhile, if only you manage to boost your customer retention by at least 5%, you will see an increase in benefit by more than 25%. Happy customers are likely to recommend products they like to their friends. According to Forrester, 23% of customers who had a positive experience told 10 or more people about it.
Common pitfalls of UI/UX design
Now you know how important it is to invest in UI/UX design. But it is also important to do the UI/UX right. Here are some examples of how bad UI/UX development can fail you.
Assuming that you know what the user wants
There are useful methods to help you put yourself into your users’ shoes, such as creating user personas or writing user stories. Our biases sometimes don’t let us see things clearly: you can be a big fan of your project but it doesn’t mean that the users will love it too. Make sure that real people are consulted prior to the development process. Proven many times: they can surprise you with insights you have never thought about.
Prioritizing creativity over usability
Your app may look amazing and be unlike anything created before. But if real users fail to recognize its value, what’s the point? For example, quite often companies invest in creating customized fonts that users would associate with them. Coca-Cola is a good example of a recognizable branded font. But fonts that are too creative are often hard to read. Never forget that the product should be convenient for the user and design should keep users in mind, not the desire of self-realization.
Implementing unintuitive navigation
All your users have years of experience interacting with digital products. They expect to find recognizable buttons in certain places and navigate through screens using common intuitive mechanics (such as scrolling or arrow buttons). Don’t try to revolutionize that because what you will probably result with is a product with poor usability.
Working with an experienced UI/UX design team will save you from these common pitfalls.
Benefits of good UI/UX design for your startup
If you manage to avoid common UI/UX pitfalls, half of the project’s success is already in your hands. Let’s talk about the benefits that good UX and UI principles can bring to businesses:
Problems are cheaper to address
When you pay close attention to UI/UX design from the beginning and consult with end users throughout the entire project, you can identify bottlenecks earlier in the project. The earlier it is, the easier the problems are to fix.
You get reliable insight as inspiration for new ideas
Get inspiration through end-user research and implement features your clients are really going to need.
Your product reaches the market quicker
With a UI/UX prototype, you have a clear market idea in mind. What rests is to program the functionality. This can be done in 3-6 months, which allows you to streamline the delivery to the market.
Investing time and money in good quality UI/UX design will definitely pay off, in the meantime, giving you a competitive advantage.
Conclusion
UI/UX design for startups is an indispensable step to a project’s success. Elaborated business logic and attractive visual design increase the chances for your product to find its target audience. Don’t try to save money on user interface design, conduct all the necessary UI/UX research and usability testing if you want to create an intuitive app that users are going to love.
P.S. There is a certain UI/UX design company in Dubai that can help your app look and feel great. Do you know what company it is? It’s Purrweb, you’re right! And we actually provide services not only there but worldwide. Contact us to discuss your project!
