How an effective UX process can produce high performance apps

UX design improves customer satisfaction and loyalty through fit for purpose, ease of use and the pleasure derived when people interact with a product, such as a mobile app, a website or even an application using emerging technologies including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), or Internet of Things (IoT).

An app UI or UX design process requires understanding the user’s needs and objectives as well as how a user interacts with an app. That information is translated into ideas to improve the app so that it exceeds the needs of your customers.

In detail, the UI / UX design process consists of five key phases:

Product Definition
Research
Analysis
Design
Validation

1) Product Definition

Before getting into UX design the why of the mobile app or website must be addressed. What will it do, what problems will it solve? Often this phase includes:

• Stakeholder interviews to gather insights about business goals
• Value proposition mapping to understand key aspects and the value proposition the mobile app will offer: what it is, who will use it and why
• Concept sketching to create a mockup or simply a sketch on paper of the future app

This phase includes a project kick-off meeting to set expectations for the product team and stakeholders.

2) Research

User and market research informs design decisions that saves a significant amount of time and money over the course of developing an app. It frequently includes:

• Individual in-depth interviews to truly understand the users and their needs, wants, fears, motivations and other behaviors
• Competitive research to identify product opportunities and understand industry trends and standards

3) Personas

These enable user experience designers to better understand why users are likely to want or need the app.

• User personas are fictional characters that represent different user types to understand how your target audiences will use the app.
• User stories help designers understand how the mobile app is used from the user’s point of view.
• Storyboards help designers see each user persona in action according to its user story.

4) Design

In websites and mobile applications, this phase includes creating information architecture (IA) and user interface (UI) design. Applications that contain VR, AR or AI are more complex, requiring greater IA and UI sophistication and expertise to ensure that the design will deliver a rich user experience that meets expectations. Applications for IoT must also take peripheral devices into account, creating another level of complexity. The design phase frequently involves:

• Sketching to quickly and easily visualize ideas on paper, a whiteboard or a digital tool.
• Wireframes in web page or mobile app development help designers visualize its basic structure, including how key elements link.
• Prototypes differ from wireframes in that they help in the design of the actual interaction experience.
• Design specifications contain all the visual design assets that developers need to turn prototypes into a working app.
• Design systems provide designers with a complete inventory of components, patterns and styles as well as the rules they follow for consistency.

Applications that incorporate emerging technologies such as AI, VR and AR require additional steps in their UI / UX design process to produce an experience that feels natural and intuitive. In the real world we navigate without thinking how to go from point A to B. In virtual reality, we have to guide users in navigation within the virtual environment and simulate real world interactions.

VR and AR applications are formed through different visual assets: environments (the 3D world a user enters when putting on a VR headset), characters (user avatars with apparel and accessories), 3d models of props, and interfaces (the elements a user interacts with to move within the environment and execute tasks). The graph below shows the components range of complexity.

For instance, a VR app with no interface but with a complex environment could be a roller coaster ride simulator. The user sits in a car and experiences the ride without any controls. A VR app with a highly developed interface and minimal to no environment could be something like a website home screen.

By increasing the complexity on both axes, a more complicated UI / UX design framework is needed to produce 3D or even 4D spaces. The fourth D is the dimension of time. For UX frameworks, designers must take into consideration:

• Surroundings / Environments form user experiences through changes in stimuli, location and scenery such as the horizon, walls, vegetation, ambient sound and music, background textures, time of day or night, plus wind and other weather.
• Movement / Locomotion offers directional cues that point to targets, actionable items or areas of interest to help tell a story. They can include a navigation dot, an open door, animated signage, a character speaking and objects shaking.
• Interaction / Feedback help the user to realize its presence and abilities and to comprehend the physical laws of a virtual world, such as jumping, teleporting, touching and grasping objects.

Validation

This phase helps the team understand whether the design works as intended through feedback from end-users and stakeholders. The validation phase can include::

• “Eating one’s own dog food” requires the team to use the prototype or app to uncover and address usability issues.
• Testing sessions with actual users helps gain more concrete user data.
• Surveys can capture information from real-world users through questions like “What part of the app do you like/dislike, and why?”
• Analytics such as quantitative data (clicks, navigation time or search queries) can uncover how users interact with your app.

These five phases help a product team arrive at a well-designed mobile app or website that solves the target user’s challenges.

Building a User Experience design team

User experience design draws on different disciplines and skills, making a UX design team composed of a UX Researcher, a UI Designer, an Information Architect and a UX Writer.

A UX Researcher engages with target users to understand their behaviors, needs, pain points, and motivations. They conduct UX research and present their findings to key stakeholders to inform the design process.

A UI Designer concentrates on the look and feel of a product. In a website or mobile application, they design all the screens and create the visual and interactive elements such as icons, buttons, menu bars, typography and colors.

An Information Architect organizes, structures and labels content for ease of use and navigation. This requires an understanding of the users’ expectations and point of view, the content to be presented and the client company’s goals and budget.

A UX writer creates the written content that guides a user on a website or application. This ranges from text on call-to-action buttons and welcome screens to error messages and notifications.

A UI/UX designer for VR or AR apps facilitates development of a unified UI/UX system for VR and AR applications that are intuitive to the user. They also prototype and create interactive assets for VR and AR applications in collaboration with other team members.

How to structure a User experience design team

The first step is to define goals and the context in which the team will work. The second step is to select the user experience design team structure: centralized, decentralized, and matrix structures.

1) The centralized UX design team

All UI / UX designers are part of the same core team and report to the same UX manager, who assigns tasks based on the needs of the product team. UI / UX designers in this structure tend to work on different projects and parts of the business, but may not gain deep product knowledge.

2. The decentralized UX design team

Also known as “embedded” or “distributed” teams, they tend to be embedded in multiple product teams throughout an organization and report directly to their product team. This approach can help build relationships, leading to better collaboration and a rapid development process.

3) The matrix UX design team

A hybrid of the centralized and decentralized models, UI / UX designers are assigned across different product teams and report to two heads: 1) an individual team lead — who provides day-to-day direction — and 2) a centralized UX manager — who focuses on UX design team alignment, career development and professional growth.

UI / UX designers are assigned to a product team and involved in relevant meetings and activities. Another benefit is that a UX manager ensures there’s a shared vision across all projects to deliver world-class business applications.

Why outsource a user experience design team

Not every company needs to maintain a user experience design team, or there are times when an existing user experience design team doesn’t have the capacity to handle another project. Projects that involve AR, VR, AI or IoT tend to call for specific expertise and skill sets that are often beyond the scope of most in-house user experience design teams. With that in mind, here are four reasons why you may wish to consider outsourcing UI / UX design projects.

1. Keep current with UI / UX trends

Outsourcing UI / UX design projects enables you to engage a UX design team that’s up to date on trends gained from working on a range of projects for different clients in various sectors.

2. Access to UI / UX expertise, creativity and objectivity

An outside UI / UX design team can bring an objective view, plus new skills, approaches and best practices, leading to more elegant UX solutions.

3. Stay focused on your core competencies

Outsourcing your UI / UX design projects can help you avoid the time, hassle and expense of building and maintaining a UX department, while attaining professional UX results.

4. Scalability matters

As workloads fluctuate, it’s difficult to maintain the proper level of UI / UX designers on your product teams. By outsourcing your UI / UX design team, you’re relieved of this challenge. In selecting an external UX design team or an app design agency, here are several questions you can ask in your conversations.

“What is your process?”

“What types of research will you conduct, and how?

“Can you show us information architecture and wireframe examples that will likely apply to our UX?”

“Who will handle the visual side of the UX, and can we see samples of their work?”

“Who on the team will handle front end code development?”

“What work have you produced that uses emerging technologies?”

“What’s your approach to integration support?”

In addition to the above questions, here are three tips to help you gain the most value from outsourcing your UX design team.

Tip 1) Hire your outsourced UX design team when there’s still time to involve them in strategic decisions

Tip 2) Assign someone within your company to be responsible for all communication between the UX team and the company

Tip 3) Insist on Time & Material (T&M) pricing instead of a fixed price to give you flexibility to iterate through designs for best solution designs

Conclusion

User experience design offers something like an insurance policy for producing high performance apps — on time and on budget. Therefore the user experience design process is a required step in the app development process.

At Invonto, user experience design and design thinking has helped us launch revenue generating products for clients across finance, construction, healthcare, industrial engineering, entertainment, retail, travel and consumer products industries.

Our success stories include a personal finance management app for Transamerica, construction scheduling app for D. R. Horton, Telehealth app for ReconSTAT, a voting app for America’s Got Talent and a suite of enterprise apps for Sealed Air.

We guide our clients from strategy through successful launch, providing consultation at each stage of the process of how to create an app. We provide turn-key app development projects so our clients can focus on their business. Please feel free to reach out to us to say hello or to discuss your UX design and app development needs.