User Interface Design
The Importance of Beautifully Designed UI/UX and its Influence on Customer Experience.
User Interface and User Experience Design
User Interface Design: User interface design is considered a visual connection between a user and a companies digital product such as a website, app or platform. UI/UX design incorporates how the user interacts with the device, the layout and style of the interface, and how content and information are displayed.
User Experience Design: User experience design incorporates how the user interacts with the UI design, including the functionality, usability and the satisfaction which the user receives from interacting with the device.
UI and UX are both crucial to a digital product and work closely together, but despite their close relationship, they are both separate parts of the design process. You can have a beautifully designed user interface with a poorly functioning user experience. Therefore, it is essential to give both UI and UX individual and careful attention to ensure they both work together seamlessly.
UI/UX Design and Consumer Relationships
For organizations, UI/UX design has become a crucial part to developing strong relationships with their customers. Customer relationships are the connection between a company and the customer and how they communicate and interact with their customers. As consumers are the centre of any business, it’s crucial to maintain a good and healthy relationship with them. Therefore, anything your company does should be focused on the needs and wants of your consumers.
Changing Consumer Trends
Consumers are now demanding more than ever before from organizations, they no longer base their loyalty on price or the quality of the product but place a significant emphasis on the customer experience they receive during the entire buying process. Developing a good experience for your consumers evokes positive emotions and memories towards your brand and helps drives customer loyalty. A recent Walker study found that 86% of buyers will pay more if they receive an excellent customer experience and it is considered that the customer experience will overtake product quality and price as the key differentiator by 2020.
Digital transformation has wholly transformed consumer habits, causing companies to transform the way they interact with their customers. Creating an excellent online experience for your users can help brands develop a positive relationship with their customers. The customer experience includes the environment in which the consumer interacts with, including the digital environment. While an exceptionally designed user interface and user experience for your company’s website/app is only part of the consumer journey — it is arguably the most important.
Mobile devices, apps, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and machine learning have created a new type of modern-day buyer, who’s digitally adaptive, multi-channel, and social. Because of the opportunities that arise from using modern technology, customers often rate organizations on their digital customer experience first. As consumer trends shift towards digital, it’s imperative that companies develop a seamless online experience for their customers, curating positive relationships through UI/UX design.
The benefits of a positive customer experience
Creating a positive experience for your customers is likely to:
- Increased customer loyalty to your brand
- Increased customer satisfaction
- Increased user-generated content through word-of-mouth, reviews, recommendations and social media marketing.
User Interface Design and User Experience
One of the main ways companies look to develop strong relationships with their consumers, is by providing a good experience for them when they interact with their brand. Customer experience is considered the holistic perception a consumer has of their experience with your brand. The customer experience includes every part of the way a customer interacts with your brand, from talking to customer service, navigating through your companies website to receiving their product or service — It covers the whole of the consumer buying process. It’s important to understand that while UI and UX go hand-in-hand, you can have a good UI and a poor UX and vice versa. Therefore, designers need to strike a good balance between a beautiful user interface design and a seamless user experience.
PromoCell — Enhancing the User Experience
We’ve recently been working with PromoCell, one of the leading providers of human cells and cell culture products in Europe. PromoCell wanted to generate more sales online and improve cross-selling and client understanding of related products.
Our Approach
Detailed analysis of PromoCell’s analytics, utilising heat maps and user testing, suggested that users struggled with browsing the extensive range of products PromoCell had on offer and finding the outcome they wanted. In addition, a number of minor UX issues across the site added up to significantly reduce conversion rate and retention of customers.
We implemented Omni-search and live suggestions to make the search dramatically faster and more efficient. We also resolved UI/UX issues including setting a user’s location to be autodetected when they entered the site, allowing them to have access to relevant prices, currency and distribution information automatically.
Conclusion
When you look at the big picture, it’s easy to understand why UI/UX design are so important, it is the reason consumers either see success or failure. It is the way that your website speaks to your audience and the way that your audience comes to understand and connect with your company. UI/UX design plays a vital role in the experience your user has when interacting online with your brand. Therefore, developing a beautifully designed user interface and a seamlessly functioning user experience, enhances the customer experience and helps drive brand loyalty, customer satisfaction and conversion rates.
