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A smooth, visually appealing experience with your business's website or mobile app is an important element in creating happy, loyal customers.

Big businesses may have an advantage because of their existing brand awareness and their larger marketing budgets, but that doesn't mean small businesses and startups can't compete with them. In some ways, smaller companies have an unfair advantage when it comes to design because their sites and apps don't have to be so bloated.

Provide your customers with a straightforward, intuitive, attractive experience on your website, and they'll be happy to become repeat customers.

A website or app's ability to bring in repeat business relies on whether people understand and appreciate it. "Am I getting value from this? Is it user-friendly? Is it fun?" These questions form the basis of a prospective customer's decision as to whether they will become regular users of that site or app, or will never come back.

That's where User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) design come into play.

User Experience is the way a person interacts with and uses a product, system or service. User Interface is closer to what we consider visual design. If you think of UI design as the tool you consume a bowl of cereal with - a spoon - UX design is the overall experience of pouring the cereal into a bowl and using your well-designed spoon to eat it.

You can create a web and app experience that is useful, pleasing, and impactful - but you have to understand how UX and UI can help you and optimize each to improve the experience for your customers and prospects.

Rahul Varshney, Co-creator of Foster.fm says:

User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) are some of the most confused and misused terms in our field. A UI without UX is like a painter slapping paint onto canvas without thought; while UX without UI is like the frame of a sculpture with no paper mache on it. A great product experience starts with UX followed by UI. Both are essential for the product's success.

Knowing the difference between UX and UI design and how to best use each creates a significant competitive advantage for your business, and just like good customer service, is thoughtful, effective, and hugely impactful on the lasting success of your brand.

UX design

According to Time News, 55% of web users spend fewer than 15 seconds on a website. This means that you have 15 seconds to get a person's attention, clearly demonstrate the services you offer, and illustrate why your company is worth their time.

In fact, as we've previously pointed out:

the attention span of a human adult, according to BBC News, is 9 seconds (the Associated Press reports that in 2012, the average attention span for a human was 8 seconds). Nearly one fifth of all page views in 2012 lasted fewer than four seconds. And to add fuel to the fire, people read only approximately half of the words on a web page that has fewer than 111 words (and only 28% of the words on a web page that has more than 593 words).

Because you have a small window of opportunity to reach your customers, you have to capitalize on any chance you have to shape their experience into a great one. That's where User Experience design (UX) comes into play.

User Experience is "the overall experience [a person has] using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use."

Good businesses and good user experiences share some of the same core principles: be useful, be usable, and be enjoyable. This means that you're already familiar with what to consider when building the UX end of your digital experience.

Be useful

Solving people's problems and meeting their needs are the bread and butter of your small business. Your website or app should do the same. Figuring out what to build (or what to fix) means understanding your customer's problems, and the only way to really do this effectively is to talk to them directly:

Offer them a short post-sale survey on your existing site,

Hand out in-store questionnaires, or

Talk to your customer service or tech support team, as they are often the first line of contact for your customers.

Find the most common issues and questions that people have, and then address those.

You can also set up social media keyword alerts to "listen in" on what customers and prospects are saying about your company or products. There's nothing like hearing what customers say to other people about your business to give you a direction or a focus point.

Be usable

It's important to make sure you are organizing your site and its flow of information properly. Having a well organized, easy to use, and appealing website better engages your customers, which ultimately increases your conversion rate. That means more business for you! Make your product's usability top notch, and you'll be sure to create a significant impact on your bottom line.

Usability is how well a product or service works. To know if you're on the right track for good usability, try to answer the following questions positively about your site or app:

How easy is it to learn?

How effective is it?

Can customers easily remember how to use it?

How does it handle things if something goes wrong?

How satisfying is it to use?

How can you be sure that your product is usable? Test it with your customers. Get them to use the product while talking through what they find easy and challenging.

You can also hire consultants who specialize in usability testing or use dedicated sites like usertesting.com, trymyui.com, or userzoom.com to gather feedback.

Be enjoyable

Author Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Adding that magic by creating an enjoyable experience is what elevates a product from being adequate to something truly great. Products that make us smile will keep us coming back for more, and by adding that little something extra you can make using your design a memorable one.

Photojojo is " the most fun photography gear store on the web. " Their website is full of fun little flourishes, from the whimsical "subscribe" button for their newsletter (the self-proclaimed "best newsletter you'll read all week"), right down to the jaunty animations they've added to some of their product images. The site is still very usable and clean, but the humor and playfulness of Photojojo's brand come through clearly.

Anticipating your customer's needs is another excellent way of adding delight to your products.

Amazon has made anticipating its customers' needs an art. In addition to its uncannily useful "customers who bought this also bought" suggestions, Amazon thoughtfully resurfaces items you've looked at in the past and makes it very easy to come back where you left off, no matter what device you were on.

Delightful User Experience design gives life to your product. It creates an opportunity to express the personality of your brand through the use of humor, animation, thoughtfulness, and personalized experiences.

UI Design

If User Experience design is all about how something is used, User Interface (UI) design is the method that makes that experience possible. It's the graphic design that pulls your eye through a magazine article, the controls that make it easy to apply filters to your photos in Instagram, or the toolbar in your email client that gives you quick access to replying, forwarding, and composing an email.

Effective UI design should not only be beautiful and elegant, it should also be simple, consistent, and timeless.

Be as simple as necessary

Jonathan Ive, Chief Design Officer at Apple, is a huge advocate for simplicity in design. He says:

Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that's a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That's not simple.

Creating an effective interface for your product means stripping away unnecessary elements. You don't want to throw roadblocks in front of your customers that prevent them from achieving their goals (like buying a product, asking for more information, or registering for an account).

Google research found that people consistently rated simple websites as more beautiful than visually complex ones. Another study from Harvard and the Universities of Maryland and Colorado found similar results: the more visually complex a website was, the lower its visual appeal. The bottom line? The simpler the design, the better.

Simple, clean designs have a number of other benefits, as well.

They have fewer distractions.

They help make the information you want to present easier to access.

They are easier to learn and navigate.

They are often easier to develop and load faster.

Be consistent

Creating a consistent UI will make your product easier to use and more visually appealing. Consistent designs are less frustrating, less confusing, and save time for everyone.

Using the same colors and designs for interface items like buttons and links makes it easier for people to learn your product. You can also use your company's existing color palette or official font, further solidifying your brand.

This is where creating a style or branding guide can really help. Create a strong visual hierarchy that makes important things larger than less important ones. Use the same spacing and margins for layouts. Ensure there is visual and aesthetic consistency between all of your products to give your customers a unified experience that is distinctly your brand's.

Aim for timelessness

UI design, like all design, goes through cycles and fads - what was popular five years ago might look out of place now. A well-known example is the evolution of the UI for Apple's iPhone.

In 2007, to help users learn how to use its new gesture-based interface, Apple took cues from the real world: the Contacts app looked like a real address book, buttons looked three-dimensional and realistic, and apps like the notes and compass apps looked similar to their real world counterparts.

But with 2013's release of iOS 7, Apple completely overhauled the interface, getting rid of these real world cues for a flat, sparse looking design. Overnight, apps that used real world visual cues went from fitting in with the operating system to looking dated.

Websites imitating the iPhone's look and feel not only looked out of date, they also looked out of place on mobile devices running different operating systems.

It's important that your products look current and modern, but try to make sure any design elements you use are as time-tested as possible. That way, you can avoid having to update once the trends inevitably move on.

Why is this important?

Repeat studies show that good design matters:

One study found the overall aesthetics of a website contributed 75% to its credibility.

Another found that 94% of first impressions are design-related.

A third found a whopping 88% of online consumers would be less likely to return to a website after a bad experience.

Investing in your design is clearly very important. In 1973, IBM founder Thomas Watson Jr. famously said,

We are convinced that good design can materially help make a good product reach its full potential. Good design is good business.

The culture-shifting successes of design-oriented businesses like Apple, Starbucks, and Target prove him right. All of these companies not only have robust design cultures - they also invest heavily in User Experience and Interface design.

UX and UI design are integral parts of your brand's online presence. Having thoughtful, accessible design in both your visual and experiential identity will help your company compete in the increasingly online-oriented business world.

Knowing the difference between UX and UI is a great start. Knowing how to employ them to your greatest advantage is what will really set you apart, and the talented web and mobile app designers at crowdSPRING can help you do exactly that.
If you're ready to invest in your website or app's design, crowdSPRING can help you get started. Engage with crowdSPRING's community of over 200,000 designers who can work with you to move your company's design to the next level for as little as $299.

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6 Ways User Interface and User Experience Design Can Help Your Business

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A smooth, visually appealing experience with your business's website or mobile app is an important element in creating happy, loyal customers. Big businesses may have an advantage because of their existing brand awareness and their larger marketing budgets, but that doesn't mean small businesses

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Beyond the objective of making an application work and being able to see it properly, it is essential to understand that the user experience design directly impacts your business. How? Here you will know.
The American writer, researcher and guru Jared Spool, assures that design is not visual, but the business is. Why? Simple: a bad design, -or the lack of it- negatively impacts on different levels of your company. On this matter, Santiago Arcucci, Hexacta's designer, says that "when the design is thought from the beginning of the conception of the solution, it adds a higher value to both the solution and the company. Many companies begin to develop software immediately without understanding the customer's business or wonder who will use the application or for what purpose". ( Read as well: 7 deadly sins of UX-UI design).

"If you start developing software in this way - he continued-, the solution may not be adequate, which ultimately affects all the company, impacting productivity, quality and sales", Arcucci continues. And it is precisely here where it lies the importance of user experience design (UX/UI) for your business. Learn seven aspects of your business that will benefit from investing in the UX/UI design from the moment the product is created and always focused on the user.

1. Improve product's performance

One famous quote of Steve Jobs perfectly describes this point: "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like, design is how it works". From the functional point of view, the design impacts on how efficient the developed tool will be, so that better results are obtained.

"If an interface is well designed there are less chances to make a mistake when using it, which guarantees efficiency and better performance", Arcucci emphasizes.

2. Productivity, time optimization and cost reduction

Developing clear and intuitive applications and with the least amount of mistakes, allows users to solve tasks quickly, and hence a great impact on productivity is achieved, reducing time and costs as well.

Note that when the interface is quick to learn and easy to use, it also reduces investment on training. Likewise, when the user is satisfied with the solution, times and costs related to the support will also be reduced, so you will have more time to dedicate to other things.

"It is important to analyze and refine the design from the earliest stages of development to minimize risks and reduce costs. The chances of development rework and redesign is reduced, and we will make the application more profitable on long term," says Hexacta's designer.

An interesting fact: correcting a problem in the development phase costs 10 times more than doing it in the design phase and 100 times more if the product was already released, according to the behavioral psychologist and expert in user experience design, Susan Weinschenk.

3. Differentiation

One of the reasons to invest in custom software and therefore in user-centered UX/UI design is that, regardless if software development is used to improve internal processes or those of their own customers, the company achieves to stand out from the competition. (Read also: Is Argentina an attractive hub for American companies?).

"The moment users can choose a solution or application that offers a better and more enjoyable experience- they will do it", says Arcucci. At the same time he highlights the model evolution of the value concept that Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore suggest, where they say that "today we are at the stage of the experiences, where value and differentiation are provided by the experiences that people have when they use a product or service. Providing a good user experience is crucial for the customers to prefer your product versus the competition".

4. Sales increase

"Design makes the product, and the difference between providing a good or a bad experience determines the customer's choice," says Arcucci. No matter how good a product is, if the user is frustrated with their experience, the sale will not take place and the image of the company will be affected.

5. Credibility, trust and loyalty

A product is well designed when the user interacts intuitively with it, in a simple and friendly way. The less a person has to think about how to use the tool and the easier it is to find what you want, the more confidence and credibility is generated in the user.

For example, the website HubSpot, specialized in inbound marketing, highlights that -to a greater or lesser extent- the internet pages have a 97% influence in the client's decision. Design and user experience are fundamental to winning loyal customers.

6. Branding and reputation

Have you ever recommended a product or service just because it worked well and fulfilled your expectations? The same way you became a spokesman for many brands or companies (conscious or unconsciously for the simple fact of using it), your software users are big contributors to your reputation; just like they will talk well about you if they have a pleasant experience, they will do the opposite if they are unsatisfied.

7. Improve your clients' relationship

This point is directly related to the knowledge that a good development company must have of its clients when designing a user app. Getting to know your clients will help to generate empathy with them, understand their needs and generate a long term and trustworthy relationship.

Making a good user experience (UX/UI) design focused on the client is not a stroke of luck, instead it involves a series of variables to keep in mind. "Basing ourselves on user's behavior studies with the product, considering even psychological and sociological aspects, we detect unique types of users. Knowing their habits, environment and mental models allows us to create the best solution", the designer added.

To sum up

Considering UX/UI design for a technological solution is a business decision that will increase revenues at all levels of your company.

It's a domino effect: if the development is well design from the beginning, it will impact on all levels of your company: on your processes, on the way you make decisions, on productivity, sales, trust and credibility. (Do not miss: How do you select your technological partner? Key points to make the right decision).

Remember: delivering an unforgettable experience goes beyond delivering an effective product, it is about good business.

"When businesses see the tangible results of product development and design efforts, they invest further in these efforts" - Laura Klein, author of 'UX for Lean Startups'

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Contact us for more information. We'll quickly get back to you with the information you need.

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User experience design: investing in your business | Hexacta

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Beyond the objective of making an application work and being able to see it properly, it is essential to understand that the user experience design directly impacts your business. How? Here you will know. The American writer, researcher and guru Jared Spool, assures that design is not visual, but the business is.

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Rishabh Software - An Enterprise Application Development Company

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An organization's website, mobile app or mobile site are the public faces of the brand. Moreover, each business needs a functional, clean and attractive interface to make that first impression right and appeal to its stakeholders. The end goals for each brand may vary, but the ultimate objective is to hook your visitors and serve them well enough to stay. Front-end development is critical to the success of this purpose. It has a significant role to play in creating an immersive user experience - one that lures users to spend more time on the website and fulfill their intent.

Front-end was known as "client-side" programming which is what unfolds in the browser, that is - everything the users interact with. Front-end technology has significantly evolved over the past 10-15 years with the surge in the popularity of JavaScript. Now, there is an emergence of front-end frameworks like Bootstrap, Angular, React and Vue.js. For businesses, this means more choice and flexibility to develop genuinely modern, intuitive and seamless user experiences. However, how can enterprises make the most of these powerful capabilities? Let's find out why front-end technology can empower your business success:

Responsive and mobile-first websites
Mobile phones and devices dominate a large chunk of the digital landscape and businesses need to have a mobility strategy. Front-end development plays a crucial role in developing user-friendly mobile solutions - be it responsive websites, apps, mobile websites; and also in propelling enterprise mobility by creating intuitive enterprise mobility solutions. Modern and cutting-edge front-end technology provide a flawless and optimized user experience across devices and channels.

Quality front-end interface leads to higher conversion
The end goal of all front-end development is to translate the client's vision and purpose online to increase user adoption and lead to higher conversion. Front-end development offers the best of form and function, to enhance the usability of your website or app by several notches. Ease of navigation, the overall layout, information architecture, and several other user interfaces and user experience elements, rely heavily on front-end technology's ability to deliver.

Front-end marketing through storytelling
Content is king and at the forefront of an organization's marketing and stakeholder-relations efforts. How each group chooses to tell their story, their crucial message for customers is tied in very closely to the front-end execution of that content. Everyone from institutional investors to eCommerce customers use the company's website as part of their research process. A recent, much-talked-about trend is that of brand storytelling - getting your audience to relate themselves to the values and experience of your brand.

Performance
The load time of a website or an app has a direct relation to the bounce rate and abandonment. Simply put, speed matters. Users leave if the web pages and applications are heavy, taking ages to load. Front-end technology can optimize the overall performance, reducing page-load times and deliver fast, light and SEO-friendly websites and apps.

Website complexity and out of the box toolkit
Great business ideas need landing gear as well as wings. Execution is crucial for breathing life into the business's vision and expectations. Enterprises can now indeed build sophisticated web apps and websites with highly dynamic interfaces, thanks to modern, cutting-edge front-end frameworks.

Many of these new technologies such as AngularJS, ReactJS deliver out of the box developer tools that help build highly interactive and innovative interfaces, which are stable, fast and consistent.

Last but not the least
Users who experience sluggish websites, run-time errors, poor design and graphics will lose interest and are unlikely to return. Well-designed interfaces instill trust and confidence in your brand and help achieve your communication goals leading to higher traffic and conversion. Rishabh Software leverages front-end frameworks to enable you to develop your digital estate quickly and efficiently, providing a seamless and engaging user experience.

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Why Is Front-End Development Crucial To Your Enterprise?

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An organization's website, mobile app or mobile site are the public faces of the brand. Moreover, each business needs a functional, clean and attractive interface to make that first impression right and appeal to its stakeholders. The end goals for each brand may vary, but the ultimate objective is to hook your visitors and serve them well enough to stay.

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In order to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving online world, businesses need to adopt new technologies and methodologies swiftly. One such recent advancement is the increased focus on user experience (UX) design out of traditional UI (user interface) design. UX design can spell a website's success or failure, so it is essential that companies learn what good UX is, how to incorporate it, and what its benefits are.

Some of the most successful and popular companies have already begun to adopt UX design into their digital presence. Companies that wish to remain competitive need to follow suit quickly, lest they lose too much business and end up unable to recover.

Understanding UX

User experience design is not a wholly new concept to the world of business. Mapping the user experience as they move through interactions with a company has long been a part of businesses' attempts to improve themselves. Applying that concept to customers' digital movements is a more recent innovation, however.

UX design incorporates elements of user interface design, customer journey mapping, and webpage design (or software design, as UX is not purely for websites). Someone who is designing the UX needs to research and understand how customers are interacting with a website. They will use that information to make site changes that will hopefully improve the user's experience.

UX designers may improve UX in a wide variety of ways. They may change interface elements, page layouts, fonts, and more to improve usability. They may find areas with a lot of customer complaints and change them accordingly. Resolving link errors, redesigning pages to present information more effectively, incorporating graphics to improve customer interest - all these things and more can fall under UX design.

Recognizing the Benefits

Businesses are rapidly exploring the benefits of UX, and they are already recognizing the potential for significant return on investment from UX research and development. You should not even slightly underestimate a great UX's ability to influence customers.

UX design can vastly increase a website's usability, which is a key factor in retaining, converting, and satisfying customers. A website with low usability is not going to see much happy customer interaction. Proper UX design can help businesses avoid the following errors that decrease their websites' usability:

Focusing on looks over functionality: An aesthetically pleasing website is a good thing, but a functional website is a necessity. Customers will still come to a website that is plain but usable. Conversely, they will avoid a site that is pretty but does not work correctly.

Failing to consider legibility: Customers read websites in a specific pattern, and failure to incorporate that pattern into a page's layout lowers its usability. Font choices also affect legibility, as well as link placements, targeting, and grammar usage.

Having confusing layouts or links: A good website directs customers to where they want to be. Having too many options on screen at one time is confusing, as are links that seem like they should go to one page but lead to something different.

Not being able to handle traffic: Internet users have notoriously short attention spans, so if a website is loading slowly due to inability to handle heavy traffic, users will go elsewhere.

Placing ads at bad places or times: Ads are a necessity, but you need to handle them correctly. Inundating customers with pop-up ads or distracting them from key information are UX mistakes.

Running an unstable site: Users want working websites - websites they can trust to function correctly any time they come back. Too many errors will damage customers' trust and they will be less likely to use the website.

Not catering for different browsers and devices: People have a lot of options with regards to web browsers. A website that does not work well on the one being used by a particular site user will automatically be excluding them and preventing them from potentially becoming a customer. Websites also need to be compatible with mobile devices to ensure a great UX.

UX design can have a major impact on the customer support division of a business. Malfunctioning interface elements, 404 errors, broken or incorrect links, erroneous information, and many other hiccups can create the need for customer support. A UX designer can reduce the need for support by correcting website errors, correcting bad information, directing users to other areas of a website, and other ways. When a business needs less customer support, they can save costs by reducing their customer service division. Hence, this is one way good UX can reduce operating costs.

Well-designed experiences help direct customers through a website efficiently. Using proper layouts, good linking strategies and pertinent information, a UX designer can reduce the amount of time between a customer's first interaction with a website and the point of sale. Alternatively, a UX designer can also create pages in such a way as to increase the amount of time users spend on them. This can lead to greater ad revenue and improved information retention.

Customers visit a website for a reason. They want information, a product, or a service. A website that fails to give customers what they want will not see much interaction. User experience research strives to understand why customers come to a site, and user experience design tries to give the customers what they need.

By its nature, UX design focuses on the customers. It revolves around understanding them - their motivations, desires, emotions, goals, and their actions. Beyond creating an effective website, UX research can improve a company's understanding of their users in all areas. A focus on UX can turn into a company-wide shift to a client-focused perspective.

Websites are incredibly commonplace, but people are no less suspicious of them now than they were at their first introduction. Getting users to trust a website is essential to that website's success. Understanding user experience on a website can greatly assist with building customer trust. Bugs, mislabeled links, bad language choices, and many other things can negatively impact trustworthiness on a website. A UX designer can find and change these problems to increase the trust visitors have in a website, making them more likely to interact with it.

UX is a Necessity

With more companies learning about the benefits of UX design, and its best practices becoming better understood, having a UX designer or team for a website is now a must-have. Businesses that fail to adopt UX into their digital presence are going to find themselves losing customers to competitors with more usable and more trustworthy websites.

Thankfully, UX designers are becoming more common than they have been in recent years. More people who previously only knew and understood specific aspects of website design have expanded their horizons into other areas and grown capable of handling UX design. Businesses are also learning how to construct teams or divisions focused solely on UX research and development. These teams can produce sweeping changes in a company's digital presence with large returns on investment.

Even smaller companies should soon be able to hire UX designers or train some of their existing staff to fill these roles. This will allow them to stay competitive in the digital world, at least with regards to UX benefits. They will be able to avoid common mistakes, lower their support needs, increase customer trust, improve website layouts and much more.

(Lead image source: vanmarciano - Creative Commons)

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How Understanding UX Benefits Digital Businesses - Usability Geek

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In order to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving online world, businesses need to adopt new technologies and methodologies swiftly. One such recent advancement is the increased focus on user experience (UX) design out of traditional UI (user interface) design.

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User experience (UX) design focuses on enhancing user satisfaction by improving how we interact with the websites, applications and devices in our lives. In other words, UX makes complex things easy to use.

While the term "UX" is relatively new, the concept of user-friendly design has been around for generations. "Good design is good business," the second president of IBM, Thomas J. Watson, famously told Wharton students in 1973. "We are convinced," he said, "that good design can materially help make a good product reach its full potential."

Watson had just retired as IBM CEO, having grown the company tenfold. He predicted the trend that made companies like Apple, Facebook and Google what they are today. Apple didn't invent the smartphone, but it made one very easy to use. Facebook wasn't the first social network, but its simplicity was instrumental to its growth. And there were many other search engines before Google, but none made it so easy to find the most relevant information. All three companies became successful by improving user experience for products that already existed.

User experience contributes to many other success stories. Jeff Bezos invested 100 times more into customer experience than advertising during the first year of Amazon. AirBnB's Mike Gebbia credits UX with taking the company to $10 billion. Tom Proulx, co-founder of Intuit, was one of the pioneers of usability testing, putting emphasis on ease of use in his products.

Good user experience is clearly good for business. Studies show that companies that invest in UX see a lower cost of customer acquisition, lower support cost, increased customer retention and increased market share, according to a study done by Forrester. When compared to their peers, the top 10 companies leading in customer experience outperformed the S&P index with close to triple the returns. Forester Research shows that, on average, every dollar invested in UX brings 100 dollars in return. That's an ROI of a whopping 9,900 percent.
To Improve User Experience, Start by Observing Customers Interact with Your Product
The first step to improving your own UX (and reaping the business benefits) is to conduct a usability assessment of your product, application or website. This process uncovers the most common problems. Often, usage analytics indicate UX issues with your product. Usability testing explains these issues.

In my agency, we regularly see websites that are underperforming because they were designed without the end user in mind. In these situations, executives who think they know their users typically make these important decisions. As a result, websites are designed for the executives and not for the customers.

Proper UX design requires understanding users' needs and creating a solution that solves their problems and helps complete their tasks in the easiest and quickest way possible. To do this properly, you need to get inside users' heads by interviewing them and observing them while they interact with the product. Mental models can then be constructed outlining users' behavioral patterns. In turn, those can be applied to prototype products that better serve the users' needs. With continuous testing and adjustments, you can improve ease of use, reduce mistakes and increase overall customer satisfaction.

Despite popular belief, usability testing doesn't have to be conducted behind mirrored glass with hundreds of participants. According to Norman Nielsen Group, the world's foremost authority in UX, observing and interviewing just five users usually uncovers about 85 percent of all usability problems. Simply recruit five participants who represent your actual users and offer them an incentive to use your product in an observed environment. Give them real tasks to complete. Ask them to think aloud, but don't help or guide them. Observe their behavior and listen to their feedback to uncover potential issues.
Make Good UX a Part of Your Internal Processes
After fixing usability problems, think about how you can incorporate UX design into your process to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. One way to do so is by integrating pattern libraries. A pattern library is a collection of previously tested user interfaces that solve common design problems. Organizations that rely on pattern libraries, as opposed to reinventing the wheel each time, see a 50 percent increase in product development efficiency. You can develop your own pattern library or use public libraries like UI Patterns or the Yahoo Design Pattern Library.

In business, speed and efficiency are paramount. I recommend starting with low-fidelity wireframes. At Intechnic, we sketch initial ideas on paper and focus on only the most important elements first. We use Sharpies -- thick lines force you to limit the details you can fit on a sheet of paper. Eventually, we transfer designs onto a dry-erase board where we can fill in more detail and play with variations. Once designs pass internal reviews, we convert them into high-fidelity interactive prototypes that simulate real-life scenarios and can be tested with real users. There are a number of tools for that: Axure, Uxpin, Balsamiq and iRise, just to name a few.

User acceptance is critical to any product, project or service. A good rule of thumb: test early (with real users) and test often. Businesses simply fail without happy customers. Make yours happy with good UX.

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Good UX Is Good Business: How To Reap Its Benefits

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User experience (UX) design focuses on enhancing user satisfaction by improving how we interact with the websites, applications and devices in our lives. In other words, UX makes complex things easy to use. While the term "UX" is relatively new, the concept of user-friendly design has been around for generations.

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We know that slow page loads drive people away. In recent years users expect web pages to load in 3 seconds or less - even on mobile devices. Speed is considered the most important feature by some. So, when I hear stories about front end performance not being a business priority when it accounts for about 87% of the time a page takes to load I see we have a need to help our business decision makes understand the importance. Let's take a look at some information and resources that might help.

Business Reasons

Business decision often care about features, ads, or some other functionality in the site. How it works or how fast it's delivered is often a second though if one at all. It's not always easy to understand since it's not something you can click on or stare at how pretty it is. That by no means makes it non-quantifiable. Let's try to quantify front end performance in a way a business decision maker can understand.

Assumption: Where Performance Is Experienced

First, I want to address an assumption which is more observation than assumption. Front end performance is the majority of the performance time experienced by an end user. This has been observed and measured by the HTTP Archive and Strangeloop that observed 97% of the time is in the front end for mobile devices.

Selling Points

Business decision makers, in my experience, like bullet pointed reasons with references. They also like measured numbers that can point to more money or engagement.

Increased User Interaction

Financial Reasons - Show Me The Money

While you may need more data (and it does exist), hopefully information like this will help spark an interest from decision makers.

More Reading

These all have references you can follow. If you want even more reasons (though without references) checkout the post from Blaze.io on this same topic.

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We know that slow page loads drive people away. In recent years users expect web pages to load in 3 seconds or less - even on mobile devices. Speed is considered the most important feature by some.