How Good UX Designers Can Save Your Startup
As a startup owner, you know that you conduct most of your business interactions online, so providing a seamless digital experience to your potential and current clients is a must to develop your business.
These days, users of digital products think of a flawless, optimised user experience as a basic requirement, so failing to meet their needs is a bad idea considering the current level of competition.
However, with tight budgets and numerous other problems associated with managing a startup, entrepreneurs often overlook the importance of UX design.
This is a dangerous road to take because a great UX is no longer a luxury for startups but rather a necessity to reach business goals.
For example, a poor app UX such as confusing navigation, a lack of intuitive interface, and too many features can confuse the user and result in the app being in the trash very quickly.
In other words, you cannot overlook UX at any cost to ensure that your digital product makes an excellent first impression and delivers value with every use.
In this article, we’re going to analyse the big mistakes startup owners tend to make and find out once and for all why compromising on UX is something your startup should avoid and what to do when a positive user experience with your product is at risk.
Why Startups Fail: Poor UX
Obviously, this applies to all startups having digital products such as apps and tools for online business management.
Many owners of these startups know that money is an issue for them, so they try to reduce the costs by hiring a graphic designer to work on UX.
However, a graphic designer, although necessary for web design success, may not do many things that a UX designer does.
Here’s an example.
It’s a known fact that 90 per cent of startups fail within the first several months.
While the reasons for this are numerous, the leading one, as shown in the below image, is a lack of market need.
According to Statista, 46 per cent of new companies go out of business because they fail to generate the need for their product.
You will find more infographics at Statista
In other words, this means that there’s no customer for the startup’s product, so chances for success are very slim in this case.
Obviously, being good at marketing, in a good market doesn’t necessarily mean your product will satisfy that market.
Even having a brilliant graphic designer won’t help you with generating a market need for your product because their job is to take care of the design part.
On the other hand, researching to define potential target customer personas before the development of the digital product’s design is one of the primary responsibilities of a UX designer.
Before getting to actual designing, he or she will study what products, therefore, solutions, are present on the market to find out unique challenges and people who could need help with solving them.
They also study the needs and behaviour patterns of potential customers to make sure that the final design of a digital product can keep the users interested and engaged for as long as possible.
In other words, they make sure that every single step of the process is created by keeping the user in mind.
This involves not only design but content; it needs to contribute to overall design goals and contain messages that the target audience finds engaging.
Many professional writing companies such as Ratedbystudents have already started training their employees in UX writing to eliminate some of the most common UX mistakes in web design and successfully bring their content from being product-oriented towards getting genuinely customer-oriented.
Thus, a UX designer considers the needs of the users critical for success and works on finding ways to exceed their expectations and maximise engagement.
It’s not about describing the qualities of a product anymore but letting people know how those qualities can help them in taking another step towards their dream life.
A high percentage of startups failing because of that suggests that many of them may not have good UX designers working to generate a market need.
Besides, if you look at the above image with the top reasons why startups fail one more time, you’ll discover that the second top reason is a lack of money.
Not all companies are created equal, and not all businesses manage to attract significant and steady investments.
A tight budget is a common reason why startups fail to hire a UX designer to help them meet their business goals.
How a UX Designer can Help Save Your Startup
Even though many people thought that Steve Jobs never listened to customers to create a great product, he actually was quite a market researcher.
In fact, Forbes describes that when Jobs returned to Apple in the 1990s, his initial views on customer experience had changed from “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” and he began listening to them to design the company’s products.
“You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology,” he even said in the 1997 Worldwide Developers Conference while explaining how to create best-selling digital products.
As the conference showed, the CEO of Apple Inc. believed that the only vital way to create a lasting product is to meld the technology and the customer’s point of view.
All right, what does it have to do with UX and startups?
A startup simply cannot afford not to listen to the target audience because it becomes impossible to build a product that people want.
As a freshman in the market, you are likely to make use of the word of mouth that your first happy customers will spread.
At first, this might bring an even better result than your marketing efforts.
Even Steve Jobs, who was perceived as a person who didn’t listen to his customers, understood very well that a failure to research the market and convey the findings in the design was a sure-fire way to bankruptcy.
Since UX defines how good a user’s first experience with a digital product is, having a good UX designer to ensure that your app/website/tool is credible, clearly highlights the value to the user, features UX-optimised writing, and provides a positive overall experience.
The process of UX design commences as soon as the concept of your website is shaped, making graphic design, content and web development an integral composition. Remember: UX, not a product’s value, shapes the very first impression of your product.
So, to sum up, a UX designer’s range of responsibilities includes such vital things as:
- Creation of the unique value proposition structure that differentiates a company’s product from competitors. This is where the problem is defined that the product is aimed to offer a solution for.
- Creation of customer-focused content by collaborating with other UX professionals such as writers. At this stage, a good UX translates to comfortable and enjoyable content that encourages people to stay on your website, click through the blog posts and learn more about your products and services.
- Competitor analysis to define what products exist in the same niche and identify the opportunities to deliver more value to customers. Here you learn what features are most likely to work and what tends to be disliked, track common patterns in your sector and, of course, draw inspiration.
- User experience research and testing to improve the unique value proposition. Check out this UI UX designer test for an example.You gather data, analyse it and form the picture of your target user: what person that is, in what context will they use your product and generally what they need from you.
- A UX design that is responsive, usable, and able to deliver maximum customer satisfaction. Content uniformity, website load speed, interactivity – everything to create the necessary impression.
UX is a Critical Element for Success
As you can see, UX design is not all about designing cute buttons and selecting attractive fonts to grab the attention of the user.
It’s that approach for creating a digital product that establishes a connection and customer retention by allowing them to achieve their goals quickly and easily.
You want to make it simple enough, but not primitive, impressive but not striking, clear and understandable, yet not depressingly steady.
So, if your startup has a limited budget and needs to cut some costs, try your best to avoid considering UX design an afterthought and something that graphic design can easily replace.
Even if you succeed at saving on UX and getting away with it initially, the chances are high that this decision will cost in the long term because of the poor conversion and low customer retention level.
Why Every Startup Needs to Maximise UX Design
User experience design is often neglected. UX design, however, is probably the most vital component of branding in the digital age. UX developers and designers use a multidisciplinary approach to create intuitive digital experiences.
The experience of the user when interacting with any website or product is incredibly important as it will typically determine the likeliness of gaining a customer regardless of the product.
Many customers report that having a seamless and easy experience is more important than the specific technical differences between products.
Digital marketing is now the cornerstone of business online as it represents the overall reach of the brand and its effectiveness in leading to conversions.
A well-designed brand with eye-catching imagery is always going to net a healthy return on investment as users are far more intrigued by something aesthetic rather than purely informative.
As opposed to the traditional idea of advertising, modern branding puts a focus on the consumer and attempts to speak to them through strong imagery that represents the brand as well as their interests.
This is especially true for the website of a startup that needs to capture the attention of users while also speaking directly to the target customer base. Startups do not have the time to waste on trial and error testing that only yields cost over profit. Here is where a graphic designer hiring guide can be of great help.
UX design is an incredibly important part of doing business online and promoting awareness of the brand. It can be boiled down to the intersection of technical, artistic, and marketing skills which requires specialised knowledge to use effectively. UX is important also when it comes to React Native app development as it can help businesses generate better customer engagement and build seamlessly functioning mobile apps that come equipped with impressive and dynamic features.
Much of UX design hinders the ability of users to understand the flow of the site while simultaneously leading them down a specific route that will hopefully share the brand story and mission statement of the business.
With the right UX design, you can all but guarantee a predictable user journey that can then be utilised to display products or connect with users.
In either case, UX design is of paramount importance, and, luckily, hiring UX designers has never been more accessible, which is excellent news for both businesses and users.
This is why enlisting the services of a talented UX developer is recommended for all startups as they need to maximise their branding potential in a concise amount of time.
Digital branding relies on design.
The core of a successful branding campaign is an attractive design that entices the target audience while remaining appealing to a broader audience. As branding becomes more and more visual, it is increasingly imperative that startups prioritise design.
Unfortunately, many companies believe that they either don’t need it or can not afford it when this couldn’t be further from reality. Great web designers are available around the world at all levels of expertise so that startups can find the perfect designer to set up their business for success.
How Good UX designers improve digital experiences
Small businesses might think that hiring a designer is entirely out of their reach. However, companies thinking about how to hire a freelance designer must know that this is affordable and that there are many flexible options for businesses strapped for cash.
Moreover, the return on investment is more than worth the initial losses. That is, excellent UX design will, without a shadow of a doubt, increase sales, promote a consistent brand image, and foster emotional connections with your intended market.
Your landing webpage is your digital storefront.
Though it may sound strange, the landing webpage is just as crucial as the public-facing facade.
Much like a physical storefront, the website should reflect the design and decoration of a physical representation made much more convenient through the use of modern technology.
Talented web designers will take the brand of a startup and create an entire website that perfectly represents the company while staying efficient.
Brand perception relies on web design.
The quality of the brand matters a great deal to consumers who make many of their choices based on their attraction to the overall aesthetic. How users perceive a startup and its brand is the difference between success and failure.
A brand that is customer-focused and appropriately funded will ensure that at least some people connect with the brand. Consumers are more likely to trust brands with well-designed websites as they believe them to be more secure and legitimate. Startups that prioritise the design of their web pages are simultaneously boosting the amount of trust that users have in their brand.
Attracting investors
Getting investor interest is every startup entrepreneur’s dream. Securing the financing to scale your operations, release a new and exciting IP, and hire top designers, developers, and leadership. Acquiring the interest of investors requires more than just great financial forecasts, promising predictive models, and superb market research.
Financing is more comfortable to accomplish with premier design because:
- Investors often base brand off of looks
- Style over substance
- Make the best impression
You have to make your business as polished and complete as possible. You can’t do that without a specific brand voice in mind. Your branding must be punchy and act as a sort of extension of your elevator pitch.
Web designers can help translate your elevator pitch into a unique, eye-catching website; Great web designers for hire can help you immensely.
So while investors do want to see your profits and losses accounted for and want to see a hockey stick graph for potential growth, they will likely use their gut to make the final decision as to whether they will supply funding.
That means you need the look, the voice, the design that screams stylish, polished, and professional. UX design is an incredibly important part of doing business online and promoting awareness of the brand.
UX can be boiled down to the intersection of technical, artistic, and marketing skills which requires specialised knowledge to use effectively.
Pro-Tip: You can also try out tools like Buffer alternatives for achieving the best results in marketing and to also save your time. Much of UX design hinders the ability of users to understand the flow of the site while simultaneously leading them down a specific route that will hopefully share the brand story and mission statement of the business.
With the right UX design, you can all but guarantee a predictable user journey that can then be utilised to display products or connect with users. In either case, UX design is of paramount importance, and, luckily, hiring UX designers has never been more accessible, which is excellent news for both businesses and users.
Why Good UX Design Improves Technical Quality
When users find themselves going to new sites in search of something to buy, they are looking for a specific experience that cannot be imitated. There are many companies out there, such as Apple and Zoom, that prioritise the user’s experience because of the power of emotional connection.
If a website is responsive and the brand is relatable, then you have a recipe for guaranteed success on your hands. UX design leads users with emotion which is far likelier to lead to conversions than merely stating the fact in an inelegant manner.
How Good UX designers improve digital experiences:
- They create a user journey
- They study consumer profiles
- They use design knowledge
- They create responsive designs
- They ask users to contribute their thoughts
- They use automated software to do A/B testing
UX design and digital branding rely on each other because they both inform one another. For instance, UX designers need the brand story and identity to create a seamless experience for the users, and digital branding relies on the UX to draw customers in. They are essential to each other, and they are both equally vital in creating an inviting brand.
Ease-of-use radically improves backend tech.
Somewhat fortunately, prioritising UX design also happens to make the backend systems work together much more efficiently by logically integrating the systems. By keeping the focus on logic and user experience, UX designers naturally make the backend work together with the frontend systems in an inherently logical way.
Important takeaways
- UX saves companies time and money
- Costly rework of coding is avoided
- Code is optimised as UX designers tweak
Browsing through the website should feel effortless for the user and should always lead to the choice of becoming a customer or not. Each user that journeys to your company’s website should come away from the experience of feeling fully informed and emotionally connected to the product in some way.
Ultimately, businesses that prioritise UX design are also prioritising the experience of their customers by making them less frustrated and giving them a better perception of the brand.
Why UI/UX design matters
As they say, perception is reality, and that couldn’t be more true when dealing with customers online. However, it is the entirety of its impact that makes UX design so powerful and is also the reason why every small business and app developer should hire a passionate UX designer. These companies are typically light on staff and resources, so they need to maximise their investment to exist logically.
Thankfully, there are many UX developers on the market today who are skilled enough to revitalise a website and who are also willing to work freelance much to the chagrin of small businesses. Hiring UX developers is one of the smartest moves a company can make as marketing and business slowly become more human than machine.
Customers and their experiences using your products matter more than you might think as many users report preferring a particular brand due to accessibility over technical grandeur. The ideal user experience is one that flows effortlessly through the company’s brand story and mission statements while also displaying all pertinent information in a logical order.
However, this critical impact on the user is now beginning to be understood as more and more businesses reach out to enlist the services of competent UX developers that will revitalise their online image.
UX design heavily relies on the responsiveness and logic of the website, along with the brand and its theme. Every single part of the website is vital to great UX developers who will meticulously analyse each layer of the website to determine if anything can make the user’s journey better and more convincing.
UX Trends that Drive Sales
User experience design is a multidisciplinary art.
Making a software product easy to use is white an arduous endeavour.
We interact with tech every day, yet it’s still hard to pinpoint what makes excellent software work.
Creating user journeys, drafting wireframe designs, and conducting A/B tests are just a few of the multi-talented UX design services everyday activities.
Looking at a great piece of art — what do you see? The story of the artist, the piece, or the composition?
Awe-inspiring art transports you to the composition, blurring the barrier between the viewer and the viewed.
In other words, when it’s right, you don’t notice the technique. You see only the intended experience.
There are several ways to help get customers, clients, and users to see only your website’s intended experience or software service, leading them from point A to B with little confusion or concern.
Building a frictionless user experience is no small feat. It’s a complex undertaking that takes more than a little dedication, patience, and talent.
But, web designers, UI designers, and UX designers don’t do it all alone.
They collaborate to create easy-to-use end products and software services.
Purchase premium web assets:
- Use custom designs
- Purchase paid content such as copy or photography
- Buy add-ons, plugins, and themes
They have a few resources that help automate the revision process too.
They use software to do the heavy lifting for A/B testing, delegating tasks, and assessing user journeys with metrics collating by tracking pixels and the like.
This testing method requires that web designers compare versions of a page against each other to determine which page will perform better overall.
A/B testing can now be executed surprisingly quickly without losing efficiency or efficacy thanks to software that will compare your team’s data.
Responsiveness matters the most to users when exploring a site for the first time as it will be their first barometer for legitimacy.
Typically, unsafe and compromised sites respond very slowly to user inputs.
This creates an equivalency between response time and security that isn’t incorrect.
Often that does appear to be the case, websites that are insecure and exploitable are often too inundated with malware to run correctly.
What’s more, the responsiveness of the site should be the same across all the relevant devices.
The web design team should test on smartphones, tablets, PCs, and anything else with a network connection to ensure that the site is formatted and responsive regardless of the tech.
Importantly, design teams must prioritise the mobile experience as it is increasingly becoming the de facto device through which users access the internet.
A website that is not optimised for mobile sets itself up for failure as more and more users continue to switch to mobile devices as their primary technological tools.
Designing with mobile devices in mind will guarantee that your website will be as competitive as possible on the open market.
Similarly to mobile phones, tablets are becoming more popular, albeit at a much slower pace.
Regardless, websites should still consider the tablet environment when designing the site as tablets offer more computing power without losing mobile devices’ functionality.
How do UX designers keep their designs fresh? They are diligent students of digital design.
1 – Tailored experiences
Market research has always been an essential part of building a marketing plan.
The market research also helps build the foundational elements of the user story.
Populating design elements based on user data
Now, UX designers can take it a step further by formulating their designs around personalised user data.
That is to say, UX designers and web designers can leverage cookies and other tracked data to populate design elements based on user data.
We’ve already seen advertisers leverage the power of using data to target customers, track consumer behaviour, and retarget past customers across web browsers and devices.
- Retargeting tech for UI design
- Multi-device experiences
- AR/VR integrations
Another interesting new area UX developers and UI designers have flocked to is augmented reality.
AR and VR have massive potential in the years to come with increased hardware potential and more significant “load-bearing” software.
Expanding the design space with extended reality programs gives UX designers more breathing room to innovate upon tried-and-true design principles and subvert expectations.
2 – Mapped user journeys
The user journey is a set route based on the data points that best reflect the company’s brand and showcase its strengths to each user in a predictable way.
This is to say that the user’s journey is of paramount importance to UX designers as it determines the conversion rate for your customers.
Generally speaking, UX design drives up sales figures because of the sites’ legitimacy prioritising the user’s experience.
Prioritising the user’s experience requires that the UX designer create a healthy guide mapped out to structure a relatable user journey.
One of the hottest trends in UX design is creating graphic plans for the site that demonstrates how users will experience the site and in which order.
A reliable digital map with concrete routes will give the designers and engineers a better understanding of the optimal site layout.
Maximising customer experience is about creating a design paradigm that perfectly encapsulates your customer base’s abstract average.
A company that designs with accessibility and convenience with the customer in mind will almost always have better conversion rates than their direct competitors.
This is simply because users are much more likely to transact with companies that reflect the same values as they do.
Showcasing the company’s brand and message is essential in identifying which demographics are most likely to convert.
3 – Eye Patterns in UX Design
Many technical theorems and practices can assist UX designers in completing the design’s finer details.
For instance, where users look and how they move their mouse is all relevant data to a UX designer who can use these more delicate details to paint a much larger picture.
By placing the buttons and copy in all the right spots, UX designers can virtually guarantee a greater engagement rate at least on a technical level.
4 – Branding with images
Images and videos take up the lion’s share of interactions online, leading users to judge purchases and companies based on these brief visual cues.
However, merely blasting images of flowers around the world probably will not work, unless you’re a florist, and can even lead to a reduction in your legitimacy rating.
This is why UX designers tend to prioritise visual branding to connect with consumers artistically and directly.
Utilising the various visual mediums within the brand’s context will undoubtedly lead to increased exposure and awareness across the industry.
5 – Less text than ever
Making a brand requires developing a brand story.
Storytelling isn’t only exposition; it’s an emotional bond created through shared meaning.
That means UX designers and web designers have to use every tool to create a vivid, branded experience.
- Clean overcrowded
- Casual vs corporate
- Seamless backend integration
- “Full-stack” user experience developers
- Reduced cost
- Better design outcomes
- Fewer technical oversights
How Great Design Dramatically Improves Technical Performance
When users find themselves going to new sites searching for something to buy, they look for a specific experience that cannot be imitated.
Many companies out there, such as Apple and Zoom, prioritise the user’s experience because of the power of emotional connection.
If a website is responsive and the brand is relatable, then you have a recipe for guaranteed success on your hands.
UX design leads users with emotion far likelier to lead to conversions than merely stating the fact in an inelegant manner.
Technical-minded business owners may worry about software development’s finer details, favouring minimal RAM usage or flashy visuals.
Unfortunately, however, technical performance isn’t just made of elegant code.
Seamless backend integration
The user experience design of your app will consist of many different but interwoven elements.
Graphic design is just one component.
User experience designers and UX developers work with the entire “stack” to create satisfactory user experiences.
That is to say, user experience designers and developers consider both the frontend and backend of software design.
They use technical knowledge to improve page load times, software speed, and robustness.
The software has to be fast, safe, and consistent to satisfy the customer’s needs.
An integrated UX design process helps circumvent technical oversights.
By putting a greater focus on user experiences, you create better design and technical outcomes.
Tailored experiences
Great UX designers know that customers are more inclined to return and create a conversion if their experience feels tailored to them.
With every branding or marketing campaign, there is a crucial audience group that you will want to focus on for the most excellent chance of revenue.
UX designers will take this information and create a design that perfectly complements their interests while also creating a link between that experience and your company.
Tailor-made experiences are crucial to capturing a specific group and keeping them coming back.
Populating design elements based on user data
UX developers begin market research by searching for everything they can about the core target customer base.
They then will create a composite of the overall expectations of the group and their preferred aesthetics.
By keeping their preferences in mind, UX and freelance web design talent will make perfectly crafted websites and interfaces that reflect the brand’s mission and the audience.
Retargeting tech for UX design
Once the design layout is established, and the branding is agreed upon, it is time to develop the necessary technical parameters to make such features work.
UX design typically requires more out of a website than the company has most likely provided before arrival. However, it does not take much money to make a massive difference in your company’s online reputation.
Multi-device experiences
It is also essential to prioritise the experience of your brand through mobile devices and tablets. Most daily internet users will connect to the internet through several devices in a day.
It is critical for your reputation that your company hires a UX designer who can create a consistent brand experience across all major devices.
A freelance marketplace is a solution for many companies to find the right candidates, according to Taso du Val, Toptal’s CEO:
“Freelancers find us in different countries as we are generally the best source for them to get good jobs remotely, especially within the United States and with Fortune 500-type companies, companies that are doing more serious engineering work and are longer-term engagements.”
Smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops are just a few of the devices with which users access the internet.
Maintaining a consistent experience across these platforms will create a greater sense of legitimacy for your brand as customers are far likelier to trust a brand that doesn’t fundamentally change at the interval.
AR/VR integrations
It is always essential to prioritise research and development in every department, even marketing.
The VR and AR boom created a landscape of millions of mixed reality users who access the internet in a virtual setting.
Luckily, there are several unique branding opportunities available in the mixed reality setting that could prove to set your brand apart.
The level of interaction given to mixed reality users is unique in that it causes users to interact with the brand physically.
Even though it is digital, the effect of mixed reality on the consumer is visceral enough to affect them in an impactful way.
User experience design improves over technical performance.
User experience design and user interface design help coders, developers, and software engineers avoid costly rework due to usability concerns.
Also, engineering and design work together to give frontend, and backend specialists work in tandem during the project, leading to better communication and better outcomes.
One trend in user experience design is to brand with clean and elegant designs rather than impressive but intricate designs.
This means UX designers will cut content that’s not necessary. This helps the technical team as simple but effective designs are far less demanding from a software and hardware perspective.
