What is the first thing that you look for when you form an opinion about any app, the way it looks, how easy it is on your touch, does it display extraneous content or is pretty focused, how can it fit in my everyday schedule, and some more around the same contexts. What do you think is the foundation behind this, without a doubt, UI/UX Designing. 

With over 5 million apps on the Google Playstore and Apple Store, you have to make your app stand out of the crowd, and how you can do that, you ask, the answer is right in front of you. This blog explains the importance of UI/UX Design when it comes to developing applications. Let us start by understanding what exactly these terms mean.

UI or User Interface

If I had to sum it up in two words then, UI is all about the appearance. User Interface design patterns are the means that combine structure and order to deliver a powerful experience and a pleasant time. UI helps you design how actually your application will look. Designers help to create an interface that is easy to use and pleasurable.  From the color scheme to the font sizes, everything comes under UI. Now, this is very important because the impression will be faced on the basis of the glance.

It goes without saying that you have to master this, in order to increase the impact of your app. A careful and innovative design leads to your company gaining a brand name and enhances your relationships with the customers. You also have to be careful about the desires and needs of your target customers in order to provide them a satisfactory or at least a frustration-free experience. A good design nudges the sentiments of the users and provides them a seamless experience, which ultimately is the goal of any service provided.

UX or User Experience Design

The UX design aims to gauge and reach maximum customer satisfaction. UX helps to create products that provide relevant tactics to the user. It is a procedure that builds an improved customer experience and minimizes hindrances in its use. Now this is required to provide a definite flow of the application, like what window comes after what, are the clicks in the thumb zone, is the drift smooth, and everything a user goes through when he is operating the app. This becomes vital to structure and provide an appropriate wireframe to maintain the flow of the app.

UI is all about the experience. A UX designer is concerned with the entire process of acquiring and integrating a product, including aspects of branding, design, usability, and function. It is a story that begins before the device is in the user’s hands.  UX designers don’t just focus on creating products that are usable; we concentrate on other aspects of the user experience, such as pleasure, efficiency, and fun, too. Consequently, there is no single definition of a good user experience. Instead, a good user experience is one that meets a particular user’s needs in the specific context where he or she uses the product.

Why do you need a UI/UX design?

UI/UX designs if taken in a serious way highlight your application and make it fit for propagation. It has a domino effect, so basically if a user likes your app, they are more likely to recommend it to their acquaintance as well. The goal here is to acutely design it to be able to make it suitable for all kinds of users and provide them a cognitive satisfaction when they are doing so. This can be solely accomplished by the optimization in the UI+UX designs. Consequently, this will lead to an increase in sales and revenue which is ultimately the destination of any organization.

The designs are most certainly based on concrete and careful observations and predictions about user behavior. This also assists the company to understand its customers well. To be more precise, the number of consumers is directly related to the success of the UI/UX design.

With the advent of so many apps, you get very little space and time to capture the attention of your consumers. The trick is to target them at that time with a quality, and antiquity that they simply cannot resist. Successful developers like Apple and Google use this as their mantra. However, this becomes more crucial when you’re just setting your foot in the market. It helps you to create a strong stand if you’re a start-up.

Let us discuss some of the key points of its importance:

• Enhances customer satisfaction and ROI

Why do we even care to provide satisfaction to our consumers? Because if we fail to do so, there is an entire queue of competitors ready to step in our shoes. The aim of any business is to earn profit and loyalty from your customers and their dedication which arises from the ease that you provide them doesn’t only limit them but to the people who they suggest it to. This, in turn, increases your customer turnover and hence, an increase in the Return On Investment, which most definitely is required for the survival and growth of your business.

• Understand your clients better

The UI/UX designs are without a doubt based exclusively according to the preferences and ease of the customers. So when you are studying and predicting the plausible success and use of your product, the process leaves you with a better understanding of your clients and helps you to make it more user-centric. It also helps in understanding the different segments of your audience and what each segment demands. This understanding and knowledge help you provide a more seamless experience that gets the customers to commit to your product and maintain brand loyalty. This definitely indicates an uptrend in your performance chart.

• Builds your brand

An efficient UI/UX design achieves customer satisfaction and leaves you with happy clients. People are always on the go now so they are looking for something that fits smoothly into their day. The more focused your app is on its purpose, the more attractive it is to your customers. This increases the credibility of your product and builds a brand name which in itself is a colossal achievement. You’d definitely want your customers to come to you for the services that you provide and not to your competitors, UI/UX designs help you provide that touch of distinctness that makes your product protrude than that of your rivals.

• Saves Time and Money

If your design has been developed with the utmost perfection and skill (of course there is always room for new ideas and innovation), then it is quintessential to the success of your company. Also, a good design doesn’t fuel any bugs or unnecessary upgrades. The time and cost involved in fixing these bugs or handling such upgrades are cumbersome and expensive. A good prototype of the product ensures and secures the interest of both the users and the developers. The companies should hence, diverge their focus to this aspect and make sure to make it flawless.

The natural question that arises is, which of the two is more important. The truth is they are two sides of the same coin. You cannot ignore one, to make the other perfect. The success of UI and UX goes hand in hand. The developers should aim at the optimization of both in order to achieve credibility and success.

An aesthetically good looking website that is difficult to navigate, locate content and call-to-action. An easy to navigate website with poor visuals that spoils the brand positioning and user experience. You’d not want either of those scenarios. You need a perfect combination of both UI and UX. It all anyways comes down to how happy are your clients.

Some components of UI/UX

• The first key component is the Information Architecture, which essentially provides a structure to your design. It ensures the serenity of your model. It should provide a tranquil experience to the user while navigating through the app or the browser for the website. All kinds of codes and combinations should be used to assist your users with the same.
• The next in line is the interaction design, which is more of a UI aspect. It deals with the visuals of your app; the graphics, the animations, the fonts, the colors, the aesthetics, sounds, spaces, touch, etc.
• Usability focuses on how convenient the app is to use for the user.  Are all the buttons in the reach of the fingers, is all the information relevant to the use are at the customer’s disposal? All of these issues are addressed through usability. It also comprehends the method to handle errors.
• Just like any big player company launches a beta version of its software before the official product, to test and improve it, the developers should adopt this practice and launch a sample before the full-fledged version. This is also known as a wireframe.
• Last but not least is the visual design which definitely serves as a factor in building your brand name. Visual Design is not only about selecting the best images, colors, icons, fonts, but also identifying the appearance of the application impacts the interaction of its users.

Conclusion 

Till now, the things discussed above should have provided you a glimpse into the significance of UI/UX design. In a world dependent on smartphones, it becomes difficult to create something that hasn’t been created before. This is accompanied by the responsibility of providing a phenomenal and coherent experience to your users which keep them coming back to you. This is an innate premise for a successful business model.