User Experience (UX) Design is enhancing the user satisfaction by improving the usability, and accessibility whilst interacting with your website. UX is often confused with User Interface (UI) Design which is to do with how your website looks visually, as they are both used simultaneously. So simply, UX is the way something works and UI is the way something looks.

It’s possible to have a beautiful looking website which falls short with how it works, whilst a basic uninspiring website just works without resistance.

A web development project that integrates UX design has a far higher probability of achieving its goal versus one that focus’ directly in to the aesthetic look and feel.

The way our development team at Ascensor go about ensuring your project goals are met are through these five key elements:

  1. Ensuring your website is easy to use
  2. Making sure key information is easy to find
  3. Ensuring that your website is efficient
  4. Effective
  5. Making sure your website is engaging for your audience

Most of us can probably recall at least one bad online encounter (Never ever with Ascensor, whether it be a terrible experience on website navigation, the checkout process or working the contact form. This is most likely because the developers didn’t consider the above list and use it to their full potential when designing and developing the website. The lack of UX design negatively affects your customer’s online experience which in turn results in a low performing website.

At Ascensor, our web developing boffins ensure our process on UX design varies from project to project, whether it be e-commerce, corporates, small start-ups and so forth. This is generally split into five steps; Scoping, Personas, Audit, User Journey and Wireframe and Prototype to Design and Development. 

Scope

We begin by scoping out the project. This allows us to identify any issues early on, letting us to clearly design the most optimal solution. Meeting with the client helps us to gather as much research as we can, helping our strategy going forward.

 Personas

It’s important to understand who the user of your website is. We create personas to allow our team to engage with a fictional character, this allows the thought process to be influenced during the design and development stage. Designing for a real person requires setting the ground rules, defining the parameters for who the end user is. Going forward, every decision is then geared towards satisfying their user experience.

Audit

By analysing competitors in the same field, we can compare existing features and learn how users have been experiencing certain processes and services that are already implemented. By reverse engineering these methods we can ensure our strategy doesn’t completely reinvent the wheel whereby an entirely new learning curve is required before the user can progress with our web project or application.

User Journey & Wireframe

With all the data collated, a visual user journey and wireframe can help outline the steps a user would take through each stage. The UX is intentionally designed to engage the user in a positive way. By using low fidelity designs (limited interaction prototypes to show concepts, design alternatives and screen layouts), we can visualise the journey without investing heavily in to the aesthetics.

Prototype to Design & Development

We use various software applications to rapidly develop interactive prototypes. These are accessible via any modern browsers. We are able to analyse problems before reaching design or development stage by creating interactive prototypes for prospective customers to test at an early stage, and this allows meaningful feedback and informed decisions when making improvements within the designing and development.

If UX Design is something you want to know more about or looking into having your website built by us, please get in touch, we’d love to help!

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