UI/UX Design or User Interface/User Experience design has become immensely important for any business and corporation to launch successful digital or physical products/services. Everybody seems to understand that there is no reaching thousands of users without focusing on creating a good visual interface and improving the experience of the product or service for the user.
When it comes to start-ups, the role of UI/UX Design is no less than that for any corporate or small business, In this article, we will discuss the role of UI/UX Design in startups. But before that let’s start with the basic stuff.
Role of UI/UX Design in Startups
What is UI design?
UI design or User Interface design is the process of creating the visual interfaces for a software application. There are lots of businesses where a designer will play both parts, but there are also lots of designers who specialize in UI design. UI designers help users to navigate an interface by using visual cues.
What is UX design?
UX design or User Experience design is the process of creating the experiences or the interactions that a user has with a product. The basic principle of UX design is to keep the needs of the user prior and improve the interaction of the user and the product keeping this in mind.
Role of UI/UX Design in Startups
The role of UI/UX Design in Startups can be understood by the following points:
Bringing in more users:
UI/UX design of the physical product/software is one of the major reasons for bringing in more users to the startup, it helps any online application or website in optimizing itself for better SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Also UI/UX design really helps when creating advertisements for your product or service.
Retaining the current ones:
The user interaction with the product be it digital or physical, is mostly with the product’s interface. Key to User retention is a good user interface coupled with great user experience. A user will not spend time on an app where text is overflowing and colors are causing eye strain.
Getting Business insights:
UI/UX is conventionally thought of as designing the interface and structure of the application while it is much more than that. The first step of UI/UX is to research about the user need and present it to the business team. interface designer is a small part of UI/UX. Researching about the customers gives valuable insights about the product/service and what things should be improved.
Effective and Enjoyable interaction:
Through UI/UX design, startups can create more enjoyable and effective interactions for its customers. The primary goal of an application’s UI should be to provide the best interaction to the user. This way the startup can catch the user’s attention and make him or her stay with the product/service.
Turning first time users to loyal customers:
For startups, the best way to increase LTV (Life Time Value) of a customer is to make them loyal customers. The whole idea of UX design is to create a structure and an interface that provides the best experience to the users. The aim of UX design principles is to turn customers into loyal customers by providing a positive experience to them. UX is directly or indirectly responsible for a user’s journey through an application which ultimately decides the success of the Startup.
Saving your time and money in longer run:
While for a startup, UI/UX looks like the limited money they have. In the longer run, you cannot sustain without a UI/UX team/person in the startup. It becomes impossible to complete with an application that has a far better UI/UX. Investing in UI/UX design is longer term, so instead of getting the UI changed every time a new feature is added, its better to have a UI/UX team that researches and comes up with the features required, design, interface etc.
Communicating your mission and vision:
Communication is the key to sales. and for startups, it becomes super important to tell their story to the world. The visual elements along with the copywriting takes the major part of communication for the brand. You will have to do these to things right in order to communicate your mission and your product/service. Irrespective of what help marketing provides, users have to come to your website/app to buy product/service or know about it. Here good copywriting along with great UI can create a lasting impression in the mind of the user.
Scaling the application with Mobile UI/UX Design:
Mobile development of applications is better known for targeting more customers and getting more eyeballs to the startup and the product/service. The mobile approach UI/UX design can help us scale the application to more number of people. UI/UX design concepts like Repetition, Alignment, Contrast, etc. become even more important for the mobile app approach since the size of the screen and the visuals that can fit in are limited.
UI/UX Best practices
- Nothing compensates for good design: Good design is making something intelligible and memorable great design is making something memorable and meaningful. Nothing in application development process can make up for a poor design. Design should be the main priority.
- Wireframing: Great UI design can make or break a great wireframe. And a poor wireframe can kill your application. if the imagery is not right or do not go accordingly with the style or does not match with the content
- Contrast: setting up a proper contrast to the UI is can be obtained through organizing the, design establishing hierarchy, emphasizing a focal point and adding visual interest. It can be done by a lot of different ways – we can add contrast with color, with weight, with size of typography or even with the imagery.
- Alignment and Proximity: a proper alignment in the UI helps organize and group elements, it creates a visual rhythm of elements on the screen, Alignment and proximity brings order in unordered typography.
- Repetition: Proper use of repetition through increasing consistency, increases the user’s ability to learn and identify the pattern in our interface or layout and it also reduces confusion and helps the user guess objects in the layout properly.
Conclusion
We can conclude this article with the thought that no matter how what product or service a startup creates, without a proper packaging and without a propre appeal, it simply won’t sell. As much as development process is important in a product lifecycle, UI/UX design plays an equally important role. UI/UX design is not just about choosing the right contrast colors or using better visual elements. It’s also about conveying your message to the user in the simplest way possible. It is about providing an experience that stays with the user for long time. If you own a startup or and a part of one, make sure to note these points before you start building your next product or service.