BlogmyQuery – BMQ

Video animation is the manipulation of characters and figures drawn by hand in a digitized system. The manipulation of these characters allows animators to create a compelling storyline that engages viewers and communicates a pre-determined message to the viewer(s).

Why is video animation better than making real-life videos?

Video animation is useful because of a few reasons. The first is that it is cost-effective when compared to the production of a real-life video. The second reason is that it is much easier to make as compared to a video advertisement. But perhaps the most important reason is that video animation provides a certain versatility to its creator, enabling them to make content that would otherwise be impossible or at least troublesome to create. 

But aside from being easy, cheap, and versatile in creation, animated videos allow for the possibility of clearly and precisely conveying an idea that could be useful in marketing, education, training, social awareness, and several other areas depending on the creativity of the animator. So without further ado, here are the top trends in the animation industry.

Keep it simple

Whether you’re making a video for a complex product or just a simple message, the first thing an animator must keep in mind is to simplify the content as much as possible and use a clear and concise design language that does not pull the viewers’ attention away from the main message. By providing motion to a collection of dots and lines, institutions like IBM can create animated videos that far surpass the creativity of some of the largest marketing agencies in the world. Similarly, a great animator can learn from their execution on a video titled “IBM Design Language” and incorporate their simplicity into their animations.  In a short phrase, the optimum balance between design is “simple yet breathtaking”. If you can find how to incorporate that into your work, chances are your video will do great. 

Combine animated and real-life elements

This may sound counterintuitive. But it also makes some sense. Compared to the design of the universe, human hands can only go so far in the pursuit of replicating it. Sometimes, your work should embed certain elements of real-life into the animated video to make it seem more realistic. And at the same time, using this method can help the animator by minimizing the number of details they have to draw by hand. Not only that, but this method can provide a canvas for the animator that allows them to bring their imagination to life. And with that, the viewer’s imagination as well. 

Don’t be afraid to mix things up

The majority of animators and design experts believe in using colors and styles that complement each other as conventionally as possible. However, the animator that is willing to take risks will often tell you that experimenting with various styles and color palettes is a great way to innovate an industry that seems to be at the peak of its creative time. By creating bold statements through never-before-seen combinations of styles and colors, animators can make viewers pay more attention and therefore get their message across in a more effective manner. 

Use Illustrations

While making an animated video, it’s important not to forget the “animated” part. This is exactly why we recommend putting one or two illustrations in your animated video. Possibly at a time when you’re trying to explain a stark statistic that dampens the mood, illustrations can come in to make that information that much easier to understand and take in. The skilled animator will always find the right opportunity to place an illustrative infographic or even a few decorative illustrations into their video to maintain a certain effect. 

Use Color Gradients

In trend number 3, we mentioned how great animators are willing to experiment. And one very useful way to do that is by understanding color gradients. This gradient is a sort of charting of how dark or light color can become. And by using this gradient, many animators can imbue the colors of the company they are creating the video for, into the video itself. This allows the video to feel more connected to the message on a subconscious level. 

Create Layers

An animator can design many things, but trying to design every single aspect at the same time can become daunting. Once you get a certain amount of experience under your belt, designing a set for video animation services can become easier as you understand the various elements and how they fit into the picture. For example, if you’re designing an underwater animation, the first thing you would design is the sea bed. Following that, you would at moving plants in layers. Some would be small while others would appear closer and hence larger. And finally, the animator will then add the fish and other characters on top of the predesigned set. By following this method, almost anyone can animate an entire world onto the storyboard. 

Bend Reality

As an animator, you are close to being the highest power in the animated world you create. And in moments of greatness, animators have found it helpful to create renderings that could be construed as unrealistic. This is because in the world of animations nothing is beyond reach. Other than a larger imagination. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you simply have to break reality. Rather, just bend it slightly to place your message into the original picture. 

Conclusion

Creating a new animation that engages your audience can be hard. Especially in a digital world where new kinds and styles of content are being spewed out by the second. But it isn’t that hard to make a mark either, all it takes is a little ingenuity and the occasional unorthodox approach. Whether these trends can help you or not depends entirely on how you choose to use them to make your voice just a bit louder. Even if you’re not an animator and are just someone who regularly employs Video Animation Services, these trends can help give you greater insight into how you can control your narrative in your animations.

The post How to Create Engaging Videos with the Top Trends in the Animation Industry? appeared first on noupe.

In design thinking, there is one principle more vital to success than any others. That is creative problem solving centered around improving the human experience. Fortunately, data provides a means to access and improve upon this principle for businesses that apply it. 

As companies strive to incorporate more data-driven decisions into their operations, the role of design thinking should not be neglected. Data as a means of understanding user experience enables businesses to streamline their marketing strategies. Where design thinking and data analysis intersect, the results are actionable insights. Data-driven marketing is about using these insights to form a more relevant and impactful platform for your business. 

But what exactly does design thinking entail? How can you use these concepts in data-driven marketing? And how can your business grow as a result?

Here, you can explore these questions and more as you learn how design thinking powers data-driven marketing. From principles to potential, these insights can elevate your marketing for greater success. 

What is Design Thinking?

Let’s start by defining what design thinking is and how it can relate to data-driven analysis procedures. This ideology informs your ability to solve problems in terms of your audience, helping you to frame solutions around real and impactful strategies. In marketing, it can be the most effective tool in your toolkit. 

In short, design thinking is a multi-stage set of tools and principles that puts a target audience at its forefront. It assesses who you’re designing for and centers actionable solutions around real needs and problems. Attributed to former Boeing engineer David Kelley, this philosophy/toolkit is your key to better marketing strategies. 

Design thinking makes this possible through its unique principles. These include

• Empathy. Because real people are at the center of all business, design thinking places the user’s or customer’s needs at the center of the work.

• Collaboration. You need the input and opinions of customers and partners to build an effective and empathetic design.

• Innovation. Solutions and scalability require thinking outside the box.

• Experimentation. Trying out new ideas alongside your target users is key to generating greater success.

• Actionability. The design thinking process focuses on hands-on strategies for improvement and innovation, actions you can take to explore business improvements. 

Central to all these principles is empathy. Design thinking is all about putting yourself in the place of your users and customers to better provide solutions. Through it, you make it easier to experiment and innovate in ways that can make a real difference. In marketing, this often revolves around content and messaging that is especially relevant to your audience.

Big data, or information sets too vast to be analyzed by a human being, can be an effective means of supplementing user-focused design thinking for even more powerful results. That’s because data itself can be a source of ideas and actionable strategies. 

Where Design Thinking and Data Analysis Meet

The data you gather (big or small) represents information. As a result, you can plug that information into the stages of design thinking to help you identify areas of improvement. From here, an empathetic approach to problem-solving elevates your ability to derive actionable insights. 

The intersections between design thinking and data analysis are many. These are the situations you’ll need to focus on as you look to improve your marketing and grow your business. From making your marketing data more palatable to enhancing overall visibility, the combination of data analysis and design thinking makes it easier to avoid analysis paralysis and come away with real-world improvement strategies. 

Businesses in all kinds of industries have made use of these intersection points to great success. For example, Airbnb transformed itself into a household name by applying design thinking, experimenting, and analyzing the data. The vacation rental platform found itself stuck at a flat revenue of $200 a month, but by exploring non-scalable solutions to the problems it found itself in, it was able to turn things around. 

This was a risk that gave the company the resources it needed to derive more scalable features and design a user-focused platform that grew with time. Similarly, PillPak went from a start-up to a $1 billion Amazon acquisition with design-thinking innovations applied to data from the pharmaceutical industry. 

With growth potential like this, applying design thinking to customer-centric marketing is one of the best things you can do for long-term business success. But how can you use design thinking in data analysis to produce the kinds of results Airbnb or PillPak did?

How you can use Design Thinking in Data Analysis

To understand the applications of design thinking in marketing, it helps to understand data analysis. This is a multi-step process that requires first specifying data collection requirements and then cleaning and organizing that data for assessment. Ultimately, you’ll have to effectively communicate your data-driven insights to your marketing team and even your customers if you hope to maximize the potential of data-driven design thinking. 

You can even pair the data analysis process with the stages of design thinking to inform a customer-centric experience from the start. Through the intersection points of these ideologies, it’s easier to identify real customer pain points and problems.

These are a few of the ways you can go about applying design thinking in data analysis for better, data-driven marketing:

Framing your analysis questions

To start, design thinking should frame the questions you ask of your marketing campaign. These should be questions you can answer with data, complete with built-in indicators of success. You want your approach to data to be targeted and focused on real solutions.

That’s why even the data requirements you specify for your marketing campaigns should be tied to design thinking. You want to evaluate which data informs customer outreach, success, loyalty, and more to ensure you maintain relevant messaging.

Then, the areas of improvement identified by the data you collect frame the ways you proceed with innovation. Examples of effective analysis questions that result might include

• How can customer engagement be improved by at least 5%?
• What ad strategies can we employ to boost conversion rates by 2%
• What UX improvements can be made to reduce landing page bounce rates by 3%?

These and many more analysis questions like them combine the power of data with the empathy of design thinking. Above all, improvements in customer engagement come from adding value to the experience. Assisted by data, you can see the monetary implications of these improvements as well. 

Creating a data-driven workflow

Similarly, design thinking and data analysis can be combined to produce a more efficient workflow. This is because more convenient and collaborative ways to work give employees more time to focus on the customer and evaluate issues. 

This is why Agile development has taken off in the Software as a Service (SaaS) industry. Agile development (like design thinking) is all about collaboration and empathy, allowing developers to focus on the end-user experience throughout the process. A reported 41% of marketers already employ this flexible and customer-centric framework, with another 42% of marketers looking to implement it. 

Design thinking in data-driven marketing can offer similar flexibility in an empathetic context. By collaborating with employees, customers, and clients, you can generate higher-quality data directly from your most important sources. 

From here, your marketing approach can cater to actionable and highly relevant strategies. 

Targeting marketing success

Data analysis is also an essential method of segmenting your marketing audience to focus more specifically on niche marketing or certain demographic pain points. Any marketing strategy worth its salt includes customer personas. Each of these entails its unique data points.

From here, design thinking can be applied to each targeted group to help form narratives around needs and challenges. The metrics you evaluate through the data analysis process reveal your audience and the ways your marketing is or isn’t meeting their needs. 

For example, higher rates of abandoned carts for a certain demographic could indicate that your marketing to this group is misleading in some fashion. The data allows you to go back, reassess, and reevaluate. 

The focus, no matter what the application, is to take the collaborative and customer-focused aspects of design thinking and apply them wherever the data indicates a need. Whether this data comes from page analytics, customer surveys, or a healthy combination, its potential can mean more effective marketing strategies. 

The Potential of Design Thinking in Data-Drive Marketing

Design thinking is vital to every element of business success. That’s because it combines a customer-focused approach to business with innovation, collaboration, and data analysis to create the most relevant solutions to any given problem.

McKinsey research even found that high design scores correlated with higher revenue growth. The top quartile of these businesses experienced an average revenue that was 10% higher than their competitors. 

The key is empathy. Data helps us understand and collaborate. By applying these concepts to a marketing strategy, you stand to elevate your business as a whole. Indirect results may also include a better brand perception overall, a feature you can’t put a price on. 

Explore the potential of design thinking in your data-driven marketing campaigns and reap the rewards of a customer-centric business model.

The post Design Thinking in Data-Driven Marketing appeared first on noupe.

Approximately 2.2 billion people all over the world suffer from visual impairments of varying severity, 5% of the world’s population experience hearing problems and 15% have disabilities. Therefore, when developing a software product, it is important to consider the accessibility of its design and inclusion. In this article, we’ll tell you how to put these principles into practice. 

The importance of accessible design

A low-floor bus is accessible to users with disabilities. In the digital world, a similar rule applies: if a person with a physical or mental disability can use a service or application, such products are considered accessible. 

Applications must be accessible to users who have hearing, visual or physiological impairments. In practice, this means, for example, providing subtitles to videos for the deaf, sign language translation functionality for the deaf-and-dumb, voice control for people who don’t have one or both hands. Accessible design helps people with disabilities to become full-fledged Internet users. 

In 2006, the UN adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which accelerated the integration of people with disabilities into society. Since then, the principles of accessibility have been extended to the virtual environment. Microsoft is one of the world leaders in accessible design and its promoter. The company has created a guide for designers on how to develop better apps. 

Another example of accessibility is Netflix. The interface of the platform has sufficient contrast so that the visually impaired can use it. Audio description allows the blind not only to listen to the dialogues in videos but also to imagine what is happening on the screen. 

Users of services themselves began to pay attention to accessibility. In 2017-2019, about 3,000 lawsuits were filed against brands without accessible website design, including well-known Apple, Domino’s Pizza, etc. 

Accessibility and inclusion

Design agencies focus on the average person: designers see a general portrait of the user and may not take into account the characteristics and needs of each person. 

Accessible design focuses on a specific group or groups of users. Inclusive design, in its turn, is a broader concept. This approach means that a product solves the problems of different people in different life situations. 

Proponents of inclusive design believe that people with different physiological abilities can, under certain circumstances, be in the same conditions. For example, both an elderly person and a child with a congenital illness can see poorly. Not only those who have lost a limb can use an application with one hand but also people who have been injured. 

Microsoft has a special term for such consumers which is extreme users (brink users / extreme characters). By creating universal products, developers solve the issue of accessibility for a wide range of users. It turns out that subtitles designed for deaf people can also be useful for those with good hearing but in conditions of poor audibility. 

Accessible and inclusive design helps companies to improve customer experience as customer focus is one of the defining factors of brand awareness. 

How do you know that a site meets accessibility requirements?

To create an accessible site, you should refer to the Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG). The standard is built on twelve guiding principles for creating content at three levels – A, AA, and AAA. 

• Level A

This is the minimum recommended level that can be implemented without a major redesign of an application. A software product must comply with 30 WCAG requirements: in particular, a text must be given an accessible name, labels are required for form fields, the application can be controlled using the keyboard, etc. 

• Level ??

This is a more advanced level of the standard including 20 additional points. To implement AA requirements, you need to make changes to the product design: change the contrast, focus, adjust the status of messages, and so on. 

• Level ???

This level summarizes the requirements of the previous levels and adds 28 serious conditions. Developers and designers must ensure that complex text has a simplified version, excludes embedded images, etc. 

Let’s compare the levels based on one example. The contrast should be 4.4-3 for Level A, 6.9-4.5 for Level AA, and 21-7 for Level AAA.

The compliance of the site with accessibility parameters can be checked through WebAIM, Colourcontrast, Contrastchecker, Color Oracle, Wave, etc. 

How to improve design accessibility

When implementing accessibility requirements, designers need to pay attention to the following issues:

• Color

The contrast between the text and background is of great importance for visually impaired people and for those whose eyes get tired from working at a computer. 

The color of the text and buttons is significant for those who do not distinguish between colors (colorblindness) or see the world in black and white (monochromacy). For example, red and green warning messages can be misunderstood and should be provided with textual indicators: “Stop”, “Forward”, “Back”, “Resend”, etc. 

Infographic 2:

• Font size and dimensions of elements

These characteristics are important for visually impaired people, the elderly, and users who are trying to read text from small smartphone screens. When choosing a font size, consider the semantic hierarchy of the elements on the page so that it is clear which element is the heading and which is a subheading. The size of the elements affects usability: small buttons are harder to click. 

• Subtitles

Subtitles make it easier for deaf viewers and those in noisy environments to watch videos.

• Alternative text in graphics

By adding alternative text to photos, images, and icons, you will make it easier for blind people to use the app. A screen reader helps them to navigate the virtual world. 

• Simplified text and navigation

Not all users perceive complex text in the same way. By adding a simplified version of the content to your site, you will help people with dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and low IQ to perceive information about your company, products, and services. Keyboard navigation is for users with limited mobility. 

How to create products with accessible design

To make software design accessible:

• Let your teams know beforehand

While designers are responsible for this, both developers and testers should be aware of design issues to best implement the project with inclusiveness in mind. 

• Conduct UX/UI research

UX/UI research helps to better understand your users. By conducting it, you will learn how people of different sex, ages, levels of physiological and mental development interact with the product. The study will show how effective your solution is and whether you are limiting your circle of users due to a lack of awareness. 

Use accessibility assessment tools

When creating a custom web design, use the tools to assess the accessibility of the application:

1. Color Oracle shows the site through the eyes of the colorblind and people with color vision deficiencies, 
2. Check My Colours evaluates the contrast of the color and background of pages,  
3. Wave evaluates the site’s HTML structure, contrasts, and compliance with the WCAG standard. 

• Provide the same user experience for everyone

Compliance with the WCAG requirements does not always determine the convenience of a product for customers. For example, if subtitles are set up carelessly, users will not have time to read. An alternative solution is to invite visitors to choose the playback speed and transcript format themselves. 

Accessibility as part of UI/UX design brings benefits in terms of business outcomes. By implementing the principles of inclusion, you will make software products more convenient, expand your audience, and improve your site’s SEO. If you want to create a product with accessible design, you should turn to an experienced software development company.

The post How Accessible Product Design Improves Business appeared first on noupe.

Your website is the virtual front door to your business, and for that reason having a website that manages to engage and retain customers is vital. But what about attracting customers?

That’s where SEO comes in. Even though you may have a well-designed website, that’s not enough. If it’s not optimised for SEO, you’ll fail to attract high quality traffic. In an increasingly competitive digital landscape, it’s essential to perform well in the search results, for your targeted key terms.

To help boost your SEO, make sure you avoid these 9 web design mistakes:

Web design and SEO

A website needs to do more than just look good. While it’s important to maintain consistency in your web design with your brand image, not every web design choice will positively impact your SEO.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimising your website and content to increase search engine positioning. Implementing an effective SEO strategy helps to drive more high-quality traffic to your site.

To determine the ranking of pages in search results, Google (and other search engines) use bots to crawl pages on the web. The crawlers go from page to page collecting information about the contents of pages.

The information collected by crawlers allows Google to index these pages. Then, when providing listings for a search query, algorithms determine what order web pages should appear in search results.

The many ranking factors that can influence your positioning in the search results mean it’s increasingly important to focus more on the user experience of a website. Even the smallest of mistakes could significantly impact your SEO. Make sure you avoid these mistakes:

1. Poor navigation

Poor navigation affects both the user experience and your SEO. Good navigation is the hallmark of a positive user experience, and without it you are likely to see a high bounce rate.

It’s important to make sure that users can easily navigate their way around your site and find the content they are looking for. Visitors to your site will not jump through hoops to find something and will just leave your site if they get frustrated.

When navigation is one of the most important elements of a well-designed website, make sure it’s easy for users and crawlers to easily navigate and find content. You can improve navigation by:

• Implementing a clear and well-structured navigation menu or bar
• Create internal links throughout your site
• Create an XML sitemap
• Avoid using long pages or infinite scrolling
• Create a clear site structure

2. Not optimized for mobile

By the end of 2021 mobile devices accounted for 54.4% of website traffic worldwide. As more people use their smartphones to browse the web, it’s important to make sure your web design is fully optimized for mobile.

Considering how popular mobile devices are becoming, Google has now started to favor mobile-friendly websites. Google now uses a mobile-first indexing approach. This means Google will often use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.

Google offers a free tool to check whether your web page is mobile-friendly. You can also check to see what your site looks like on different devices.

If you are using Chrome, right-click and select inspect. Then, at the top left of the inspect window, you’ll see an icon with a tablet and mobile. Click on that and you can change the dimensions, size and throttling of the display view.

Here’s an example on the Noupe homepage:

The best (and recommended solution by Google) is to use a responsive web design. All your pages use the same URL and content across all devices, but the site design responds based on the display size.

3. Slow loading speeds

Loading speeds have become increasingly important for web users. The longer it takes for your page to load, the more likely people are going to abandon your site and never return. Slow loading speeds will leave an unfavourable impression on your business.

Page load time is a ranking factor meaning that your SEO will be affected by slower loading speeds. Not only does it irritate users, but it also affects search engine indexing with crawlers being able to index fewer pages in their allocated crawl budget.

The general consensus is that your website should load within 2 – 3 seconds. You can check your page speed using Google’s free tool. To improve your page speed, consider:

• Optimizing images
• Minify your code
• Remove render-blocking JavaScript
• Enable GZIP compression
• Use a content distribution network
• Remove unnecessary plugins

4. No titles and headings

Headings should be used on all web pages, ideally before any other content. Not only do headings provide navigational pointers to different content on your site, but they also help crawlers understand the contents of a page when gathering information for indexing.

A heading should be identified on a page through an H1 tag and should encapsulate what the page is about. They essentially tell everyone the summary of your page’s content. After using an H1 heading for titles, you should use header tags for all subsequent headings.

All subsequent headings after your title should use H2-H6 tags. It then makes it much easier to tell what topics and subtopics are covered in a piece of content.

Not providing any titles and headings is a bit like a book without a title or chapters, so don’t forget to include them.

5. Thin content

Content that provides little or no interest or appeal to your users is classed as thin content. As well as providing nothing of any value to your readers, thin content can hinder your SEO.

Pages with thin content include:

• doorway pages (pages that are used to manipulate search engines to rank for a certain keyword)
• pages with little or no content
• content that has been automatically generated
• pages with keyword stuffing
• thin affiliate pages

As Google seeks to provide meaningful and relevant results to users, pages that use thin content will be penalised in the search results. Instead, if you want to rank highly in the search results, make sure your content has lots of rich information and keywords are used appropriately.

6. A balance between content and whitespace

A well-designed website will manage to strike the right balance between content and whitespace. Overloading your pages with content could be slowing down your speed, and it also creates a negative user experience.

Now that user experience is also a ranking factor in Google’s algorithms, you should be pulling out all the stops to try and create a meaningful experience on your site. Whitespace is something that can help you achieve that.

As well as finding the right balance between written and visual content, you should find the right balance between content and whitespace. Using whitespace is not wasting space as it allows your content to breathe. It’s also worth noting that whitespace can be any colour too, not just white!

Minimalist web designs focus on a less is more approach by utilizing whitespace.

7. Missing or unclear call-to-actions

Call-to-actions (CTAs) help guide your users to key areas of your website and can improve conversions. CTAs can be used for lots of different purposes on a site, whether to download a piece of content, submit a form, or make a purchase. Without them, a user is more likely to drop off your site, losing you a potentially valuable lead and increasing your bounce rate.

The CTAs you incorporate into your site need to be strategically placed in locations where a user is more likely to act. They should also adopt a language and tone that matches your brand.

Using certain words and phrases at the start of a CTA can also help improve conversions through positive affirmations and speaking in the voice of your customers. Most importantly, the choice of color can make a big difference. Consider the psychology of color when using colors in your web design.

8. Annoying pop-ups

Pop-ups are a form of online promotion used for advertising or generating leads, usually in a small window. But pop-ups have gained an unfavourable reputation with web users for being irritating and disruptive, causing a bad user experience (which can also affect your SEO).

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t use pop-ups at all, just be careful about how you use them. When used successfully, pop-ups have an average conversion rate of 11.09%, helping to boost subscriptions, increase content offer downloads, and reduce bounce rate.

If you want to implement pop-ups without them being annoying and damaging your SEO, consider:

• Using them to help enhance user experience, for example with ‘exit intent’ pop-ups.
• Keep your pop-ups clear and to the point. Keep a consistent style and theme within your pop-ups as the rest of the page.
• Don’t use pop-ups for the sake of it. Instances of high traffic and high bounce rate could be an effective example of when to use a pop-up.
• Optimise for mobile
• Test to find the right placement and time to display pop-ups.
• Use slide-ins and slide-downs instead of pop-ups, as these tend to be less intrusive

9. 404 pages

A 404 page is an error page that is displayed to users when they have reached the requested domain, but no information is available on the searched URL. 404 pages are also displayed when broken or dead links are clicked on.

While most websites will incorporate a 404 page into their design, not all manage to work effectively at keeping users on their site. Many 404 pages will just display an error message without giving any guidance or instructions to keep the user on your site.

A 404 page is a fantastic opportunity to keep a visitor on your site and try and convert them to a customer. Include links to other similar content, provide an invitation to subscribe to a newsletter, or include a search bar for your site. If nothing else, at least provide a link back to your homepage.

By avoiding these 9 web design mistakes, you’ll be able to improve the design of your website, enhance the user experience, and keep your SEO in check! And remember, as user experience becomes increasingly important in SEO, it makes sense to focus on keeping your users happy. If you can do this successfully, you’ll be rewarded with increased conversions and improved rankings!

The post 9 Web Design Mistakes that Harm your SEO appeared first on noupe.

Well, they certainly sound like they’re all about the same thing.

When you design the user interface, surely what you are dealing with is user experience. Is it that simple? Or are there significant differences between the two? What consequences would such a difference have for design? Will there be any more questions in this paragraph? What do you think?

Let’s put both user experience and user interface under the microscope and see just what we’re dealing with. 

The Key Difference Between User Experience and User Interface Design

There’s one key specific difference between the two forms of design. Let’s look at website design. 

In this arena, UX takes in the entire user experience and uses this to design the website on the basis of feel. UI however looks at specific design elements, usually visual elements, and assesses how they direct user behavior on the site. 

So, there we are. Wasn’t too tricky, was it? Thanks and goodnight. 

Alright, then, you’ve got me. Nothing’s that simple. We need to dig into what we mean by the two terms before we know for sure what the difference boils down to. 

User Experience Design

Right, so User Experience design is about certain elements, but chief among these is that it is an approach that emphasizes how human users comprehend the user environment they’re put in. For instance, with contact centre call recording systems, the designer will be interested in the user state during each of the component tasks, from initial recording to playback and analysis. 

It’s all about what happens to the user and how the user is made to feel when they are given a product to manipulate. 

Here’s a word from somebody who knew a thing or two about UX design. 

‘You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology. Not the other way around’

Steve Jobs

What’s interesting here is what the turtlenecked tycoon doesn’t say. He doesn’t even mention the need for the product or the problem it’s trying to solve. For him, the key ingredient in design is how it impacts on customer experience. This is why his products are so enjoyable to use. 

Sure, the iPod solved a problem. It meant no more jiggling around between CDs (or even cassettes) while on the move. But the key impact that it had was born of the fact that it was a joy to use. From opening the packaging to using the earbuds, it was such a cool experience. 

UX design may be closely linked with technology, for instance working to prioritize landing page speed because of the effect it has on the user. But it’s not limited to the technology sector. 

Any product or service that a user has a relationship with can be shaped with the principles of UX design in place. It just so happens that it’s the arena of technology in which UX design has really taken off. This is because of two things:

1. Technology has become so ubiquitous that it’s important for it to be designed well. Everyone, or just about everyone, needs to be able to use it in the desired manner. If its design prohibits universality, then at best you have ‘Some User Experience, otherwise referred to as ‘SUX’ (observed engineer Billy Gregory). 

2. Technology has the potential to be really very unusable indeed. This is because, at heart, it’s completely alien to most non-technical users. There are some more primitive machines, for instance a spinning wheel, in which the process is fairly intuitive and one can muddle through a construct of the process in one’s head. 
   
   But a lot of the workings going on in devices or systems, such as eCommerce platforms, today are way way beyond what the average user can comprehend in any meaningful sense. So the design has to render an extremely complex array of processes and data flows down into a simple to grasp and use an item. 

What does a UX Designer Do?

The UX designer will factor several elements into their thinking. Remember, they’re concerned with how the product or environment or process or whatever it is being designed will impact on the user. 

For this to succeed, they often break down operations into task analyses. How easy is it, for example, to access the royalty free music youtube artist of a user’s choice? Can we make it a little easier? 

A UX designer will effectively act as the mortar at the center of the product team. This is because the feel of a product is key to its success. 

For this reason, then, a UX designer will interact with product developers to give them feedback on how their product is succeeding or otherwise. A UX designer will be part of the design process from the very first wireframing stage, through prototypes, testing, and iteration, to the finished product. 

UX designers will also interact with marketers to make sure that the product and its promotion are of the same voice. 

But a UX designer’s job doesn’t end there. They also are involved in data analysis regarding competitors (How do the competition’s products feel?), and customers (do we have a good idea of who our customers are and what they want?)

They will then also be involved in assessing usage data once the product is out there. It’s often down to the UX designer to improve upon the product’s usability or to jettison it in favor of the next step. 

We’ll finish on UX design with this nice quote.

‘User Experience Design is the science and art of designing a product so that it’s easy to use, fits expectations, and meets business goals.’

Susan Weinschenk, CEO, The Team W 

User Interface Design

UI is actually an older discipline than UX, but it can be trickier to define, due to the misinterpretations that have cropped up over the years. Here’s one immutable factor: UI is just about digital products. Its only valid usage is in the sphere of interaction between user and technology. 

UI design is all about looking at the device or system and making all the processes that affect the user as straightforward as possible. This means, in particular, an emphasis on optics. So, for a website, UI design will look closely at the fonts, colors, and icons used, as well as the spacing and overall layout on the screen. It will seek to make the important information as prominent as possible. 

The key aim of UI design is to enable the user to get where they want to go without having to think too much. If they have to claw their way through a process while referring to instructions galore, then the UI design has failed. 

What Does a UI Designer Do?

A UI designer will perform a lot of the functions that are covered by a UX designer, in terms of product inception and development, but will come at it from a predominantly visual perspective. So the UI designer will have a solid grasp of color theory and the effects on the user of certain forms of typography and design patterns. 

They will also be adept at utilizing the potential of different devices with different screen sizes. For instance, they will be very aware that online call conference solutions need to demonstrate good visual design on phones as much as on big screens. This need to make visuals work on all screens is emphasized by the rise in mobile website access.

While we’re on websites, it’s quite often the case that UI designers will have an extremely influential role over the eventual look of the whole site, and are in fact seen in some quarters as in the process of taking over the traditional web developer role.

Or, to focus on databases for a second, a UI designer will want to see to it that what can be an off puttingly data-heavy area, will benefit from great visuals so that users aren’t put off. Consequently, Elasticsearch Documentation, for instance, will be as friendly-looking as a UI designer can manage.   

It’s Not Either/Or

Here’s the thing about the difference between user experience and user interface. They may be different, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to use both. Far from it. It’s in a combination of the two that really exciting user-centered design takes place. Whatever your output, whether a smartwatch or a killer means of meltdown and spectre testing, it will benefit from a blend of UI and UX. 

Let’s consider an app that gives you suggestions on what to cook for dinner. 

It may be fantastic at factoring in what ingredients you have and coming up with something delicious for you to put together from them. It may be super-quick at doing it too. It may even help you by putting in grocery orders where necessary. But if its colors clash and its font fail to stand out, then its design is lacking. 

In short, it has good UX design, but terrible UI design. 

It’s easy to conceive of the converse. Let’s say your business provides a hosted VoIP solution. The phones look amazing. But they’re impossible to use. That’s a great UI and awful UX. 

So, a blend of both is what’s required. 

To Sum Up

You should now be clear on the difference between UX and UI. If not, try this analogy: 

In other words, UX is all about the way the product feels to used in its intended setting. How easy is it to eat cereal with a spoon? UI is more about how the product comes across in the first place. How much do you want to use the spoon to eat the cereal? 

Put like this, it’s easy to see how co-dependent these pursuits are. If you’re going after one and not the other, you need to re-think your approach. So, wake up and eat the cornflakes.

The post UX vs. UI: Guide to Distinguishing User Experience and User Interface Design appeared first on noupe.