Other recent blogs
They are fully aware of the value positive product experience yields for their bottom lines.
One of the key ingredients of a powerful and positive customer experience is user experience design or UX design.
UX design is how good the customer feels when they interact with your business, and its products and services.
Don Norman, the inventor of the term "user experience", said, "User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user interaction with the company, its services, and its products."
However, crafting an impeccable UX design experience requires you to follow a process. And this blog is about that process. So, join us as we walk through the key steps of the UX design process and uncover what it takes to build truly engaging experiences.
What is UX design?
UX design is a fundamental approach to producing a project—whether it be software, a website, or a mobile application. Breaking down the phrase “UX” or “user experience” is the science behind how a user interacts with a product or service.
The term was coined by Donald Norman, Apple’s former vice president, in 1993. Check out this video to hear from the man himself. However, the practice of designing specifically for an end-user dates much further back. The UX design process has come a long way since the 1990s, as technology, too, has evolved.
Today, a good UX designer is typically observant, inquisitive, and understands human behavior and basic psychology. They’re also bleeding edge users who are always looking for new designs to try and test.
In its simplest state, successful UX design means creating a product that can be used by anybody. But, why is it important?
Why is UX design important?
Technology adoption is happening at a faster rate than ever. In fact, statistics predict that by the end of 2028, the number of smartphone users will reach 5.83 billion – that’s more people than have access to running water! With the amount of people using tech products and interacting with software-based platforms on a daily basis, the UX design process is more important than ever before.
Whilst UX design services are still developing, UX designers are in fierce demand and the market is rapidly growing. Before the internet, UX designers might have served in the marketing department’s role of brand strategist or web designer. Today, a UX designer differs from these more traditional roles by blending the worlds of strategy, design, and psychology together to focus solely on delivering the best possible experience to the end user.
Before you start the UX design process
Before you start the UX design process, it’s important to understand the holistic UX design approach. Successful UX design always keeps the user at the center of the design process. By always keeping the end user front and center, you will be able to create designs that are captivating, intuitive, simple, and easy to navigate.
To ensure high-impact UX designs for your customers, it is imperative to get familiar with their pain points, why they interact with your products and services, and how you can improve those interactions with new features or possibly with new products or services. The more time you spend getting into your customers' shoes, the better your designs are going to be.
You might like to study your competitors as well (We always have), how they are churning out new products, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and how you can possibly build on those strengths or weaknesses. To be honest, there’s so much that can be done before you even get to start the design process. Designers also need to understand that there’s always an overlap between what you do before the design process and what you might have to do once you launch the process. It is in this stage that you can also ensure that everyone involved understands the project objectives, user needs, and design direction.
The UX Design Process: The Ultimate 7-Step Guide
A typical UX design process comprises multiple stages. However, you need to understand that this process might look and feel different from one design team to another. Different teams and organizations might also be using differing philosophies, tools, and techniques.
However, when you dig deeper, you’ll see that a standard UX design process almost always follows a common set of steps or stages, which are:
Step 1: Define
Step 2: Research
Step 3: Ideate, iterate, refine
Step 4: Design
Step 5: Develop
Step 6: Testing
Step 7: Launch & iteration
Step 1: Define
UX designers are strategic thinkers who design for two things: human interaction and problem-solving. At Kellton, we begin this process by asking two crucially important questions: why and what. What are we creating? Why are we designing it? What is the problem we are trying to solve? And, why would anyone want to use this solution?
This initial exploration is key to defining the scope and objectives of your project and lays a fundamental foundation for everything that comes after.
UX designers should analyze job requirements, conduct contextual and individual interviews, and hold brainstorming sessions with the clients to consider their needs and company goals. They’ll also immerse themselves in the nomenclature, language, and visual dos and don’ts of the brand to ensure company culture and voice are represented.
“Remember that you are not the user, stay focused on the user’s needs” - Kellton UX Designer
Step 2: Research
Research is a key step in designing user experience. A good UX designer must investigate, explore, and understand the product domain, marketplace, and competition.
First off—don’t just rely on Google! Our UX design services team begins by gathering information from our clients. This helps them learn about the product users and their environments, as well as what they need and what they want. For established companies, we can source information from customer service departments and direct feedback from users themselves through user surveys and field activities. For startups, we can pull from subject matter experts or analysis of competitor apps, for example.
We use this research to build user personas and create a clear picture of our users—their general biodata, what they do, their behaviors, and their goals. This step in the UX design process should provide ideas and materials from which you can begin to sketch and design your ideas
Step 3: Ideate, iterate, refine
Once we’re equipped with our user research and personas, we can move into an ideation phase which requires flexibility, open-mindedness, and the ability to work with a group of designers, developers, and other stakeholders.
The best part about this step? Anything goes! Brainstorming generates a lot of crazy ideas and solutions. Make sure you don’t throw these ideas away prematurely—put them in backlogs so you can revisit them later on. As a team, you’ll also prepare spec docs, create scenario maps, develop user flows, hold group white-boarding sessions, draw paper sketches, build sitemaps, and create wireframes.
Ultimately, your goal is to define the user experience, test and evaluate design concepts, and analyze how your designs will inform behavior and affect the experience of the user. Remember: UX designers should always go back to business by taking the ideas and flows they generate and comparing them against initial user stories, company goals, and resources for the project—such as budgets and timelines. Then, designers can accurately identify the pros and cons of an idea and prioritize accordingly.
During this phase, you’ll also share your findings and present your ideas with client constituents such as product managers and VPs upfront to obtain their feedback. This prevents future confusion and ensures everyone is clear about decisions regarding what you’re building and why.
“Don’t rush to start designing on your computer, using pen and paper (or tablet!) for your initial sketches will help you “free” your mind, gather cool ideas, and it is super quick and easy” - Kellton UX Designer
Step 4: Design
Design at Kellton is a collaborative, iterative process of refinement when the product begins to take shape via low- or high-fidelity wire-framing and prototyping. Your goal in this phase is to explore the legitimacy of different design ideas, approaches, and solutions.
Wireframes allow everyone to explore options and agree on direction. As for tools, sometimes pencils and paper are enough—or, you can use digital tools like Proto.io, Sketch or Adobe XD for prototyping.
Prototyping is a key part of this phase because it allows you to determine design patterns, elements of template pages, and different framework options, and work with developers to test design functionality.
You can then bring the prototype to the real users, product and business managers, as well as technical experts for testing to gather feedback and, in turn, refine your designs. But, be warned: this phase can invite a lot of opinions and new ideas, so it’s easy to get lost from the original objectives. Remember who you’re building for and why!
Step 5: Develop
Once you’ve finalized your wireframes and prototypes we can begin to pay attention to the visual details. At Kellton, our UX designers are also our User Interface (UI) designers—this allows us to seamlessly marry the experiential and visual side of the product. UI is about beauty, UX is about experience, and a successful product connects both cohesively. As the UI is created, we need to think about the placement and usability of the visual elements (i.e., label placement, button and font size, etc…).
Ideally, back-end functionality will seamlessly connect with UI design. Development and design teams work together during implementation to address potential changes needed and present a complete, functional experience ready for the marketplace.
“Inspiration can be found everywhere, not only on the internet, so get out there” - Kellton UX Designer
Step 6: Testing
A thorough testing sets the groundwork for a successful product launch.
In testing, the software or other digital or physical product meets the actual users. It’s at this stage that helps UX designers identify the gaps or flaws that must be addressed before the product launch.
It’s essential during this phase to compile user feedback, perform UX/UI audit reports, and pinpoint where improvement is needed and required. At Kelton, we test the products we build using the most advanced testing tools and methodologies, such as unit testing, integration testing, and system testing. This process continues until the desired experience and customer satisfaction are achieved
Step 7: Launch & Iteration
After successful evaluation, the next stage is to launch the product, whether it’s a website, a software application, or any other digital product.
If the product has been thoughtfully designed, developed, and tested, chances are great that its target market will happily accept it.
Product launch, however, is not the end of the journey - in fact, in many ways, it’s the beginning of the journey of a product that goes on to delight and surprise its users for the long term. That’s the iteration part - where product teams gather every feedback, every experience that a customer shares with regard to the product and immerse themselves in all the available product data to keep refining the product so that it could contribute significantly to the company’s bottom line
So, that’s the whole UX design process, right?
How do you know when you’re done and, more importantly, when you’ve been successful? Honestly, in UX design, you’re never really done. With each new release, there are ways to optimize the UX for better performance.
The best way to gauge the success of a product is from the users themselves—are they using and engaging with the product? What are they saying about it in reviews and on social media? Is the product gaining traction in the marketplace? These are all key questions to consider and tracking your product is an important, ongoing part of this process. Your answers will determine the right steps to take as your product continues to grow—whether it be more research, analysis, or a change to design.
Effective UI/UX design services play a pivotal role in crafting user-centered solutions, ensuring that every touchpoint aligns with the needs and expectations of the end-users.
Just remember the original strategy: the why, and the what should always help shape these decisions and help determine how success is measured.
