What is UX design and why is it important?

UX insights from the right digital marketing agency in Melbourne

In our previous article on essential SEO ranking factors, one important point touched upon was user experience (UX). UX design has risen in importance because of how search engine algorithms use it to rank web pages and determine their relevance to certain keywords. Google also takes into account metrics such as click-through rate and bounce rate of a website, i.e. how long people stay on your website after clicking on it versus how fast people leave it. That’s why every digital marketing agency in Melbourne will tell you that great UX design is key to elevating your business.

This article will take an in-depth look at what good UX design can do for your business, and how best to go about it.

What is UX design?

UX stands for ‘user experience’, so put simply, how the user feels when interacting with something, be it a website or mobile app. As stated above, a good UX is crucial to ensuring the customer enjoys interacting with a website and stays on it for prolonged periods. This is an encapsulation of several aspects such as appealing design, ease of use, accessibility, mobile friendliness, functionality, and brand visibility.

It is often confused with UI (user interface), which deals with the purely visual aspects of an application; UX design includes elements such as wireframing, use cases and research, and interaction. They are not always visible to the user, but go a long way in ensuring a positive end user experience.

Why is great UX design so important?

Think of how you would research a brand today: the first thing you would do is Google search it, more than likely on your phone. The challenge that web designers face is thus not just to make a website look appealing, but function across multiple platforms and be brand-forward. These are just some of the basics that UX design covers.

The ultimate goal of UX is to satisfy customers’ needs and ensure their staying power; especially when converting casual browsers into new customers. The UX design process also helps iron out bugs and makes them less likely to appear when users are viewing the website. In this way, you help define customer journeys for your product that are essential to your business model, and generate a greater return on investment.

The UX design process

Good UX design from a digital marketing agency in Melbourne does not assume how a user would interact with or use a product. It takes into account real user experience data and presents it innovatively. Keeping that in mind, the first stage of UX design is usually gathering requirements and user research. By identifying an audience and talking to them, you can more easily identify problem cases that these particular users face often. From there, you are ready to define a strategy for how your product or website can solve these problems, which in turn will be used to create various design alternatives that can then be prototyped.

When you have your user groups clearly defined, they will provide you with a perspective of how they would use your product. Building a functionality map is a good way to organise your website based on how the user would navigate between pages, along with the wireframes that determine the look and feel of the website. This prototype can then be user tested rigorously before final launch.

Having a concrete UX design plan in place not only keeps the user involved and puts their experience at the forefront, but also saves you time and money.

Find all your design and marketing solutions with One Stop Media

We’re a digital marketing agency in Melbourne that relies on real data and analysis to plot customer growth. That’s why we understand good UX design goes hand in hand with SEO optimisation, and build the right strategies to boost your visibility in the fast-paced online marketplace. Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for your business.