Imagine walking into your favorite restaurant.

You’re greeted with a friendly smile and led to your favorite table in the corner. The kind waitstaff brings you a delectable meal fresh from the kitchen.Can you attribute your happiness to a specific person in that restaurant? Is it the host? Is it the waiter, or the chef?

The answer is most likely no. Your happiness is everyone’s job. Every actor plays their respective part, and some may be more effective than others.

But at the end of the evening, they have all been a part of the same operation to ensure your experience is a wonderful one.

The User Experience Business

The same model applies to the user experience (or UX) business. Everything revolves around an operation that aims for a positive experience for your customer/user.

In today’s digital economy, it takes the designer, developer, strategist and content creators working together, all playing important key roles in the experience of the user.

We recognize that design isn’t just about making things look pretty. Design needs to be functional. It needs to serve its key purpose - to work for consumers. There is an evolution underway in agencies like ours to optimize the user’s every interaction with your company.

Everyone on our team is involved in the user's experience, and we invest time in understanding the customer’s journey just as much as we do in understanding your business.

So, What is UX (User Experience) Design?

Simply put, user experience design is a method of innovative problem solving on the visual front. We look at user experience design in our entire business vertical. It’s everybody’s job to solve problems with the user’s experience in mind.

These are a few of the main aspects of an end-user focused operation:

• Planning/personas/strategy/wireframing - Taking the time to understand who your customers are and creating the experience around them.
• Marketing and optimization - Creating a clear conversion path for users to follow. Focusing on aligning the sales and marketing message with what the user wants and needs.
• Branding and graphic design - Creating a consistent branding and design system with your company’s logo, fonts and colors will help communicate a clear and consistent visual message to your potential clients.
• Website design and development - Careful consideration for the words, images and messaging that your visitor interacts with on your site.
• Don’t forget to evaluate and experiment! - Don’t set it and forget it. Be sure to monitor your initial assumption about your users to make sure the experience is hitting the mark.

The Takeaway

You will hear the phrase “UX design” tossed around in creative circles more and more these days. User experience design represents a radical transformation from the traditional nature of design that was just focused on making things pretty, without thinking about the user.

User experience is important because it can create the momentum that propels the business forward. Today's best organizations are heavily involved in problem solving to make the user’s experience the absolute best that it can be.

Remember, users decide in just a few seconds whether your site or app is worth their time. That’s the only opportunity you get to reel someone in and convert!

Bill Hunter and the WDC team believe that honest business and innovative design go hand-in-hand. Their talented team of designers, marketers and developers are as diverse as our work. They offer a range of services, including marketing strategy, branding and creative web and application development, as well as digital marketing solutions specific to your business. Contact Bill at [email protected]gnco.com or visit www.wilmingtondesignco.com.