UX scenario in Analytics Content and Business strategy

Introduction:

Digital media is being used as applications, websites, mobile applications, and blogs. Every day we come across multiple apps and not all would be remembered. Only a handful of apps or websites would be recollected either for being attractive or user-friendly aspect. These factors define the success of the apps. It applies the same to websites, products, and software. UI/UX plays a major role, wherever digital media activities (ordering through mobile apps, banking through the internet, websites, etc) are referred.

UIs are responsible for designing an appealing interface and UXs are responsible for making the user journey through the product or app. In this article, we would explore the present UI/UX scenario in Analytics, Content, and Business strategy.

UI/UX:

UI (User Interface) works on the visual interface elements like typography, colours, pictures, menu bars and placement of widgets.

UX (User Experience) works to provide optimal user experience through the product’s journey. They design wireframes and prototypes of the app or product. 

Both UI and UX are crucial and work together for the captivating look and proper function of the product as they each influence each other. They are like two-side of a coin. Both cannot co-exist without each other. 

To create a user-centric product, both UI and UX are needed to ensure users can interact with the product with ease and interest.

UX designers use a few common methods that enable them to design a user-centric product. They are: 

• User personas: Keeping a specific target user in mind helps UX designers create better and more focused solutions. 
• User Interviews: This is a quick and easy way to collect user data to understand their mind and approach. 
• Focus groups: This is a moderated discussion with a group of users to gather insights about their attitudes, beliefs, desires, and perceptions of a product.
• Surveys: It is a set of questions sent to a targeted group of users to understand their attitudes and preferences. 

UI designer’s common working methods begin with: 

• Research forms the first step in the designing process. As it is vital to understand the audience.
• They work closely with UX designers and product managers to understand the target audience and concept of the design project. 
• Identification of colour palettes, patterns, fonts, and other visual elements would work best.
• Researching other companies in the same industry enables UI designers to learn new components and concepts. This process inspires designers to design according to users’ expectations and preferences.

It would be added advantage to acquire the knowledge of both UI and UX for the designers. 

Latest UI/UX technologies: 

It is essential for UI/UX designers to acquire the flexibility to learn evolving technologies and skills to sustain themselves in this fast-moving technology industry. The UI/UX design tools for designs range from prototyping to information architecture. 

UI design tools enable designers to design accurate wireframes, mock-ups, prototypes, and minimally viable products. They form the basic skeleton of design communicating the functionality. 

UX design tool helps to structure the information architecture and define the user experience. These design tools enable the designer to place the content and its organization for a better experience. 

Implementation of Maven in Microservice

The list of UI/UX design tools are: 

• Sketch
• InVision Studio
• Axure
• Craft
• Proto.io
• Adobe XD
• Marvel
• Figma
• Framer X
• Origami Studio
• Webflow
• FlowMapp
• Balsamiq
• VisualSitemaps
• Treejack
• 16 Wireframe.cc
• Optimal Workshop

UI skills: 

• Design 
• Typography 
• Graphic/print design 
• Design Principles
• Design elements

UX skills: 

• Prototyping, wireframing, user flows, mock-ups
• Visual design and design software
• User research and usability testing
• Agile
• Information architecture 
• Application development
• Collaboration
• Communication and presentation
• Prioritization and time management

Latest Trends in UI/UX field: 

• It is known that technology is a fast-evolving industry. Likewise, there are a few latest trends in UX/UI field and they are:
• Branding with unique illustrations
• Custom cursor interactions
• Delve into the Metaverse (Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR))
• Utilizing 3D in e-commerce
• Bolder and more characteristic fonts
• Low code and No-code platforms
• Dynamic colour palettes
• Storytelling with scroll-triggered animation
• Designing for foldable mobiles
• 3D animations
• Artistic Illustrations
• Brutalism
• Asymmetry
• Real Photos
• Scrollytelling
• Minimalism
• Super app
• Page speed prioritization
• Mobile-first design

Role of UI/UX in Analytics:

UI/UX designers begin their work with user research, focusing on understanding user behaviour, needs, attitude, preference, and motivation through analytics and task analysis. User research is an important aspect of analytics as the user’s behaviour tends to change due to various factors.  The important elements of analytics are: 

• Personal Interviews: It is a fast and easy way to understand the reactions and expectations of the users. These interviews help in efficiently identifying the information that will help the decision-maker to arrive at the conclusion faster.
• Data Discovery: It helps in understanding the pattern and analyzing data in which the data can be represented consistently.   
• Use cases: This helps to identify the exceptions and factors where things might go wrong. 
• Journey Mapping: This element enables designs to define the evolution process and pain points of the user. 
• Business Objective: Clear and measurable objectives make progress reviews easy and trackable.

Role of UI/UX in Business Strategy: 

UI/UX designers give valuable input and suggestions to key business decisions with a user-centered mindset. As their prime role is to identify users’ needs and providing value-adding features products. 

When a user uses a product, we have just a few seconds to make connections or influence them to either sell a product or acquire a lead. Here UI/UX designer plays a vital role in designing products by combining all design elements to leverage the business and make the product a success. All businesses try to have more visitors to the application which will maximize the chances of conversions. 

The components of UI/UX design aid in winning the trust of the customers and helps to gain the crucial first impression of the business. In the business strategy, user experience is viewed as a key to long-term competitive advantage.

Let’s us the role of UI/UX designer in strategizing the business:

• Reducing Cost

UI/UX designers would do the following tasks that include user research, analysis, and testing of potential users, before starting to design the interface. These tasks are done to identify the user’s preference and need to reduce the risk of product failure. Creating a design prototype is faster and more flexible to update, than doing some changes in the development step, it is also cost-efficient. All changes on the website will incur both monetary and human resources and may lead to downtime issues. Investing in an excellent design upfront can prevent such recurring investments in the future.

• Improving SEO

Earlier, to optimize the search engine (SEO), we would add key terms, alt text, and images to the website to list the website at the top of the search engine.  However, this method is no longer used after the Google algorithm changes constantly by analyzing dwell time (the amount of time a user takes to access a page), the success of a user journey, web navigation behaviour, and website patterns. Attracting visitors with good UX is a way to rely on them. Web admins must ensure that the website ranks higher during a keyword search. The components of UI/UX design ensure that the site’s SEO gets boosted. Your website must have a sizeable visitor count, and it ranks among the significant search engine parameters.

The dwell time on the website must be high, and it can help in SEO too. As the search engines' algorithms change, the website navigation patterns and the user journey workflows can influence your website SEO.

• User-Focused

The ultimate goal of UI / UX is to simplify complex information. Their main focus is user habits and satisfaction to improve the product’s reputation and get good feedback from users and aides leverage to the business and revenue.

• Brand Identity

The optimal UI/UX design works to create a website with appealing colours and user workflow to gain a favourable impression of the brand in the customer's mind. UI/UX suggests the best website designs and workflows for better client relationships.

An effective UI/UX design provides an excellent user experience. They begin by undertaking adequate research to understand the audience's preferences and the elements. The designers can work on the page layouts and designs while considering the brand personality. It is important to incorporate the branding guidelines and be consistent throughout the website.

• Being Human-Centric

It is critical to keep in mind that you must design the website for humans. While SEO may be on top of your mind, remember that an increased number of visitors can also help receive SEO brownie points. The user interface must empathise with the visitors as part of an overall human-centric approach.

An iterative design can help to improve the overall design of the application. By focussing your website on user habits, it will assure better user testimonials. The designers must utilize historical data to help them create the workflows that will suit the audience.

• More Traffic to the Application

Several websites are competing for the same visitors. Your website must stand apart from the competition. One way to do this is by deploying the UI/UX design services of experts who can design unique workflows. It will help the visitors to pay more attention to your application.

The workflows will help the visitors to gain the information they were searching for on your website. It will help them to embark with you on the buyer's journey and improve conversions. The navigation is more straightforward, and there are fewer menu options.

• Customer Satisfaction

UI/UX designers thrive to understand the audience better. It is important to cater to their queries for a better-designed website. The users can navigate through the website efficiently, thereby spending more time on the website.

The content must be a factor strengthening the messages on the website. Experienced designers formulate the layouts and workflows, keeping the visitor central to the design. 

• Retain the Audience

Businesses find it easier to induce repeat purchases than to bring in new customers. Once the visitors find your website easy to use, they are more likely to transact with your business and become loyal customers. UI/UX design significance arises from the fact that it ensures better user engagement.

The users look forward to using the application quickly and must make their life better. You can also utilize data on user behaviour and make periodic changes in the application layout. It can assure loyal users who keep on visiting your application.

Businesses face tremendous competition from their competitors. They must design the website and mobile app workflows to act as a hook for the visitors. Website UX development can also help in better word-of-mouth communication among the target market. The visitors are satisfied too, and it increases the dwell time on the website.

Role of UI/UX in curating the content strategy

Content forms an integral part of digital media activities. Without content, the message would not be delivered properly. Design and content go hand-in-hand as both complement each other. With an attractive design and engaging content, it is evident to gain the attention of the audience. With this broader definition of content, it becomes easier to realize that content is everywhere. It drives our experience of websites and apps; it’s the weird responses we get from Siri on our iPhones; it’s on the touchscreen kiosks we use to check in at the airport; content is central to every user experience.

In fact, without content, our user experiences would be meaningless and useless artifacts. Imagine your favourite app without any content. Given how important content is to the user experience, hopefully, it already feels intuitive why content strategy and writing are part of the UX field. Content strategy in UX is the creation and governance of useful, usable, accessible, content for user experiences. 

Content strategy in UX ensures that all content within a user experience is delivered to the user in the right time, place, and format; works seamlessly with the visual design, brand strategy, and functionality, usable and accessible, and supports business goals. Those who are involved in strategizing the content as per UX requirements are known as UX Content Strategists, Content Strategists, Web Content Strategists, and Product Content Strategists. 

Content strategy is not the same as UX in my personal opinion. I think of UX as the broader discipline category, and things like content strategy fit within or overlap with it. However, content strategy work is user-centered, and content strategy is an essential part of UX work. 

• UX content strategists working model:

Content strategists are super smart. Their job is to figure out what information the user needs, where/when in the user journey it should be delivered to them, and what format and style the information should be in — all while balancing business goals. They should also care about how that content is managed, maintained, and updated over time (governance). It includes all of the systems, people, and processes that will be required for seamless content governance. Let’s explore UX content strategist work: 

• Understanding user needs and goals:

In order to make content user-centered, content strategists must understand who the content is for and what those people want and need. 

• Things needed for content strategists to understand users:

They use user interviews, surveys, and other user research methods to understand user personas or persona spectrums. It is important to analyse the user journey maps and their stories.

• Business needs, goals, and managing stakeholders

Content strategists are often the person on a UX team who work closest with internal stakeholders. Define and prioritize business goals and KPIs for a website or digital product.

• Technical requirements and constraints:

The content strategists should know the basic things like CMS used, user experience, target audience, products features, and their benefits.  

• Messaging strategy, brand voice, and editorial style:

Content strategists define what key messages will be a focus throughout the user or brand experience, plus how and when those messages will be used. They’ll usually also define how a brand’s voice will sound, and what editorial standards the content should follow. 

Documenting these things might take the shape of a more comprehensive content style guide, or some artifacts like a messaging hierarchy could be incorporated into a design system. 

• Information architecture:

A user-centered content strategist might also own information architecture within a project. This could include creating a site map, defining the architecture for a mobile app or product, or creating things like content models or taxonomy systems.

• Content governance:

Content governance is about coordinating with different people and departments with specific responsibilities, rules, and processes for everything. 

• Soft skills in UX content strategy:

Interpersonally, content strategists tend to have high emotional intelligence, excellent communication skills, and genuinely enjoy digging into complex and messy problems. 

• Content strategy:

The broadest, highest level of these role guides content across the customer/user experience. Blends UX, editorial strategy, and systems design.

• Content design: 

The role specializes in figuring out what format the content should be in, based on user needs and business goals. 

• UX writing:

The role specializes in writing, testing, and updating micro copy for interfaces (mobile apps and other digital products).

Conclusion: 

In this ever-evolving world, satisfying user needs has become paramount and far-fetched.  The success of a product, website, or app is dependent on an excellent UI/UX.

More and more, businesses use data for day-to-day decision-making, but data visibility is still extremely isolated and their manual workflows and gut-based analysis (determined based on many disconnected data sources) are both inefficient and inaccurate. Businesses need to move from huge decision tree-based business processes to applications with excellent UI/UX to facilitate better, more accurate, and predictive decision making.

For some users, especially new users, when they are still in the stage of choosing a platform, they are most likely interested in the appearance of how the product is presented, the interface itself, before trying features, and a great User Interface (UI) is the key for the business owner.

In designing a product, each UI/UX Designer has their own ideas and opinions, but at the end of the day, the user is the one that decides if the designs work or not. Therefore, with the UI / UX designer who can understand user behaviour and places the content wherever required, it gives companies the opportunity to influence their business more effectively by implementing targeted strategies throughout the market and its digital ecosystem.