Do you really need a redesign?

As an experience design studio, we practice improving the user experience and creating design systems for a wide range of digital assets. We work with industry leaders using not-so-up-to-date intranet systems, affecting hundreds of their workers, which in turn results in the loss of huge sums of revenue. We see big travel companies with flawed booking flows that lose thousands in a single day, every day. We come across confusing information architectures that users cannot even know where exactly they are on a website, yet navigate through it. The reasons for the betterment of user experience or a complete redesign of the user interfaces are endless. But before allocating valuable resources for such big projects, do you really know what you need? Let’s start by defining some common yet mixed-up terms such as user experience design (UX design) and user interface design (UI design).

User experience design vs User interface design

Though the terms “user experience design” and “user interface design” are often used interchangeably, it can be said that they are some kind of umbrella terms for a wide variety of methodologies. As Interaction Design Foundation states;

“User experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. This involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability, and function.”

It is the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving usability and accessibility by putting the users at the center of every design decision. (see: human-centered design). If done well, human-centered design opens the doors for better digital products in which users can reach their goals easily, sometimes with joy—ultimately resulting in engagement and growth. 

While user experience design focuses on easing the life of the users, user interface design is more focused on how “it” looks:

“User interface (UI) design is the process designers use to build interfaces in software or computerized devices, focusing on looks or style. Designers aim to create interfaces that users find easy to use and pleasurable. UI design refers to graphical user interfaces and other forms—e.g., voice-controlled interfaces.”

It is the visual component of the process, including grids, layouts, colour palettes, typography, and branding. It’s a good analogy to use the metaphor of a movie vs making a movie to understand the difference thoroughly: A movie is an end product you interact with, and it is designed in a way to make you feel in a certain way with moving pictures, music and dialogue. Whereas making a movie involves so many components such as art-direction, CGI effects, storyboards, casting, cinematography, etc. all these things collectively contribute and form the end product in a long time. It may take more than a year to produce just a 1-2 hour-long piece. 

Just like that, user experience (UX) design describes a collection of activities and methodologies in order to create experiences for the target audience. Everything from user research, user stories, system flows, content architecture, information architecture, wireframing, and prototyping falls under the umbrella of user experience (UX) design.

Most common reasons for a design project

In light of these definitions, let’s name a few common reasons why companies invest in user experience (UX) design and/or user interface design:

• Websites that are tough to navigate 
• Difficult-to-use applications
• Repeating pages or actions in a flow resulting in frustration
• Asking users too much and unnecessary information
• Not giving clear directives
• Old-fashioned or untrustworthy looks
• Websites only designed for desktop
• Poorly written content 
• High bounce rates
• Low sales and market share
• Readability and accessibility issues 

First off, keep in mind that 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience. So, if you ask “OK, but where do I start?”, whatever your reason is, every meaningful design endeavour starts with the same: Listening and empathizing with your audience. Without gathering feedback from your audience, you should not define the nature of your project, whether it’s a redesign or optimization.

First, conduct your research and know your audience. Start by running user interviews, sending out online surveys, or at least tracking down your users’ clicks and taps to understand their intentions to see how big the issues are you need to deal with. In parallel, collect benchmark data and invest in marketing research. Understand how your competitors are moving in the market.

Components of a successful user experience design

Despite its importance, understanding the users is just the first step of this process, because influencing and affecting people’s emotions through design is no easy task. That is why we use below methodologies (and many more) in our process for a carefully thought out, well-crafted experiences:

• User stories
  • The key to writing a User Story is avoiding details in the beginning stages of the project; creating a working environment where details can be added to the project in a timely manner and as needed.
    
• User flows
  • A UX artefact that maps out all the actions users can take to achieve a goal in your product or service.
    
• Content production
  • Text-based content or content in any form in a broader sense means the creation of qualified content for indirect marketing.
    
• Information architecture
  • “Information architecture is about helping people understand their surroundings and find what they’re looking for, in the real world as well as online.”

“Site redesigns often require a tremendous amount of coordination and resources. Sometimes, a redesign project can be a purely visual reskinning of the entire site, with new styles, layouts, and treatments. Other times, serious taxonomy, information architecture, content, or usability issues are being addressed. Either way, make sure that your redesign project is based on user data and has clear goals and measures of success.”

NN Group (nngroup.com)

Redesigning the user experience of your digital assets involves thorough user research of the needs, challenges, and goals of your target audience. If you think there are problems to be addressed in the domain of user experience in this manner; the more you wait, the more customers you’re gonna lose and it’ll be harder to reach business goals. But if it’s done right, and early the return on investment can be tremendous. Also, bear in mind that you may not need a complete overhaul of your product. Tweaking a few features and toiling over the macro conversion journey might get you back on track. And save you a lot.