User experience UX design.

User interface designers develop the look and feel of your website and apps. And that combination of look and feel is vital to your visitors, as this collection of stats from Companion Link highlights:

We’ll put a pin in the fact that 88% of people abandon a site after a bad user experience and focus on the issues of layout and content. Both of these fall under the user interface remit and getting them wrong leads to a shocking 38% of people leaving a website before they’ve taken any time to browse your products.

Can you afford to let over a third of your potential customers go because you have unattractive visual design elements peppered throughout your site? We’re sure that most businesses don’t want to alienate such a huge portion of their customer base, which is why we make it our UI designer’s job to create sites (and apps) that keep people engaged.

There’s no point in looking the part if there’s no substance behind what your website does. If the visitor can’t interact with the various elements of the site, you may as well present them with a virtual business card and live in the blind hope that they’ll call you.

That’s not what your visitors want.

They want sites that contain interactive elements (such as navigational links, buttons, and similar graphical design features) that make it easy for them to get to where they need to go:

HubSpot’s survey of 174 consumers (none of whom work in web or user interface design) found that over three-quarters (76%) say that the ability to find what they want easily is vital to a website’s design. Interestingly, 9% of people say that they want to see a cutting-edge interactive experience from every design they visit. Combine the two and you get 85% of people telling you that the user interface created for your site needs to be up to date while making it easier for them to get to the good stuff.

NEWMEDIA handles this for you, with the entire process of interactive user interfaces falling under the remit of our talented team.

Take a look at this landing page design (courtesy of Justinmind):

What we see here is a cluttered mess of user interface elements, none of which seem to have any rhyme or reason attached to their placement. What on Earth do you click first? Should you check the 10 daily deals (there are at least two ways to get to those) or look at the “deals of the day”? What about the cruise comparisons, and what’s this about the destinations for the cruises? It’s all so confusing, with the above website serving up a recipe of design ingredients that come together to create a dish that a customer is more likely to spit out than enjoy.

Simplicity is the key to good UI design, which starts with using clear visual elements to show website visitors where they need to go. Think of your user interface as a map for the visitor. On that map, you’re going to highlight important landmarks and put virtual “signs” up to give the visitor directions. But you have to find the right balance between directing the visitor and bombarding them with confusing information.

NEWMEDIA’s clear and simple designs keep you away from the clutter.

Interface elements are the building blocks of a user interface, making them the little breadcrumbs you lay out for your users to follow. Every icon you tap in a mobile app is an interface element designed to take you to a specific part of the app, with every button and link you click on a website serving the same purpose.

These little breadcrumbs have to make sense to the user. For example, let’s say you’re playing around with a sports retailer’s mobile app and there’s a big shiny button telling you to tap so you can check out the latest sneakers on offer. Your finger follows the breadcrumb, and you tap the button, only to land on a page talking about tennis racquets. It doesn’t make sense and your impression of the app you’re using drops dramatically.

NEWMEDIA designs the interface elements that combine to form your user interface and, more importantly, we make sure each of those elements makes sense to the user.

The journey your users take with your company is just like any road trip you’ve ever taken in a car.

You start by figuring out where you want to go (which means what you want to buy or learn about if you’re a customer.) With your destination in mind, you pull out a map (or do some research) to figure out the best way to get there. We’ll conveniently ignore the existence of GPS for the sake of this analogy. With your research complete, you jump in the car and start the journey.

And that’s when things have the potential to go wrong.

If the car is your company’s website or mobile app, then every mechanical malfunction is a bump in the road that makes the journey more difficult than it has to be. Your customer (i.e., the driver) expects the car to work how it’s supposed to work. If the brake light comes on (a link doesn’t work) or the engine conks out (the app crashes), the road trip will be one to remember for all of the wrong reasons.

It’s all about making it as easy as possible for your customers. Remember our stats about getting the interactive elements of a website right? Over two-thirds of people (78%) of them value ease in the journey above all else on a website, so you have to make sure your “car” is serviced and ready to take customers on a smooth ride.

That all falls under the UX designer responsibilities umbrella.

“Fine, so delivering a good user experience is obviously important,” we hear you say. “But it costs my business money to research and hire UX design agencies. Is it really worth the cash I’m going to spend?”

We could pull your attention back to all of the stats we’ve shared about customers abandoning companies (and often badmouthing them on the way out) to show the value of UX design. But we think these stats from Wove On do a better job of demonstrating the value of getting the customer experience right:

According to this chart, an enormous 85% of people are willing to spend more on a business (and its products) if it offers a top-notch user experience. How much more depends on the customer, though there’s an interesting breakdown of those numbers here. About three-quarters of customers (76%) say they’ll pay 5% more than your current asking price if they’re guaranteed to get a great experience. Over half (55) will shell out 10% more, with one in every 10 customers saying they’ll pay 25% above market value to get a good experience.

The message is clear – top UX design agencies don’t just help to keep customers coming through the doors. Their work also puts you in a position to ask for more from customers, which many are willing to pay because you give them an experience they appreciate.