Having Great UX Design Matters! (3 Tips for Excellent UX)

The benefits of good San Diego UX design are massive. It increases revenue, reduces marketing costs in the long term, and retains customers. It also helps build a solid brand identity, establishes the business as a niche leader, and enhances a team’s productivity.

What makes an excellent user experience, though? This article lists three tips:

• Know what the user needs.
• Design for accessibility.
• Keep UX design simple.

Explore how each technique works in the article below!

To learn how Digital Authority Partners can create a standout website for you, watch this video!

1. Know the User Needs

Many mobile app developers, business owners, and marketers mistakenly believe that users and customers are synonymous. They are not always, especially in the B2B market:

• Customers are often the organization’s decision-makers in evaluating and buying the product or service. Their primary concerns are cost, returns, business value, and long-term benefits. With UX design, they want something that aligns with their marketing objectives or contributes to growth. 
• The users are individuals or teams interacting regularly with the products and services. They likely want a platform that streamlines their workflows, increases their efficiency, and helps them save time and effort.

When trying to determine UX priorities, whose demand should matter? The answer is both. You should build a design that addresses the requirements of both. 

Although the customer holds the purchasing power, neglecting user needs and experiences can result in reduced adoption and decreased satisfaction. Ultimately, it hinders the success of the product or service. 

Balancing the needs of customers and users is possible with these ideas: 

• Identify the overlapping goals of both customers and users. These might be increasing efficiency, reducing errors, or improving productivity. Design solutions that address these shared objectives.
• Test the product in the real world. Get out of the lab and the simulated environment and see how your website or application works in real time. Does it live up to expectations? Do you notice any gaps or opportunities for improvement?
• Involve stakeholders. Collaborate closely with customers and users throughout the design process. Engage them in usability testing, feedback sessions, and iterative design cycles to validate and refine the UX design. This inclusive approach helps build trust and ensures that the final product meets the needs of both parties.

2. Design for Accessibility

Because users are at the core of UX design, one of its fundamental principles is accessibility. All users, regardless of physical or mental abilities, can perceive, use, comprehend, and benefit from the interfaces, interactions, and content.

Consider this Digital Authority Partners’ (DAP) project with Room to Read. Improving the teachers’ access to learning resources and tools even during low-bandwidth internet connectivity helped increase the number of students using the portal to more than 35,000 and the number of educators to at least 1,000.

Designing for accessibility also protects businesses from hefty fines and other legal risks associated with not complying with federal and state regulations, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Most of all, it recognizes that creating an inclusive online community does not have a one-size-fits-all solution.

An expert San Diego UX design team follows web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG). These contain detailed standards for making digital content accessible:

• Including descriptive alternative text (alt text) for all images for users with visual impairments relying on technologies such as screen readers
• Using proper heading structures to assist users in navigating and understanding the content’s organization and relevance
• Maintaining sufficient color contrast between text and background for readability, and choosing a color palette appropriate for those with color blindness
• Implementing keyboard accessibility, which is crucial for users who cannot use a mouse or other pointing devices
• Adding captions or transcripts for videos and audio content for people with hearing impairments
• Utilizing intuitive labels, logical grouping of related content, and navigation options to assist users in finding information and moving through the interface
• Providing accessibility documentation and help

3. Keep UX Design Simple

Digg and Friendster had parallel stories. They were two user-centric websites that paved the way for the likes of Reddit (which is almost a carbon copy of Digg) and Facebook. These platforms also achieved cult status until they gradually vanished as they succumbed to investor pressure and poor UX design. 

For example, Digg, a site where people can share links and upvote (or downvote) them, removed its followers' favorite features. These included the ability to sort content by category and search history. 

On the other hand, Friendster ignored nagging usability and technical issues, such as slow loading times, for too long. Instead, it added more features that its users did not care about. 

San Diego UX design emphasizes simplicity because it helps users accomplish their goals quickly and effortlessly by reducing cognitive load, eliminating unnecessary steps, and minimizing confusion. To be more precise, users can

• Easily understand how to navigate and interact with and accomplish tasks within a digital product or service,
• Decrease their learning curve fast because they can grasp how the website or application works without extensive tutorials or training, and
• Better appreciate your brand’s value because simple and elegant designs usually imply professionalism, trustworthiness, and sophistication.

Contrary to what other designers think, minimalism and simplicity do not share the same meaning. Websites such as CNN can be highly visual and interactive while still being easy to understand, navigate, and use. 

To incorporate simplicity into your UX design, consider the following approaches:

• Identify the core functionality that fulfills user needs and streamline the user journey accordingly. Eliminate unnecessary features or steps that do not directly contribute to the user’s objectives.
• Use visual cues such as size, color, and placement to guide users’ attention and emphasize essential elements. 
• Reduce the amount of information presented simultaneously. For instance, use progressive disclosure techniques to reveal information gradually, based on user interactions or context.
• Simplify the navigation structure and labels. Use clear and concise language for menus, buttons, and links. 
• Continuously iterate on your design, seeking user feedback and conducting A/B testing. Observe how users interact with the interface and identify areas of confusion or inefficiency. 

Simplicity in UX design does not mean sacrificing functionality or depth. It is about balancing simplicity and complexity to create an intuitive and delightful user experience.

Summing Up

The secret to good UX design is going beyond the visuals and aesthetics and embracing uniqueness, value, and user needs. These three tips already show you how to do it.

To further customize your website’s or platform’s usability, accessibility, and look, work with Digital Authority Partners (DAP). As a top-tier San Diego UX design agency, we use our technical expertise and marketing knowledge to build, upgrade, and maintain products and services that elevate the user experience.

Contact us for a free consultation today.