When designing digital products for our clients, it is important to consider user experience (UX) and design. While UX design may sound complex, it’s a simple philosophy – create digital products that are easy to use and engaging for the end consumer. While each project is unique, we utilize the same basic framework to approach each project: research, wireframes or prototypes, creative design, and finally testing and ongoing optimizations.

Research

At the onset of a new project, we must first understand user needs, behaviors, and motivations – which could vary depending on the target audience or platform.

There are many methods to go about this depending on whether there is an existing tool/product to optimize or if it is a new initiative. A few potential methods include:
• Existing web or app data like new users, engagement, email sign-ups, etc.
• Primary research usability testing where the existing product is shown to test users who are asked to see how quickly and easily they can complete them.
• User interviews to dive into what the problem or need is to ensure a 360-degree understanding of the issues and barriers.

For our client One Pulse, we were asked to evaluate their existing site to assist in new customer acquisition and user trial. To best evaluate the user journey and drop-off points, we conducted a UX study and audit on their website and app. We used cutting-edge tools like GA4 analytics and heat maps to further understand user activity.

While not traditionally referred to as “UX,” brand exploration tools like stakeholder interviews, primary research reviews, etc. are also often employed in tandem with analytics when engaging on a new assignment or website to ensure have a clear understanding of the key brand elements and messages.

For example, on a new client of ours, NatureSweet Tomatoes, the ask was to create a new website to better reflect their brand mission and values. We utilized the traditional UX process, but a big portion of the ask was on the brand side. To best understand the brand messages, we did a brand exploration along with the UX analytical one to understand the key reasons to believe, points of differentiation, and ultimately how best we could communicate them to the consumer.

Wireframes and Prototyping

After a thorough understanding of the problem and potential optimizations, the next step we often employ is to develop a prototype or wireframe. It serves as a simple version of the end product without designs applied. Think of it like the blueprint of your product.
At this stage, we aren’t worried about exact final copy or visuals; both are generally represented with boxes and for placement only statements like “Headline.” The goal is to get an overall map of the page and how content will be organized.

On NatureSweet, once we had a clear understanding of the new website needs, we created wireframes. This process led to key recommendations like creating overall product category pages, product page optimizations to better highlight key user benefits, as well as tech features like a more user-friendly recipe search function.

With buy-in on the overall wireframes, sometimes we go one step further into a more detailed, interactive version of a wireframe that allows us to test with real potential users and gather feedback to make improvements before we develop the site fully. Often referred to as high-fidelity wireframes, these prototypes allow you to click around and get a feel for your product’s functionality.

Creative

Once the prototype is approved, it’s time for the fun part, visual designs.

The creative designs are the look and feel of the end product involving the use of copy, typography, color, imagery, and other visual elements. Since humans are naturally visual creatures, design plays a big part in creating meaningful experiences.

Depending on the project and what design elements the brand has established, a larger creative exploration or brand look and feel may be needed to effectively produce the product.

Design inspiration can be found in many places at this stage; here are a few of our current favorite websites:
• https://www.tillamook.com/
• https://www.lunchables.com/
• https://www.heinz.com/
• https://www.hiddenvalley.com/

Test and Optimize

The hard work isn’t done when your product is live and launched. There’s always room for improvement, so it’s critical to continue to monitor, test, and optimize.

A common tool used here is A/B testing, which is the process of comparing two different versions of something to determine which performs better. For example, do customers prefer one headline over the other? Does an image or video work better for your hero content?

There are many different things to consider in running an A/B test; some include:
• Goals and Objectives: Clearly set up why the test is being run and what you will do with the results. Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) before starting a test is key to understanding when success is reached.
• Single Variable: Test only a single change at a time so you can easily identify that the change in user behavior is caused by what you are testing.
• Timing: Run the test long enough to reach statistical significance and confidence in the outcome.

NatureSweet understands the continual improvement process. After launching their revamped site, we helped them A/B test the information architecture to determine the best layout of the new content. We followed best practices by setting up our key KPI of engagement rate, testing only the content layout, and running the test until a 95% confidence interval was reached.

Conclusion

Focusing on user experience can result in increased customer satisfaction and increased conversion rates. A more streamlined user journey will make it easier for users to complete actions such as making a purchase or booking a meeting.

270B brave enough to do big.