8 Good Reasons to Allocate a Significant Budget to UX (and UI)

What are UX and UI – aren’t they just different words for the same thing?

UX stands for user experience and refers to a design approach that focuses on the experience and interaction during the user’s journey with the company. UI stands for user interface and refers to the design of the user interface itself, including everything from the overall appearance of the pages to the design of the elements on the page, graphical elements, typography, and images.

UX

If you’re about to update your website, you should definitely consider UX, which is the user experience and the user’s behavior on your site. UX design encompasses everything where you think in terms of systems, actions, events, and flows. Marketers often think of the website solely in terms of attractive design or conversions, but UX bridges the gap between these two aspects and ensures that what happens on the site actually leads to conversions. It’s about the user journey, how we ensure that a user quickly and easily gets from A to B. To make UX work more valuable, user surveys, personas, user stories, and usability tests are analyzed. It’s usually the UX designer who creates wireframes (more on that later), and this happens before decisions are made about the exact appearance of the various design elements.

UI

Ideally, in collaboration with the UX designer (or afterwards), the UI designer comes into play, focusing on the visual aspect of the design. A UI designer works with layout and the graphic expression. This includes branding, colors, typography, graphics, photography, and other visual elements. So, a UI designer works more specifically with the look of a website.

Why invest efforts into UX research before designing

Investing a significant portion of your budget to ensure a smooth and positive user experience (UX) before launching a new company website is not only a financially sound decision but also a strategic move that can provide substantial long-term benefits. In today’s digital landscape, where user expectations are constantly evolving, prioritizing UX research based on user data from your current website (rather than assumptions) is crucial for the following 8 compelling reasons:

1. User-centered design leads to success

A user-centered approach ensures that your website meets the specific needs, challenges, preferences, and pain points of your target audience. By investing in thorough UX research, you gain precise insights into your users’ behavior, motivations, and expectations, enabling you to tailor the website’s design, content, and functionality accordingly. This leads to higher user satisfaction, engagement, and more conversions, ultimately driving the success of your online presence.

2. Reduced development costs

Building a website based merely on assumptions can lead to costly revisions and rework later in the process, or you might unknowingly have a website with significant untapped potential to turn visitors into customers. By investing early in UX research, you can identify potential issues and design flaws early in the process. This proactive approach helps prevent costly mistakes, reduces the need for extensive rework, and optimizes the development process, saving both time and money and extending the website’s lifespan.

3. Improved user retention

Prioritizing UX research ensures that your website is intuitive, user-friendly, and capable of retaining visitors. A well-designed website that is closely aligned with user preferences and behavior encourages visitors to stay longer, explore more, and provides incentives for them to return more frequently. User retention is crucial for building brand loyalty and fostering long-term positive relationships with your audience.

4. Enhanced conversion rates

Websites exist to achieve specific goals, whether generating leads, making sales, or conveying information. User experience significantly impacts these conversion rates. By basing your design decisions on actual user data, you can optimize your website’s layout, navigation, and calls-to-action to maximize conversion rates. This directly affects your bottom line and return on investment.

5. Competitive advantage

In today’s competitive digital landscape, a highly positive user experience can be a crucial differentiator. Users have numerous alternatives, and they are more likely to engage with websites that offer an easy and pleasant experience. Prioritizing UX research helps you identify unique selling points and opportunities to stand out from the competition, ultimately increasing your market share.

6. Positive brand image

A user-friendly website not only enhances the user experience but also positively impacts your brand. Websites that are difficult to navigate, slow to load, unappealing, or filled with minor errors can seriously damage your brand’s reputation and credibility. Conversely, a well-designed website communicates professionalism and reliability, instilling trust in your audience.

7. Adaptation to changing trends

The digital landscape is dynamic, with new technologies and trends emerging regularly. Relying solely on assumptions about user preferences can result in a website that quickly becomes outdated. A user-centered approach based on comprehensive UX research ensures that your website can adapt and evolve with changing user expectations and technological advancements. The evolving expectations of users are part of what we at Propellos work to address by continuously conducting small iterative improvements and adjustments to the website based on user data. You can read more about this under the heading “Growth Driven Design.”

8. Minimized risk

Building a website without a thorough understanding of user needs is a risky endeavor. It’s like setting sail without a navigation system. UX research helps you make informed decisions and reduces the risk of launching a website that does not effectively appeal to your target audience.

These are the 8 good reasons, and it boils down to the wisdom of conducting a thorough examination before starting the operation. The takeaway is that allocating a significant portion of your budget to UX research before developing a new company website is a wise investment that pays off in terms of user satisfaction, cost savings, improved conversion rates, a more positive brand image, and long-term competitive advantages. It ensures that your website’s design and functionality are aligned with real user data, which can mean creating an online presence that not only meets but exceeds user expectations, ultimately leading to a successful and sustainable digital presence for your organization.

If you’re unsure how to approach this, we at Iternum Digital are available to assist – whether you want to discuss optimizing the effectiveness of your current website using your own data in a UX process or consider building a completely new website.

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