The Significance of UX in Software Development [Complete Guide] Software Development

Not only a business product but the custom software development should also be suitable and apparently striking or eye-catching to its users, and this appearance comprises two parts: the “feel” and the “look,” which refers to the user experience and the user interface aesthetics. Additionally, these two components should be cautiously composed and create the right balance, which is considered one of the most challenging tasks for UX designers.

Statista stated that Russia’s market of user experience (UX) software was measured roughly at 800 thousand U.S. dollars in 2019, with a prediction of increasing to 2.25 million U.S. dollars up to 2026.

Source: statista

Any software product success comes from the whole development team’s collective efforts, including design specialists. During the development process, programmers make sure the product’s technical aspects and UX designers create appealing graphics and useful interfaces. Both these components are correspondingly significant for the final product, and errors in any of them can destroy the future application’s potential.

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Where does the term User Experience come from?

The term “user experience” (UX) includes a vast range of factors involving how an end-user interacts with a company, its services, and products, how the navigation of a website or application is easy, how effectively it pleases the user’s fundamental requirements, and the efficiency of a conducted experience.

The concept of a user experience has altered over the years, commencing from the Machine Age of the late 19th century, regulating with the increase in mass manufacturing controlled by Henry Ford and approaching its modern, software-related context of the 1990s. It’s the final context producing this UX/UI overview focus and software development.

According to a study by Intellectsoft, Donald Norman’s 1995 paper, “What You See, Some of What’s in the Future, and How We Go about Doing It,” stated that “user experience” is the critical aspect of human interface research and application.

Profoundly, this recounts how users interact with a company, their products, and services over mobile phone applications and websites with the ultimate goal of meeting the customer’s requirements as efficiently and clearly as possible, simplified through the website, app, or software user interface (UI).

What is UX design?

UX design is all about producing extremely user-friendly interfaces with the goal of enhancing users’ satisfaction and usability. UX design is completely based on users’ requirements. UX designing must include interfaces shaped according to the users’ demands and opinions, including the type of users visiting the website or apps. Overall, user experience (UX) design is a practice used by design teams for creating products holding a competence of providing significant and relevant user experiences.

The Difference between UI and UX Design

Practically, user experience and user interface do not and cannot exist distinctly from one another. UI is produced with UX in mind, and UX is built with sensibly elected UI elements. This is the reason why a UX design definition usually includes a UI design reference.

UI hugely hinges on individual criteria of style and beauty differing from one person to another. The style is often resolute by existing trends or the company’s brand book owning a software product.

In contrast, UX depends on numerous worldwide principles of instinctive accessibility applied to the huge majority of users. UX in Next-Gen Custom Software Development denotes methods, approaches, and techniques for creating a convenient application for use on different devices.

A UX design can be called good when the user’s experience satisfaction level is high as it makes clients choose their software among a variety of market-accessible comparable or similar apps.

An Overview of UX Design in Software Development

UX design in software development focuses on creating user-friendly, seamless, and appealing interfaces. It combines aesthetics with functionality while enhancing user engagement and satisfaction. UX designers and professionals optimize the ways users interact with digital products with careful research to promise a positive and competent user experience.

Source: baytechconsulting

Comprehending the role of the user experience during the software development process

The life and death of a good product or service hugely depend on the user experience and the interface the customer uses for the platform navigation. This guide further breaks down the UX/UI essential components along with software development involving the processes required in the development cycle, expected return on investment (ROI), and typical costs.

As with other software development aspects, there are several crucial steps developers have to take while designing a great user experience, including discovering, define, ideate, prototype, and, finally, test.

The following are the core stages of the design thinking process:

Discover

The first stage includes a great deal of research, both into launching what the product or service on offer implicates along with the desires and requirements of the potential end user. This stage involves extensive competitor research for the UX designer and software developer to take the best elements of the competition and distribute above and beyond expectations.

Data analysis, context mapping, focus groups, and other feedback devices help to add essence to the proverbial, providing developers with a detailed comprehension of the example of an optimal user experience.

Define

Next, the developer is required to create a concise and clear definition of the user, structuring up probable user profiles while considering their vital demographics and the anticipated user journey. This stage includes the UX designer brainstorming a variety of potential user identities and their speculative stories, which allows them to build their narrative maps and ultimately assess to regulate the key features out of which user experience is made up so that the application can be adapted towards offered solutions for the user’s prospective concerns.

Ideate

With the potential customers and their demands clearly defined, the developers can then brainstorm the range of solutions the application can provide. Some of the methods used during this process include:

• Drawing up mind maps
• Creating storyboards
• Drafting user flows
• Articulating design principles
• Creating blueprints of services
• Implementing affinity maps

This process allows the development to continue further to the practical stage of building a prototype with the purpose of reflecting the final user experience over a prototype.

Prototype

Building a prototype permits the developers to feign the user experience and resolve any missed concerns. It also involves another layer of brainstorming, as novel ideas related to usability and functionality come out over this development.

These prototypes can be assorted from workflows and paper-based outlines to mockups, wireframes, and extensive design documentation. The resolution of such prototypes includes the demonstration of the complete intended user experience, occasionally agreeing for real-time interaction but at the very least contributing comprehensive user flows.

Test

With the user experience planned and transient through the prototype phase, the UX design process’s final stage includes system testing, which ensures the performance intended and lacks any bugs.

Types of testing concentrated during this stage involve:

• A/B testing
• Analytics
• Quality assurance testing (manual or automated)
• Eye tracking testing
• Performance testing

The Importance of UX in Software Development

Even today, several companies do not fully comprehend and appreciate the importance of user experience importance as they merely want their apps to look cool and trendy to create a “wow effect,” which can be practical when it comes to promotional web applications created precisely for marketing dedications.

However, when you plan to create a paid app dedicated to specific functions required by users, you should focus on its usability. Usually, an unreasonably complex and ostentatious design comes at the cost of an app’s presentation and suitability in usual practice.

The UX specialist’s efforts are openly focused on providing the best possible user experience. A good UX design indicates more satisfied clients, higher app sales, better reviews and ratings, better user involvement, and other success factors.

Adversely, a clumpy user interface will impact an app’s performance by making it devour more resources. Likewise, users will combat the use of an application as projected because they are misplaced in the interface maze of prompts, menus, and windows. This way, bad UX design can have overwhelming effects, leading to a slothful application and unsatisfied customers.

Benefits of UX Design

The following are the several practical benefits proving UI/UX design importance for your software product’s future.

Source: intellectsoft

Attracting potential clients

It is human nature to judge the book by its cover. Therefore, several users start creating the first impression of your product even before using it. For instance, the screenshots on your app’s page in AppStore or Google Play are among the primary factors convincing users to try your application. If users see your software design as an elegant and efficient design permitting easy access to the mandatory features, they will surely give it a try.

Building long-term loyalty

UX designers ensure that users will keep using a particular software product because of its instinctive feeling and the convenience it provides in comparison to other apps. The preliminary convenience will transform into a habit and then will eventually progress into brand loyalty. This way, if your company launches a new software product, it will be given the favor of your prevailing audience.

Improving software performance

An ideal UX design is functional but also frivolous. There are design elements that directly affect the software’s overall swiftness and responsiveness, and for this reason, designers must ensure spontaneous access to all features while keeping the interface simple and clear.

Inclusively, a proper UI/UX design process saves money with assured user satisfaction and positive feedback. If your customers are unhappy with your software, it’s a product failure, and all the money consumed on the development will be wasted, which can lead to further difficulties, including a damaging brand reputation and so on.

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What are the best UX/UI practices?

Lastly, let’s explore some essential principles and best practices that require consideration during the user experience design and its related interface. Following are the rules of thumb for a completely optimized user experience, persuading customers to come back for more.

Keep things simple

We’ve covered this earlier, but it’s worth repeating: simplicity is the key to an effective user experience. The less unnecessary information the user has to wade through, the faster they’ll progress through your funnel and convert to a new sale.

Deliberating Search Engine Optimization

On the one hand, a good website developer will optimize a site’s textual content, ensuring it meets SEO requirements, and on the other hand, a good optimization goes further than meta-data and keywords, and its focus will be on other design elements and helping it with better Google ranking.

Devising responsive design elements

With mobile phone usage exceeding desktop and its share of online traffic rising every year, validating your service with a mobile-friendly interface is essential. The design optimization over all the potential platforms also allows it to rank better in terms of SEO.

Collecting and Analyzing Data

As the old expressiongoes, “data is king,” so collecting and investigating a wide variety of metrics permit developers to recurrently restate the system, allowing it to work best for the end user.

Eliminate all unnecessary elements.

Self-instructive instructions, links, and any other superfluous text for the inclusive needs of the user take up redundant space and can deliberately slow down the app’s performance, merely including the essentials to aid with a proficient creation of user experience.

Future-proof the application

During the UX/UI development for a website and application, authenticate that it’s built around a framework holding the ability to be easily extended as new and available services or tools, which further allows you to effortlessly adapt and alter as your business matures over time.

Why Choose Progatix for UX Design?

At Progatix, we are fanatical about the technology we utilize in building custom business applications, especially enterprise solutions that optimize business operations. We’ve been providing software solutions in several different technologies since 2003. Our success is based on the skill and proficiency of our dedicated software engineers, project managers, and DevOps experts, who focus on the quality, usability, and scalability of our software while believing in justified cost at the risk of quality. We accomplish project costs by executing an efficient development process with complete transparency and using the current standards and practices for building the software right the very first time.

Author: Amna Shahid

Amna Shahid, a technical content writer, is an expert in simplifying intricate notions and composing captivating narratives to participate and convey technical information efficiently. With a devotion to brilliance in this dynamic technical writing field, Amna is open to collaborating and new possibilities in this succeeding tech realm.

Reviewed By: Progatix

Progatix, a well-known software development company, has been delivering innovative digital consultancy services & custom software solutions encouraging business growth since 2003. Our remarkable solutions involve strategic digital consultancy, legacy system migration, DevOps, and stellar testing services.