Evolving user experience and user interface models.

December 1st, 2020 in  Blog, UX

What comes first when developing a digital product, user experience (UX) or user interface (UI)? This post provides you with an answer and outlines Intelliware’s unique approach to delivering optimized user experiences for their clients. As more digital products are launched in the market than ever before, having a firm grasp on UX and UI methodologies can mean the difference between success and failure.

A UI without UX is like a painter slapping paint onto canvas without thought, while UX without UI is like the frame of a sculpture with no paper mache on it. A great product experience starts with UX followed by UI. Both are essential for the product’s success. – Rahul Varshney, Co-creator of Foster.fm

Putting the users at the center

The Venn diagram illustrates how an optimal user experience is achieved with a balanced understanding of the User Needs, Technical Constraints, and Business Vision.

An optimal user experience emerges from prioritizing the user.

Understanding your user’s needs and goals drives product usability and, ultimately, ensures the product brings a user joy.

The ideal user experience also incorporates an understanding of the business vision and technical constraints.

Through cross-functional collaboration with stakeholders and the delivery team, business requirements are identified and end users’ needs are prioritized, without compromising the technical direction.

Three key phases of UX design

 

The graphic depicts the iterative UX process that includes three key phases: strategy, design, and UX validation.

User experience design at Intelliware is efficiently integrated into The Intelliware Approach. From Discovery to Delivery, strategy drives everything while the UX validation phase assures clients achieve their desired outcomes.

Intelliware’s user experience design distills the process down to three key phases:

1. Strategy: to understand the current state, and guide the future state.

2. Design: to further guide the future state, generate ideas, and visualize the future state.

3. UX Validation: to validate the current and/or future state usability of the user experience.

During each phase, designers collaborate with the stakeholders and the delivery team to determine a viable design direction and guide the product’s development. This Agile approach saves time, enables us to pivot, and leaves dollars in the budget. Moreover, it allows us to customize the UX process to fit our clients’ needs and budgets. That built-in flexibility gets clients to the finish line sooner.

The magic’s in the Discovery

An actionable plan for an improved user experience is a key deliverable from our Discovery process. Identifying this plan requires a clear understanding of the user. We start with stakeholder interviews, user interviews, competitive analysis, and a review of metrics and analytics. These steps shape the design strategy, which gets carried forward to the design phase.

UX within Intelliware Delivery     

Our UX approach is Agile. After establishing the design strategy, we create foundational assets such as user flow diagrams and initial mock-ups, which prioritize elements of the user experience. Throughout Delivery, the user experience team continues to work closely with our technical team in an Agile manner. This iterative and incremental approach guides the user experience and allows our team to pivot efficiently when required, contributing to an efficient and cost-effective project.

What do you think? Does a great product experience start with UX, followed by UI?


Ready to see some examples of what a robust UX process can deliver?

ClearView, a Canadian company specializing in ethics reporting/whistleblowing solutions, has first-hand knowledge of working through Intelliware’s Agile UX process and achieving tremendous gains.