The designer’s guide to AI-driven UX

This article was originally shared on - https://www.yujdesigns.com/the-designers-guide-to-ai-driven-ux/

Artificial Intelligence (AI) In brief, AI is the development of computers capable of tasks that typically require human intelligence. For example, speech recognition, problem-solving, learning and planning. There is a noticeable mind-shift. These days, laundry and grocery lists are being ordered by talking to a speaker from home. AI is moving fast. Although this experience doesn’t need to be fearsome.

Let’s understand few of the original goals of AI –

• Simulating higher function of the brain
• Programming a computer to use general language
• A way to determine and measure complexity of a problem
• Self-improvement

Emerging dominant functions
Applications of AI

Design moves around people and is here to make our lives easier. AI has a similar function at the core of creating better experiences for users, with the help of better technology.

• Machine learning: Using example data or experience to refine how computers make predictions or perform a task.
• Deep learning: A machine learning technique in which data is filtered through self-adjusting networks of math loosely inspired by neurons in the brain.
• Supervised learning: Showing software labeled example data, such as photographs, to teach a computer what to do.
• Unsupervised learning: Learning without annotated examples, just from experience of data or the world-trivial for humans but not generally practical for machines. Yet.
• Reinforcement learning: Software that experiments with different actions to figure out how to maximize a virtual reward, such as scoring points in a game.
• Artificial general intelligence: As yet nonexistent software that displays a humanlike ability to adapt to different environments and tasks, and transfer knowledge between them.

Evolution of UX/ customer experience
Contribution to the human experience in future

Customer experience has evolved through the years, it has gone beyond the digital screens. However, by using the right AI tools, one can gain more control over every aspect of the experience. A connected digital and physical experience. Implementing the right AI solution provides the means of driving visitors to make decisions and take actions faster, better, eliminating your most time-consuming tasks. And this, of course, enhances the all-important factor in customer experience: the human touch.

The process of designing meaningful AI-driven products or services comes with many challenges. As AI and tech continue to disrupt our lives in many ways, insights in how we might humanize certain experiences become increasingly important.

Future of Design = AI + UX
Better technology can provide, better customer experience.
In the coming future, UX design studios should consider shifting their outlook towards the technology as a partner rather than a revolution and being swayed by it. Develop a harmonious approach towards designing a harmonious human–machine interaction.

What do designers want?

The community of designers around the world have a dream. A shared dream. One where everyone has irrefutable respect for them. A place where they get ample creative freedom. A place where they get paid worthy of their services! The dream isn’t very far though.

Design is fast becoming the force to reckon with. And is finally getting the appreciation and attention it deserves. Getting aligned to the roles and responsibilities of a designer as seen from an overview, from a business (UX Design Studio) perspective and as a crucial part in the bigger scheme of things is important.

Just like how each player on a football team plays an equally important role.

See it, to Believe it.

To keep this state of euphoria alive, designers need to pass on these pearls of wisdom to their colleagues and counterparts as well. Any two departments can work best, once they understand how each team works. We believe mutual respect and liberty in problem solving are the starting points of a great co-working relationship.

Listen to your teams. Understand their work styles. And work out the best winning strategy.

Listen. Empathize. Respond.

This is the only mantra, we believe designers would expect their colleagues to master when it comes to working together. A wise man once said if you want to see a change in the world, change yourself. If you want a global change, start local. Start with yourself.

Goal-oriented, focused efforts with the power of collaboration are a definite success formula.

Good design is all about a set purpose. Intended for an audience who are going to benefit from the solutions. On a larger level, designers focus on well-informed designs that are the best possible solutions addressing business and user goals. Adding value to the overall service the design team provides in collaboration with other departments. On an individual level, what designers want is quite simple.

1.  In order to create truly great experiences, and become a good designer, one has to let go of the constraints. A variety in the projects, helps sharpen their skills. Broaden their understanding of various domains.

2.  Designers flourish in environments that provide freedom and autonomy to take design decisions. Systems where they can expand their skillsets and be better at their core skills.

3.  Designers want to be challenged at work. They aspire to work on projects that will test their capabilities and help them push their boundaries. They seek constant possibilities to gain more knowledge.

4.  Any ambitious designer prefers to work in an environment where there is scope for growth. A place where she/ he can explore and widen the skills in order to transform into a future ready designer. An eco-system where designers can develop their business acumen, strategic mindset, project management knowledge etc. to help them advance in their careers.

5.  In a top UX design studio, creativity and productivity are the key factors for an environment fit for the design team. In order to inspire the teams and drive growth, happiness of the employees at workplace becomes an imperative in business. The designers should feel they are adding value to the workplace, making an impact and leading the organization ahead.

The day a designer lands job at a UX design company that fulfils all these criteria, she/ he will become the best recruit, a happy employee delivering high results.

According to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends,

A productive, positive employee experience has emerged as the new contract between employer and employee.

Happiness levels of employees increase the overall productivity, solidifying the belief that happy designers should be at the top of every design studio’s agenda. With the backdrop of today’s work stress, more and more designers have become picky and are turning down job offers trading it for the places where they are more likely to feel happy, challenged and get inspired. UX design studios should take a note, and make their workplaces future ready for the employees by understanding exactly what is it that they want.

What Is Bad UX & How To Fix It On Websites?

This article was originally shared on - https://www.yujdesigns.com/what-is-bad-ux-how-to-fix-it-on-websites/

What is User Experience?

The User Experience term has gained enough traction in the business world. This is a good time to clear any misconceptions about User Experience of a website and its effects on the business returns. Before we dive into the good and the bad side of the website experience, let us revisit what is user experience. Experiences are those that usually revolve around what we expect from the environment that we’re in. If you are looking at a website, you will have certain needs and expectations from the website. You will want the website to answer some of the questions you have, gain information about the company, their work, or take a look at the available options to buy from etc.

Websites can be of different natures. E-commerce, corporate websites, websites for services and for a series of products, personal branding etc. Each website offers you a different ecosystem. Designing User Experience for these websites means designing UX for these respective ecosystems. Starting with understanding the users’ expectations and needs in that environment are important. If the businesses communicate and promote their offerings to the end users in the language they understand and can thrive on it, it is called good UX design. If and when there’s a gap in alignment of the design decisions to the business goals, that leads to bad UX.

How to identify or measure if your website has bad UX

There are mixed approaches that one can opt for. To name a few - quantitative approach, qualitative approach and data analytics.

The Quantitative Approach + Data Analytics:

Data analytics, which can answer questions like which are the pages that people visit often? And spend more time on? Which functions are being used more? What is the bounce rate? And quantitative research that provides information about traffic sources, website visitors’ demographics etc.

The Qualitative Research:

Through this approach it becomes easier to understand the mental model of the user. This method helps us understand the psychodynamics of the end users. Their expectations, needs, their preferences, likes, dislikes and their frustration points. This data helps us pre-empt the behaviour of the user and design an experience in a more efficient way.

These research methodologies together, can help you in determining whether the UX of your website is Good or Bad. An amalgamation of both research styles is important to build a strong design strategy to bring good UX to the end users. Good UX in turn, means good ROI for the business. Needless to say, Bad UX has its negative effect on the business growth. This research should be done periodically, at least quarterly, to stay relevant with the changing markets.

How to fix bad UX

1. Understand the reasons behind bad UX
2. Employ user centric design methodology to understand the stakeholders’ vision. Derive design goals from the above data.
3. Help the customers understand the concept of users possessing a specific mental model. e.g.- A hospital as per their goals and ambitions will have a different set of users on their website.
4. Understand user goals. Their expectations from a website like this. Become mediators between the business needs and the user needs.
5. Test the designs. Make formative corrections.

Make the most of this process, periodically. As it happens, many times the vision of the business stays the same but the market conditions change. This approach is important in keeping up with the changing factors and still deliver a good user experience.

Common UX mistakes a company makes while developing their website

1. Designs that do not reflect the business vision
2. Not establishing a process and science behind the design efforts
3. To fail to provide the information users are looking for
4. User-hostile messages that take over users’ screens
5. Lack of consistency in terms of design language
6. Lack of ease of use

These are some of the most common mistakes. It is highly important to understand that the fundamental goal of UX design is to help manifest the business goals.

About:
YUJ Designs is one of the best UX Design company in India providing consultancy as well as end-to-end solutions to B2B & B2C Fortune 500 enterprises

8 UX Design Principles That Ensure Seamless User Experience Of Your Product

This article was originally shared on - https://www.yujdesigns.com/8-ux-design-principles-that-ensure-seamless-user-experience-of-your-product/

User experience increases chances of customers recommending your product by 16.6%. UX is an art within the boundaries of science that makes business sense and drives ROI for organizations. A seamless UX is about providing meaningful and relevant experiences to users in order to increase interactions and retention. It can be created with continuous improvement in designs with regards to usability and customer’s perceived quality. There are several recipes one can use to make UX Design a success. These are our top 8 recommendations of UX Design principles to create successful experiences.

1. Focus on real users:

The main goal of any business is to make the end customers happy. The first and very essential principle of UX design is to focus on real users- their needs, expectations, motivations and frustrations. A clear understanding of these important user aspects helps designers to build personas, and focus on these personas throughout the design cycle. One can elicit real users’ needs using common user research methods such as interviews, focus groups, contextual inquiry and shadowing.

2. Focus on business:

For any product to be successful in the industry, UX design of that product MUST make business sense. Defining your business goals upfront is extremely important. A good UX design creates a great balance between business and user goals. Making the end customers happy while meeting the business goals will eventually result in ROI for your business.

3. Data informed design:

A design is great not because it is created by a designer, but when it is informed through multiple data sources. Designers use data as a source to make effective design decisions. Data can be qualitative or quantitative in nature. Examples of data sources are users, business and marketing stakeholders, competition, market buzz, and site analytics. Data informed design will help achieve long-term business as well as user goals and also give users a great experience which will eventually help in user engagement and retention.

4. Design for user’s mental model:

User’s mental model means the perception that a user has in his mind about a particular product or service. Once you understand users’ mental models, you can replicate that in your design to give desired experience, thus making it easy for users to complete their tasks and achieve their goals. Research techniques are used to capture user’s mental model.

5. Design for Learnability, Memorability, Task Efficiency and Human Memory:

One of the important UX design principles includes creating designs that are easy to learn, create memorable experiences and make users do their tasks efficiently and effectively. Learnability of the design is based on the user’s understanding of the design. Memorability means, when the user returns to it, he or she should be able to remember how to do things, as users are not using the application all the time. Here, user experience plays a crucial role as a differentiator. When the user has decided to do a task on a website or in an app, then he/she should be able to complete it efficiently which is also achieved with the help of great user experience.

6. Validate Designs:

Design validation means a detailed evaluation and analysis during or at the end of design and development. The goal of validating designs is to ensure that the design is able to achieve the set goals. Validation of design helps to improve design decisions and maintain consistency. Typical techniques used for design validation are expert review, cognitive walkthrough, formative and summative usability testing, and A/B testing.

If you want to create memorable product experience for your users, we can come up with design strategies that create a staged experience for your users. We will deliver you the value that you truly deserve. Visit https://www.yujdesigns.com/ux-design-development/ to see our offerings.

Indian users ‘ke liye chalta hain’

This article was originally shared on — https://www.yujdesigns.com/designing-for-indian-users/

Since the economic liberalization in the early 1990s, the Indian market has slowly opened itself to foreign investments across sectors. More so in the past 10-15 years. Several multinational companies who entered deep into Indian markets with the confidence of global success behind them were in for a shock. Nobody thought that the country of origin, while eliciting respect from buyers, would not necessarily translate into buying. The reason – the offerings were not ‘Made for India’. From consumer electronics to automobile to retail – the experiences are telling. It’s a kind of image and profitability trap that businesses are likely to fall into. Looking at the huge potential of an emerging market and disregarding the fact that a certain amount of reinvention is required to capture it.

A global-leading beverage company entered India and bought out India’s most popular home-grown cola and almost killed it as a part of its strategy. The assumption was that their own brand was good enough to take on its other global competitor. After taking a bad hit on the retail shop floors, the MNC realized the potential of the local brand and revived it again. More than 20 years since the local brand is still the market leader in India. A global leading automobile company has grown to become one of India’s largest manufacturers, growing at a rate of more than 40 percent a year over the last decade. They did two things right – they built a local plant, setting up an R&D facility to understand what really matters to the Indian market, and they appointed a popular Indian figure as their brand ambassador.

When it comes to User Experience Design, the case of ‘Making for India’ and ‘Designing for India’ becomes far stronger. Primarily because in the digital environments, everything is crunched – building cycles, buying decisions, reaction times. Businesses have to get it right the first time. Even if they take longer to get to the first time. A world-leading ecommerce company spent a significant amount of time localizing their content before they launched services in India. All the while aware that other, newer players are already nibbling into the huge market for ecommerce. But it not just about localizing content or offering language options, it is really about empathizing with the Indian ethos and how it impacts business strategy. It is about understanding what makes the Indian user different. Years back, a global mobile phone maker appointed a team of researchers to find out what kind of features an entry-level mobile phone should have in India. While the strategy to do so itself is visionary, the outcome was one of the most iconic mobile phones this country has ever seen.

There are exceptions to this kind of an approach. Or at least one exception. But that is an example that has defied all market laws across the world. This is, of course, the phone that seduced everyone just by what it was and what it did. No customization. One standard that changed the world. Businesses that are introducing new products or services in India or are expanding their market to India need to be cognizant that they are not necessarily the ‘dent in the universe’. And that their India strategy, both business and UX, needs to start from scratch. The stories of failure are numerable. And in each case, whether or not other factors are involved, there is bound to be a strategy that is devoid of ‘Making for India’ or ‘Designing for India’. The costs of ignoring this now proven reality can be very hard to recover.

About Us:
YUJ Designs is one of the top UX Design studio in India providing consultancy as well as end-to-end solutions to B2B & B2C Fortune 500 enterprises

Think You've found Out the best UX Design Studio? Take This Quiz

A lot of industries are seeking services from UX design studios, accepting the change that UX adds on as a business success metric. Although almost everyone knows a great UX when they see one, not everyone can create those experiences suitable to your requirements, helping you deliver delight to the customers.

In order to ascertain, if you have really found out the best UX design studio to work with, you need to ask the right questions, like the ones mentioned below. If your answer to all these questions is positive, bravo! You need not speculate anymore. Trust their talent. If not, well, you can now consider these questions as a framework to confirm if the next UX design studio is the right fit for you or not.

Take the quiz:

1. Define the Purpose:

Are you aware of what UX is?

…

Multiple studies have shown that the best ideas can emerge from merging insights from varied fields. Similarly, in order to extract the most from a UX designer’s expertise, being UX mature is very important.

What are your requirements?

…

You need to first understand the WHY do I need help and then only proceed to WHO can help me.

2. Lean into Curiosity:

Does the UX design studio understand your industry and your requirements?

…

It is a prerogative, that a UX designer understands the industry, the norms, requirements and the demands on the part of design. Also, a company that stays curious and open to gaining more knowledge.

3. Knowledge and Expertise:

Have you seen their portfolio?

…

The approach, process and the results they deliver should be coherent with your expectations and needs. The company should be good at -
Creative Visions + Critical & Accurate Thinking.

4. A Good Alliance:

Do they have a collaborative attitude?

…

Companies that work in collaboration with their customers, on an average succeed more. These studios partner with their clients and work towards the growth of their client’s company together.

5. Style of working:

Do you know and agree with their working style, process?

…

When you hire a UX design studio, it is important that you understand how do they function. For a successful alliance, getting to know each other’s working styles is essential.

6. Communication Skills:

How well can they communicate?

…

Communication is a natural extension of a designer’s craft. Communication is how a design studio performs a job.

7. Strategic Skills:

Can they develop and deploy effective strategies?

…

Determine how well the studio can identify patterns and work on a strategy to meet business demands and address user needs.

8. Problem Solving:

Can they solve a problem?

…

You need a design partner who can solve business and customer problems with design; not just move pixels around. Best UX design studio would provide -

Assessment + Challenge + Support = Great Results

9. Time Management:

Are they productive?

…

The key to manage time and deadlines while delivering 10x impact is to prioritize. In order to be more productive, time management done well on the designer’s part, is of the essence.

10. Reviews & Testimonials:

What do they have to say?

…

Success of companies benefited by the contribution of the UX design studio would be the best reflection of their quality of work.

Bottomline learning: Focus on your priorities. See the big picture. And ask the right questions. These will lead you to your ideal UX design partner.