Why is UI/UX Important for Startup Businesses
The era of startups popping up around every corner of the business world is still ongoing, and the emergence of social media has made spreading brand awareness even easier. Many companies have been fighting for the spotlight to become the next trending brand, but this is challenging when consumer attention is unpredictable.
You may have an excellent idea and service, but if that brilliance cannot be translated through an app or website, you will be kept in the dark. Many startups and emerging brands have turned social media into the primary channel where they market themselves. One essential part of reaching out to customers is having an impressive UI/UX design for the apps and websites you launch. Every brand wants to direct traffic to its website and product pages. That is a sure way to accomplish conversions.
If consumers manage to get on your website or app and find it to be not user-friendly or challenging to navigate, you may lose that potential customer for good. This is no surprise since an effective UI can increase conversion rates at the jaw-dropping rate of 200%. For some marketers, developing a site and improving its UI/UX capabilities might be at the bottom of the list of priorities, but that would be a mistake.
To understand the promising potential of UI/UX, it is vital to break down what they both mean. UI or user interface design is the development of visuals of the app or website. The colors, vectors and functionality of the portal can be considered UI. If you visit your favorite app, everything that attracts you to clicking on buttons and interacting with website features is what UI design is about.
Similarly, UX stands for user experience design, which concerns the customer’s journey of a brand app or website. These designers analyze data about how long consumers are on a specific page or feature and figure out ways to improve the duration of time spent. Every business would love it if consumers spent hours on their portals. This would mean you have a higher chance of a conversion, and customers have a positive impression of the brand.
Considering how vital these two fields are, startups should consider how much a well-designed UI/UX can benefit their business. Now that you know what is UI design and how it is different from UX design, the next section will explain the different reasons UI/UX is necessary for the business.
The reasons are:
1. Brand Awareness
Consumers come across numerous brands and websites when they search the internet for a solution to their problem. One step that brands can take to ease that search is to help consumers navigate a website and find what they are looking for. A consumer’s first impression of a brand can be lasting, so it is essential to ensure that your portal runs smoothly.
It is known that websites that run efficiently and are engaging will attract more consumers. While being new and innovative is always a theme for website features, a sense of familiarity can effectively entertain customers.
If your UI/UX is designed effectively, consumers won’t need a road map to navigate your website. They also are more likely to recommend your brand’s web pages to friends and family. By enabling the use of UI/UX designs, you can create a space where consumers would feel like your brand has a familiar feel, and so does the website.
Being able to guide consumers on a quick but informative journey through the brand portal to a product or service will be a deciding factor in a sale when a consumer has had a memorable experience on your web pages and has found a solution to their problem.
You can bet that more people will hear about your brand. Compelling and insightful UI/UX design will also help you be ranked higher on SERP (search engine result page), which would lead you to be discovered more organically by consumers.
UI/UX design is not only limited to apps or websites but also involves branding and logos. This is one of the first elements of a startup brand. With the help of UI/UX technology, you can develop a memorable logo and brand elements that stand out on a page, which is always essential when you want to be recognized by consumers online.
The more time you put into your design, the quicker your brand will be noticed by consumers among the sea of competing brands in the digital market.
2. Brand Value
If you are setting up a startup, there will be numerous risks and costs involved. If you are a business operating in the digital space, you may need to develop a website or app for your brand. This could involve a substantial financial risk—unless you hire UI/UX designers to look at your website or app and give necessary inputs about the design and functionality.
You should hire UI/UX designers to design your website or app. Not only will they ensure that the site is user-friendly, but they won’t let it go live until it’s perfect. If you don’t engage the services of a UI/UX designer, there is a possibility that you will encounter problems with your website once it has gone live. And if that happens, you may have to spend a lot of money rectifying those issues within a short space of time.
If those errors are left on the brand’s web pages, consumers will become increasingly uncomfortable with the brand. This can cost startup money, as redesigning a website or app often comes at a cost. The initial funds you put into UI/UX design might be expensive, but it will benefit your brand in the long run by giving a professional look and feel to your website and app.
3. Customer Loyalty
Customer satisfaction is one of the most important factors for brands to ensure success. While attracting new customers is essential, you must also ensure that your loyal customers keep coming back. The main reason a customer would keep coming back to your brand is that they feel that what you offer is better than your competitors. In the digital space, that would translate to how well your website functions and how engaging it is.
With UX design, you can uncover data about how consumers interact with your portals online. This would mean how long they spent on a particular section of your webpage or what feature they clicked. No one’s website is perfect, but consumers can’t turn a blind eye to lousy website functionality. For example, if a specific button on the product purchase page is not readable and customers find it challenging to perform a conversion, it poses a problem. If the issue is overlooked, you might lose loyal customers to your rivals.
Consumers still need a solution and will find it elsewhere if their loyal brand isn’t attuned to the issues they face while on a brand website. Using UX capabilities, you can pinpoint where consumers suddenly leave your website and make changes to ensure their screen time is extended on your pages.
By observing and acting on problems on your website, UX design ensures your consumers are being heard and taken care of by the brand and not made to struggle to perform a purchase. Even visuals or features that are not welcomed or appreciated by consumers can be changed with the assistance of UI/UX. Again, this would prove to your customers that you care about their perspectives and feelings. As a startup, retaining your customers is vital to keeping the brand afloat and financing operations.
4. Engaging New Customer
The modern-day online consumer differs from the traditional consumer from years ago. The need to be engaged and entertained is higher than ever. The first three seconds of website interactions are crucial when a consumer ventures onto your website.
Within seconds, a consumer can tell whether they like your website. This means unattractive site designs and mediocre features will make a dent in the consumer’s mind and will likely move on to the following result on the Google search page. So to ensure that you are not only grasping the attention of new customers but only guiding it, you must implement UI/UX design into your strategy. You can also implement UX/UI design trends to attract customers to your website.
As a startup, you are searching for new customers constantly, and they are searching for you. Being found is challenging but not impossible with the help of the right marketing channels and search engines. If consumers interact with your site and find the font unreadable or malfunctioning buttons, it will hinder the user experience and leave a wrong impression.
Ensuring your website or app is user-friendly and functional is easy when you leverage UI/UX capabilities. These designers streamline the customer journey and funnel users toward the product, information and purchase pages to ease the consumer’s navigation.
No new customer wants to be redirected to a webpage they did not want or have to click through several pages before they can make a conversion. To survive, startups need to acquire new customers, and UI/UX will help them do that.
5. Creating A Better Product
As a startup, you want your product to be better than your competitors. That is the only way you set yourself apart for consumers to recognize your brand. One of the ways you can ensure you have a competitive product is through the power of UI/UX.
UX research helps to discover a product’s users and their needs, behavior, and expectations. It also helps to understand how well the product is meeting those needs. This understanding can help to make your product more successful.
These are the reasons why you should consider UI/UX if you are a startup. Since every industry is different, experimenting with different web design trends is the only way to ensure that your business will benefit.
It takes time to learn how the UI/UX works, and it can take even longer to understand the inner mechanics. That’s why there are professionals dedicated to making sure your website or app is running at optimal levels and that your customers are happy. Agencies like SV Digital can provide these UI/UX design services for you so that you can conquer the digital arena.
