There is a limited window of opportunity to capture the attention of the audience, and research has shown that by designing applications and websites with an intelligent approach, using UI & UX core principles, you can help improve the time content is ultimately engaged and interacted with. Firstly, we should understand what UI & UX development actually is.
User Interface, or UI, concentrates on how your information is visually presented to the user. The focus is more on creating an aesthetically pleasing look and feel of web pages and the interactivity of the content which in turn encourages the user to spend longer on the application or website. This includes constructing web pages with interactive elements, impactful images, animated functionality, and enticing page layouts. In other words, you want to make sure the audience can achieve what they came to the platform for, in the best way possible.
“The internet opened the gateway to a global audience. Building a strong ‘digital shop window’ is paramount to the future success of your business and as the digital world evolves, your online transformation needs to evolve with it.”
— Mark Phillips | Lead UI & UX Developer
User Experience, or UX, is a way of improving the overall experience a user has when engaging with an application or website, with the overall aim of accomplishing visitor satisfaction and providing an excellent customer journey. It should place the user at the centre of its universe and create functionalities that deliver fluid content. Ultimately, you want the audience to enjoy the time they spend on your platform.
When we apply both the UI & UX principles to our application or website builds, we deliver an end product that can be used as an effective marketing tool. This approach can provide validation for the business, portray its professionalism, and build both credibility and confidence from the visitor’s perspective.
We believe that first impressions are vital in attracting new clients/customers, therefore, at ELLA, we follow our internally developed core principles of development to deliver first-class solutions. When we dig a little deeper into these core principles, we discover what the key elements of the process are and why we need them.
Firstly, we look at Usability. Is it easy to use, intuitive in its layout, is the functionality easy to interact with, is the content legible and easy to find, and how easy is it to navigate through the site?
Visual Design is extremely important for user interaction. The site needs to reflect your company, be brand consistent, on theme, and visually enticing. The use of images and content should reflect your brand’s tone of voice, and the background and foreground colour palettes should be designed with the user experience in mind. This can be portrayed psychologically through the use of dark colours which can represent a sleek and elegant feel, or the use of light colours which reflect a fresher and cleaner approach. This also pertains to the use of fonts, type colours, icons, images, motion, audio, and the use of white space.
The Architectural Layout is how information is displayed, it can affect how long a user might stay on a website, what information we deliver above the line (ATL – what you can initially see before you scroll down the page) and how information is presented below the line (BTL – content delivered on with the scrolling function). We engage our visitors with interactive, high-quality images and teaser information delivered as snippets of content to entice the user to delve deeper if they choose to. This approach aligns with the sensitive time constraints of the user as we initially laid out.
Functionality & Interaction are important elements of the process and link well with both the Visual Design and the Architectural Layout principles. As applications or websites are built on columns and rows, each should deliver an element of animation as well as interaction. This can include how the content appears in the frame; showcasing revolution sliders to maximise content delivery; providing ‘Call to Actions’ (or buttons) for engagement, and adding videos to watch and share to help promote services and boost product awareness. The functionality should offer the user a way for them to connect and a way for us to capture data; a quick and simple pathway for customers to buy or view products, and a framework that allows us to provide them with these options.
So what can we do to enhance the customer journey?
To maximise the enjoyment of the customer journey we include a wide range of elements in our build. We need to:
- Provide high-quality and relevant content
- Support content with highly engaging visuals
- Add button links for increased opportunities to engage further and share across social platforms
- Improve the delivery of the information by optimising content to improve page load speeds
- Use ATL & BTL structures effectively
- Provide top-level navigation
- Make content interactive
- Ensure we comply with our legal responsibilities to protect their use and privacy
- Provide multiple ways for users to contact or share data
What can we do to make your website an effective marketing tool?
Your website is the gateway to your business, so it is important to ensure we use it to its full potential. We need to:
- Embed ways to capture customer data to help build your marketing database
- Expand the content and keep it fresh and up-to-date
- Create a CMS (content management system) for you to self-manage
- Comply with online regulations to protect your online delivery
- Implement updates to the framework
- Share links on social media channels and associated partners
- Improve page load speed by optimising content and images while retaining the highest quality possible
- Provide multiple contact details (phone, email, address)
- Evolve with technology advancements
- Apply organic SEO and implement an effective SEO strategy
- Create metrics and benchmark analytics to increase performance
At ELLA, we are professional in our approach to building applications and websites. We believe in creating intelligent design through the use of UI & UX design principles that create both great customer journeys and effective marketing tools for our clients. With your platform reflecting your business to your target market, it is important to apply strategy to your next digital build. Let ELLA strategise your next project build to help maximise the effectiveness of what possibly is your greatest marketing asset.
Find out more about our solutions or contact ELLA Digital
