Web Design and App Design Process
It’s our philosophy that human factors make or break the product. Despite the software industry’s continued technology-centered or CEO-centered bias we are the user’s biggest advocate. We do this in many ways, most are included in the table below. This isn’t lip service; These are real methods we use everyday. User testing doesn’t need to cost a fortune and you’ll see the RIO within weeks. Contact us and we’ll explain each method further.
| Order |
Cost |
UX Process |
Benefits |
Limitations |
| n/a |
2x cost$ $ |
Analytic Mining ?
|
- Low cost
- Advertising ROI
- Detailed and accurate
- Funnels expose week points
- Gold mines of user behavior and preferences
|
- Easily manipulated
- Data taken out of context can be dangerously misleading
|
| n/a |
2x cost$ $ |
SEO & WCAG ?
|
- Greater traffic
- Better accessibility
- Reduced lawsuit risks
- Good SEO = good accessibility & vis-a-vis
|
|
| n/a |
2x cost$ $ |
Multivariate Tests ?
|
- Detailed
- Real world results
- Long term cost savings
- Very large group feedback
- Faster & more meaningful release cycles
|
- N/A for some distributed apps
- Costly for small biz distributed apps
|
| 1 |
1x cost$ |
Competitor Analysis ?
|
- Quick
- Low cost
- Objective
- Learn from competitor’s wins or shortfalls
- Identify product differentiators and long term strategic success
|
- Need competitors
- More time consuming to user-test competitor programs that require personal / sensitive information
|
| 2 |
1x cost$ |
Remote User Testing ?
|
- Quick
- Low cost
- Broad participant pool
- More iterations = innovation & usability
- Can validate or debunk assumptions from devs, designers, client and CEO
|
- Hard to draw nuances
- Recorded screen captures do not allow for real-time questions and follow ups
|
| 3 |
1x cost$ |
Surveys ?
|
- Objective
- Measured overall satisfaction
- Can validate or debunk assumptions from devs, designers, client and CEO
|
- High level
- Little nuance
- Open answers hard to mine
|
| 4 |
1x cost$ |
Single wire frame ?
|
- Quick
- Low cost
- More iterations = innovation & usability
- Quickly creates conceptual common ground for various stakeholders
|
- No flow or UI states
- Misleading because static
- Doesn’t communicate UX
- Can leave large spec gaps
|
| 5 |
2x cost$ $ |
Wire frames ?
|
- Quick
- Low cost
- Shows flow of the product
- Can be tested as a paper prototype
- More iterations = innovation & usability
|
|
| 6 |
2x cost$ $ |
Paper Prototyping ?
|
- Quick
- Low cost
- Reduced dev time
- Deeper discussion with users
- More iterations = innovation & usability
- Rapidly iterate & resolve work flow bugs
- Can validate or debunk assumptions from devs, designers, client and CEO
|
- Participants must be local to not incur travel costs
|
| 7 |
4x cost$ $ $ $ |
Photoshop comps ?
|
- Looks like "progress"
- Get stakeholders excited
- Realistic aesthetic facsimiles
|
- Easy to “over design”
- Misleading because static
- Can leave large spec gaps
- Doesn’t communicate UX flow
- Expensive & time consuming
|
| 8 |
2x cost$$ |
Slicing ?
|
- Design team should slices their work
- Economies of scale during implementation as the design team is intimately familiar with the CSS, markup and jQuery
- We’ve tried slicing services and have learned they’re not plug-and-play, with no cost savings and no knowledge transfer critical to our clients
|
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