I always say that UX inspiration comes from the world around us, and we can learn a lot from websites we’re constantly browsing. When planning for my summer vacation brought run-ins with countless hotel timetables and booking forms on travel websites, I paid attention to what worked and what didn’t. What was easy to use and what was simply annoying? I took notes on what made me exit the browser and what made me stay booking with certain companies.

Here’s what I learned.

A Quick lesson on UX/UI Usability

The travel websites I used the most had nailed the value of usability in User Experience. Although usability is a quality of User Interface (how easy something is to use), it’s also one of the many aspects of User Experience that involves “everything that affects the experience of the user.” According to the UX research firm Nielsen-Norman Group usability consists of five main goals: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and user satisfaction.

Learnability:

How easy is it for users to follow a desired action? Can they accomplish basic tasks the first time they see the design?

Efficiency:

How quickly can tasks be performed?

Memorability:

If leaving and returning later, how quickly can they remember how the site works?

Errors:

If the user makes a mistake in the desired user flow, how quickly can they recover?

Satisfaction:

How pleasant is it to use?

These factors were what I used to determine whether a site was ultimately, easy and pleasant to use or just didn’t make the cut. As I browsed the void of travel websites (trust me there’s a lot out there) the best had the following features:

Where to Start

Planning vacations can be overwhelming, that’s why websites that gave me a place to start were automatically winning in the UX department. If a website is easy to use, it should be easy to navigate. Websites with a clear indication of where to start on the homepage took the stress out of planning a vacation. Since the homepage is usually the place with the most interaction, placing engaging and foolproof content will keep visitors intrigued and wanting to use your site.

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Airbnb knows that its users are going to their website to find a place to stay in any desired location. In response, they placed a straightforward search engine on the top of their homepage, effectively keeping their site simple and easy to use. If you know where you want to go, it’s easy to search for places to stay, and if you’re a spur of the moment person, suggestions are right below the navigation. If you haven’t picked a destination yet, Airbnb prompts suggestions of homes you might like.

High Impact Imagery

You’re lying to yourself if baby blue water and resort photos don’t draw you in. Especially on travel websites, high impact imagery sells the experience. Instead of stock photos, select imagery that is reflective of the brand and services that motivate users rather than bores them. If the call to action isn’t strengthened by an image, it’s not the right photo. Imagery is supposed to evoke emotion from the users, and websites that showcased beautiful scenery made me want to book with those companies.

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Lonely Planet utilizes high impact imagery throughout their entire homepage which inspires users to choose a destination. It also offers suggestions on what to do in those locations.

Simplicity

Travel websites often evoke an overwhelming feeling. So many options, so many deals, right? I immediately clicked out of any browser that was crowded and confusing, or cluttered with a thousand images and CTA’s. For user experience, “less is more” is a phrase to live by. Focusing on relevant information and keeping things simple is easier for viewers to follow a desired user path.

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HomeAway doesn’t overwhelm the user with a thousand different pictures and navigation options. Their CTA is made more impactful with it’s simplicity.

Clear Navigation

With so many travel websites out there, it’s hard to differentiate and understand all the services one company offers just by looking at the homepage. That’s why having a clear navigation is essential. Navigations aren’t always self explanatory. Having clear categories that are recognizable can increase function on your site.

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At first glance, TripAdvisors homepage looks like its only service is to help users find hotels, but it’s navigation clearly indicates where users can click to find out about other services. We naturally want to categorize and having sections to easily search on a navigation makes using travel websites all the more pleasant.

Easy to Use on Desktop & Mobile

If a travel website didn’t have an as equally easy to use mobile pairing, I didn’t use it as much. Given the nature of the demographics who use travel sites, often times it will be used in a mobile setting It’s important when visiting a site that they tackled their standing on both mobile and desktop. It’s even more important now than ever with Google changing its indexing and ranking to have prioritizes those sites with an exhaustive mobile platform. Since travel prices fluctuate so frequently it was nice to be able to open my phone and check what was available for what price while I was on the go.

Overall, the easiest sites for me to use were simple, innovative and clear. Although I was merely booking vacations, jumping from website to website revealed the necessity for UX. Instead of being frustrated browsing through a site that’s overwhelming, the travel industry is learning what increases conversions and customer experience overtime.

It’s a jungle out there, and while most of the jungle is wild and filled with some rather vicious monsters, we’d like to consider ourselves the jungle guides. Nothing scares us and no beast is too large to manage or tame (*cough* 10 cooks in a kitchen *cough*). Many of our previous clients return because they value the CreateApe difference and know that we are experts in our field when compared to what’s out there. The pickings are slim people!!

We attribute our success to a successful kick-off with our clients. The first meeting always dictates the tone, direction, and collaboration amongst our clients and our team. Our founder and CEO, Alessandro Fard, has broken it down to some key questions to kick off the meeting, and we’re proud to say it works! 

Aside from narrowing down a meeting date, time, and location that works for everyone, we also have a general pattern of the questions we like to ask for the first meeting. We make it a point to hear out the client’s vision and expectations for their new product/service launch. Leadership is not just about directing the path and giving orders, leadership takes an open mindset and ability to adapt skill sets into the path we map out collaboratively speaking. 

So what are these general key questions?

• What do they do?
• Why do they do what they do?
• What have they done or tried in the past?
• Why did they do it?
• What happened or what was the result?
• What do you think went wrong? Or right?
• What they hope to achieve next?
• Who’s going to be around to do it?
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What’s your company about?

This question is a given. This is their opportunity to shine and dazzle you with a history of how they got started and where they see the company or product heading. The important part to address here as UX designers (which usually doesn’t come up) is how the company makes its revenue. Did you get that? HOW DO THEY MAKE MONEY?!? No money, no business. No business, NO client. NO CLIENT!!! WHAT?! 

Create Ape knows successful UX ninjas prioritize not only the user, but the business as well. While learning the history and vision of the client, it is important to know the profit and benefit for both the user and the client from a business perspective. And guess what else? Some of the best challenges are when the users goals and the business goals are completely different. How do you marry the two? Great UX gurus live for that!

You also have a chance to address the essential reason of why they called you in the first place: how they can make it better and how they can MAKE MORE MONEY. What else draws businesses to launch new services and products? 

With years of experience, it’s safe to say that most companies come with limitations, and it’s a ninja’s job to exploit those limitations and convert them into possibilities. Mind blown, yet?

What has been done thus far?

This question opens the discussion about time and money. Another favorite thing to talk about! Many times than not, a client comes to us when “sh*t hits the fan” and they are down to a final deadline, the last inning of the game with little to no resources left to spend. Then you’re left to clean up the mess, and possibly start from scratch…depending on the beastly damage. Yup, damage control. We said it!

Remember to keep realistic expenditures and time frames for clients, especially if they’ve already been burned. It is better to be real than to try to meet their demands in order to land the job. It all takes time and money, don’t beat around the bush! Transparency is what wins the client and keeps them coming back. 

What should we review to be caught up to speed?

Give the client an opportunity to expound on what has worked and what has not. AND MEMORIZE IT!! Ok…maybe not memorize it, but definitely pay attention. This is different from the company history in that it relates specifically to the project at hand. This is important information to make sure that you’re not busting out the same ideas as the last team. 

It also gives you feedback on direction and concept with what has worked in the past, and allows you to expand that concept to further limits. We love pushing limits, not buttons.. Dive deep into the core brand/product and don’t be lazy in your review. 

SO don’t just flip specifically to what has worked and ignore what hasn’t. The stuff that didn’t work is equally as important. Knowing what exes to avoid from the past saves you time and money. 

What would you like to achieve next?

While the client has already given you an overall goal of where they want to go. This question is meant to deepen the goal and methods or conversion rates they wish to apply. 

Driving traffic is easy, but what you want the traffic to do is where the nitty gritty stuff comes in. Questions like: Do you want to increase sharing? Increase page views? Increase sign ups? Increase retention rates? 

As the client answers these questions, explain to them that for every action there is a reaction. We can’t escape Newton people!! This will help you remain transparent (and apply some physics to your accolades) so that the client can decide what the priority is and how it will affect their results. You can’t have your cake and eat it too…..or can you? 

Client Collaborators & Team Collaborators

Who is going to report to you and who will be reporting to them? When it comes to UX design it’s a lot smoother to have less collaborators because the more eyes it needs to reach the longer the turn around rate is before it actually gets approved. (Remember that kitchen *cough* we talked about?). 

This swings both ways, and in an ideal world, we like to have 1-3 points of contact on a project to create true villain magic. It nicely ties back to our leadership spiel and navigating what it takes to successfully kick-off a product/service. Once you establish the team on both sides it helps establish you into that leadership role, which in turn helps everyone out and holds everyone accountable. 

Another thing we’d like to address while on this topic is the method of communication that both teams will use to get the job done. One of our teams favorite is Slack. Be clear as to where the primary communication will go down so that the client knows exactly where to go to find the goods. 

Sometimes with so many apps and management tools out there, it can be easy to get lost in communication. We also like to hold weekly meetings with our stakeholders to ensure that everything is getting communicated effectively and that goals are being met by the team. 

Lastly, let them know you got this:

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The grand finale of the meeting is your chance to shine. We know it sucks holding in all of your awesomeness until the end, but trust us it works! 

The conversation should end with the approach you’d like to take from there–that first meeting. Yup, how are you planning to tame the beast? 

Talk about the research you plan to review of previous successes and disasters to avoid. Also mention future steps after reviewing everything they give you, the interview and selection of users you’d like to talk to, and the outcome of the similarities and/or differences that affect the vision of the product. 

More future topics to shine light on include: the product mission statement, competitive design principles, success metrics to track, wireframes, and prototypes. Let the client know that through every step of the way, from infancy to maturity, you will be holding their hand–advising and answering any questions that arise. 

Yes–these secondary steps will follow the initial approach, but it is important to highlight what is ahead so that they can see a light at the end of the tunnel and know what to expect from a UX ninja. 

Recap…

• First meeting MATTERS MOST.
• Leaders aren’t cocky, they’re open-minded.
• Let the client shine FIRST.
• Prompt the client further with key questions.
• Don’t be lazy, do the research. 
• Get to know the team you’ll be working with.
• Seal the DEAL! 

It’s been a fun tour of this jungle ride, but now it’s time for us to go tame more beasts!! We hope you feel better equipped to do the same. Or at least more organized with the kick-off flow. ?

Five tips that will get you thinking (and designing) like a UX expert! User Experience designers stay curious, endeavor to be empathetic, and work hard to be a team player. Read on for more… and let us know what you would add!

1. Don’t start designing without insight

If you don’t have time to do research, still observe. Still find that nugget of new information that changes the way a customer’s life will be as a result of your product, service, or brand. Make sure you have that insight and make sure your entire strategy is built on that insight vs. a brainstorming session that’s internal.

2. Live out your ABCs: Always be curious

A lot of what we see in terms of a great UX designer and an okay UX designer comes down to their level of curiosity. The ones that we’re less impressed with — for example, when I’m hiring — are ones that try to play it safe. They want to follow the rules, the patterns, the standards. They know what they’re doing, which is great, but they’re not really interested in what they don’t know.Verses the great designers, they can show you what they’ve done, but they can also ask questions and tell you what they would do differently and the questions they would ask that would be different on the same project again. Really hone in on that curiosity — it gets lost in the day-to-day. Really try to make sure you’re pulling that up.

3. Advocate and fight for the customer

There’s a lot of things that you’ll find that cost money, or that make the process different than what the business needs it to be, but it would be better for the customer. Registration forms are a great example. Businesses want to put that first, users don’t really like them. Really think about what is that customer experience and what do I need to change in order to improve the customer experience. Change can be stressful and sometimes you have to fight for it.

4. Remember, you’re not the only one with great ideas

Some of the proudest moments that I’ve had has not being coming in and delivering a recommendation report, but getting a team, especially a client team, to come up with the recommendations and solutions themselves. Really trusting that [your team members] know the business, they know what they’re doing, they’ve participated in the research with you and it’s a collaborative process to get them to ideate. They also will take those ideas further, so for anyone who’s consulting on the UX side, I have found success in not being the one who has the answers, but being the one who asks really great questions, which helps people find the answers within them.

5. Swap your mindset: You didn’t fail, you just learned and have an opportunity to iterate

When you make a ‘mistake,’ remember, those are great. Those are really important learning points, and you’re always learning. If you’re trying new things, you will likely fail. I mentioned earlier to a colleague, [if] there’s a task that I do and I haven’t done it right seven times, it doesn’t bother me — I’ll just try it again for the eighth. And that’s what makes or breaks a UX designer. If you’re trying new things, you will likely fail for part of it, which is great. Who cares? The important part is getting it right eventually.

The UX Design Process is the secret formula for making awesome websites, apps, and other digital products. But what exactly is the UX process? And how does it influence what users think and feel while using the product?

UX design has been around since the 1990s, but the concept itself is as old as time. As anyone who’s ever worked a customer service job will tell you, empathy is a powerful problem-solving skill. UX harnesses empathy to understand what makes the user tick — and in turn, create something they love using.

So, how do UX designers step into the shoes of their users? By guessing? Reading a few articles? Swapping bodies for a few hours? As cool as that would be, the answer is much easier than all that…by following a solid UX design process.

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The UX Design Process

• Research
• Analysis
• Design
• Testing
• Launch

What is Design Thinking?

UX design covers everything the user thinks and feels while using a digital product. For a truly impactful product, the user should have a problem for which the product presents a clear solution. 

The problem can be as simple as booking a hotel room for a weekend trip or as complicated as finding a primary care physician that accepts the user’s health insurance. No matter the difficulty, the product needs to get them from point A to point B in the most seamless way possible.

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On top of being easy to use, the product needs to resonate with users in a meaningful way. If you know the target audience is 60-70-year-olds purchasing life insurance plans, you probably won’t use bright, bold colors and lots of slang, right?

The trick is to have the design meet in the middle of relevant and easy-to-use. To strike the right balance, UX designers usually follow design thinking principles.

Design thinking has five stages that guide the typical UX process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Let’s apply design thinking to the example of the hotel booking product. Pretend the user booked a three-day trip to Chicago and needs to find a hotel.

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• Empathize: Consider the user’s wants/needs.
• Wants: hotel amenities, close to attractions, nearby restaurants, rewards programs, rooms with a view, etc.
• Needs: length of stay, budget-friendly, child/pet friendly, number of beds, etc.
• Define: Outline who the typical user is/what their goals are.
• The user: adults, 20-40 years old, married with 2-3 kids, make $50-70,000 a year, etc.
• The goal: booking a quality, reasonably-priced hotel room near Chicago’s best family-friendly attractions.
• Ideate: Brainstorm features that will help the user reach their goal.
• Features: filters, maps, restaurant/attraction recommendations, user reviews, safety ratings, event calendars, booking deals, etc.
• Prototype: Turn your branding and features into a usable product.
• Test: Test your prototype with your future users and find out what to add/fix.
• Examples of feedback: “This doesn’t tell me how far the hotel is from Wrigley Field.”, “I can’t search hotels by lowest price.”, “It would be great if this told me where I can find the best Chicago-style deep dish.”, “Why is the navigation bar so hard to find?”

As you can see, there’s plenty of overlap between design thinking and UX design strategy. When they’re used in tandem, the product benefits the business as much as the user. The best thing for the user is usually the best thing for your business.

What is the UX Design Process?

You’re probably thinking, “As long as I follow the design thinking process, I should be golden, right?” Well…yes and no.

Design thinking applies to every digital product, but the actual process of building the product differs from project to project. For instance, a full-scale web app is WAY more involved than a simple marketing website design process.

The typical UX design process generally follows these steps but may have some extra or repeated steps depending on the project. The trick is to intermingle those design thinking principles at each process stage.

The UX Design Process

• Research

You knew this part was coming…

Before you put anything about your product on paper, do your homework. Take a look at your competitors. What works? What doesn’t? Who uses the product? What do they want? And most importantly, what can you do better?

This is a prime opportunity to put yourself in the user’s shoes and empathize with them since you technically ARE a user. If your biggest competitors have key features hidden, slow load speeds, poor branding, or any other frustrating roadblocks, take notes! 

User interviews are also a crucial part of UX design strategy. You can infer a lot about how the target users feel from independent research, but why guess when you can get real, usable feedback straight from the source?

• Analysis

Analyze your findings from the research phase to define and ideate before designing. Think of this stage as a UX evaluation.

Have a good idea of what the user’s primary and secondary goals are with the product. Along with user feedback, this will help you decide what design elements and features are helpful or not.

Also, pull together any data you got about your users to create user personas (AKA a fictional user profile). Even though the person isn’t “real”, it’s based on real metrics and will help guide your design choices, creating a more tailored user experience.

Now that the groundwork is in place, you can start conceptualizing the actual prototype. With the personas in the back of your mind, start thinking about user flows, original features, and creating a unique brand identity.

• Design

It’s time to create the prototype!

Building the actual product is always exciting because you get to watch your concepts come to life. Plus, with your UX design strategy, you’re creating a useful product and attaching it to a brand you’re proud of.

Remember that the product does NOT have to be perfect at this point in the UX design process. UX has become so popular in digital product design BECAUSE of its iterative nature. You can still get creative without completely ruining the product because you can always go back to the drawing board.

• Testing

After you finish your prototype, put it to the test and validate your design choices.

Test the product with people that match your user personas to ensure it works for the intended audience. This gives you a little preview of how the product will fare in your competitive market before launch.

The best thing about user testing is that you can fix any product kinks before putting the MVP in front of real end-users. It also significantly reduces the number of unsatisfied users that will abandon the product and never come back.

How many times have you bought a tube of toothpaste because it said “4 out of 5 Dentists Recommend” on the package? Think of user testing as a similar guarantee because you wouldn’t put out a product that leaves users frustrated.

• Launch

There’s no feeling more exciting than watching your hard work pay off. Especially when your users really enjoy your product and make it a part of their everyday lives.

However, this doesn’t mean that the product will always be perfect as is. You should always have a maintenance plan to keep everything working properly. Technology is ever-changing, and software updates will be necessary from time to time. 

The digital product market is also evolving at the speed of light, and in the current competitive market, it’s only a matter of time before a new product comes along to steal your thunder.

Think about when Netflix first started as an online DVD rental service. They revolutionized streaming before anyone else and practically ended Blockbuster (RIP). And when other streaming services came along with bigger and better libraries, they created multiple original programs to keep their users returning to their platform.

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If you want your digital product to stay relevant, keep your finger on the pulse and evolve with the times. UX design strategy never ends after launch, but keeps growing and changing into bigger and better products.

What are Best Practices?

Best practices are industry-specific methods for carrying out procedures that are generally practiced because they produce favorable results.

The UX design process and design thinking guide the project, but best practices are guardrails that keep the design team focused on creating a seamless experience. 

People, technology, and industries are always evolving, and so are best practices. Just because something worked best ten years ago doesn’t mean it will always be standard practice. After all, could you imagine following a website design process from 2002? How dated and ancient would that website look?

We use these evergreen best practices as a fallback during the UX design process. Since anyone can spot these common themes in easy-to-use interfaces, we can see these best practices sticking around for a while.

CreateApe's Best Practices

• Know the difference between UX and UI: User experience and user interface design overlap quite a bit, but they are completely different concepts. Learn and understand the intricacies and nuances of both.
• Know your audience: We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. What works for a 21-year-old computer programmer IS NOT going to work for a 60-year-old grandmother.
• Keep content scannable: Break your content into easily digestible pieces for better focus and reading comprehension.
• Simplicity and clarity are paramount: Cut down as many steps as possible to streamline the user’s path.
• Consistency in UI=intuitive navigation: If the user can recognize elements and patterns in the interface, they’ll feel more at ease using your product.
• Design for accessibility: Not everyone has the same abilities, so designing for accessibility ensures you’re creating equal opportunities with your product.
• Eliminate distractions: “I love all these pop-up ads” - said no one, ever. You’re also 279.64 times more likely to climb Mt. Everest than click on a banner ad.
• Optimize for mobile: Four out of five mobile users access online shops with their smartphones, so make sure your users can take your product on the go.
• Allow for personalization: Users don’t want to dig through your site to find content relevant to them. Personalize interfaces and curate content for a more tailored experience.
• When in doubt, don’t reinvent the wheel: If you’re not sure how a user will respond to a conceptual design element, it’s probably safe to say they won’t get it. If it ain't broke, don’t fix it.

So, Why is the UX Design Process so Important?

As tech becomes more present in our everyday lives, we need to find a way to keep products working for real people. The UX design process ensures that tech will always have a human touch because it’s validated by real people like us!

Creating digital products involves a lot of conceptualizing and ideation. But when you follow the UX design process and best practices, you and your team get a clear roadmap to an MVP. You’ll also know what to expect post-launch by putting the actual product in front of your users and fixing problems before they cause any major damage.

None of this is a guarantee that your product will become the next Uber or Air B’n’B. But the UX design process will give your team a more organized approach to product design and help you foster meaningful relationships with your users.

Need help navigating the UX design process? Contact us for a UX evaluation!

Read more about our approach to UX strategy.

Trust us when we say your digital product’s onboarding experience WILL make or break the customer’s perception of your business.

Getting your target audience interested in the product is the hard part. But if your onboarding flow isn’t equally engaging and efficient, you risk confusing your user or (even worse) boring them into indifference.

Interactivity is the name of the game when it comes to your digital product onboarding experience. It’s about familiarizing the user with the product while giving them hands-on experience with the features designed to make their lives easier.

What Goes Into A User-Friendly Onboarding Experience?

As with most things in UX design, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution that works for every kind of product. Your onboarding checklist can and will change depending on the type of product you’re creating, the end user, and the industry you’re designing for.

For example, a SaaS system may need an in-depth walkthrough of different flows so the user understands how to execute tasks. In contrast, a healthcare app may have certain restrictions for HIPPA compliance and need robust customization depending on the user’s condition.

There's no strict rulebook that every product onboarding should follow, but you should always consider these factors when defining the structure of your onboarding process:

• Benefit-Forward: The user needs to understand the value of the product. Show them how they can accomplish a goal and the impact it creates.
• User-Centric: Focus less on showing off the product and more on how the product fits into the user’s everyday life.
• Functionality: Point out key elements and flows and show the user how to navigate them.
• Action-Oriented: Give the user a simple task to perform so they can see how everything clicks.
• Ever-Evolving: Your product will change as your business grows, creating opportunities to simplify and sharpen your onboarding process.

Even if your onboarding flow checks all these boxes, users may still speed-run the process and quickly click through each screen to start using the product. No harm, no foul. Just ensure they can access it whenever in case they get lost.

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Best Practices For Creating a Better Digital Product Onboarding Experience

You’ve convinced the user to see what your product can do for them, now it’s time to deliver on that promise.

As a UX designer or a stakeholder bringing the product to life with one, you probably have a lot to say about your platform. The trouble is that you don’t have the time or space to tell the entire story within a few screens. 

So, how can you give the user the gist of your product before they start interacting with it themselves? And how can you keep them invested until they land on their dashboard?

Take Your Audience On A Quick Product Tour

If you’ve ever downloaded an app before (come on, it’s 2023), then you’ve probably swiped through a few informational screens before beginning the official onboarding process. They usually have some value props and point out key features to help users understand everything they can do with an app.

App designers do this to give users a preview of coming attractions. Whether you want to give the user a rundown of the end-to-end experience or educate them about a feature they didn’t know about beforehand, a quick product tour will help your audience grasp your platform’s full capabilities.

Plus, you can cut down on the average onboarding time by briefly touching on less important features or doing a quick tutorial on how the product behaves.

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Go For The Guided Approach

Some product experiences are more involved than others. By that, we mean it’s much easier to swipe through a line-up of potential dates than fully automating a software database.

Where a quick product tour is useful for something entertainment or lifestyle focused, a SaaS system has more important ground to cover. It’s absolutely imperative that the user feels supported — but even then, you can’t overwhelm them with a wall of information.

A guided digital product onboarding experience allows users to learn as they go (not too slow or rushed). With informational call-outs, tips, and coaching, the user gets hands-on experience with your product while eliminating ambiguity around finding the content or features they need.

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Cater To Each User’s Unique Pain Points

If you have one of those multipurpose products, chances are that some features will be lower on the priority list depending on the type of user. Your onboarding flow helps you better understand each user's priorities and present content relevant to their needs. 

Keep in mind that you will have to collect some information from the user to know why they sought out your product. But that doesn’t mean they have to answer a million questions. 70% of customers are likely to abandon an onboarding process that takes over 20 minutes. Considering our online attention spans, a good portion of that percentage probably drops off earlier.

This is one of those scenarios where a little generalization won’t hurt. During your UX research, you probably grouped your target audience into personas. Use those previously defined personas to let users self-identify and tell you what they want from your product or service.

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Tailor The Experience To The User’s Preferences

Your onboarding flow allows you to learn a little more about your user. But with a few simple questions about the user’s tastes, you can show them how the product will personalize their experience.

Spotify’s onboarding process is an excellent example of how to gauge preferences before they start interacting with your product. By collecting data about the user’s favorite artists and podcasts during onboarding, Spotify provides a high level of personalization and recommends similar content to discover new music every time the user logs in.

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Walk The User Through A Sample Task

What you don’t know is what you don’t know, especially when you’re using a new digital product for the first time. Sure, we can logically connect some dots about where to find settings or where certain buttons go — but for the most essential user flows, it’s best to show, not tell.

A sample task gives the user clear step-by-step instructions on how to accomplish a goal. By walking through each screen at their own pace, users can absorb more information actively. 

Plus, with tooltips or AI assistance, you can boost the user’s confidence while interacting with your product by addressing potential hurdles early on.

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And Above All, Keep It Brief

Once the user creates their account, they’re too antsy to go through a drawn-out onboarding process.

There are a few different approaches you can take when you have a lot of ground to cover. For a more impatient user, you can enable a full product experience with a delayed sign-up. Let the user get the lay of the land and explore the features before they create an account (like Duolingo).

Onboarding should typically be anywhere from 5-10 steps, but if you need to collect more data, try breaking up your onboarding into distinct sections (basic info, plan selection, product tour, and so on). By segmenting everything into separate phases (and implementing a checklist or progress bar), the user will feel much less overwhelmed by everything they need to do.

Turn A First-Time Visitor Into A Product Loyalist With Your Onboarding Experience

Your digital product onboarding experience has the power to either wow users or drive them away. It should never (and we repeat, NEVER) be treated as an afterthought. 

While you’re designing, put yourself into the users' shoes and consider how you can help them fully immerse themselves in the product with your onboarding experience. Use your best judgment (along with the best practices listed above) to parse out what the first-time user needs to know and wants to see.

With a little UX strategy, testing, and ongoing iteration, you can create an onboarding experience that inspires confidence in your target audience and sparks long-term customer loyalty.

First impressions are everything in today’s market, and CreateApe is here to help you put your best foot forward. If you need a hand in shaping the perfect onboarding flow for your digital product, start a project with us today!

What is UX Writing? And why is it an essential component of any digital product design?

Let’s do a fun exercise together. Pull up your favorite song on Spotify or YouTube and give it a quick listen. What sticks out to you the most?

Is it the masterful composition? The energy and vibe? Or maybe a lyric that really hits home? Are you blown away by how much emotion a songwriter packs into a simple line with their word choice?

Now picture your favorite song without those lyrics. Sure, it sounds pretty on its own, and maybe you can paint a picture in your mind — but something FEELS incomplete.

This is the idea behind UX writing. If your favorite app didn’t have any written content, you would only have some cool designs to look at. You would have no idea how to use it to accomplish your goals. The UX/UI design might as well be wall art at that point.

Just like your favorite song, digital products need UX writing to compliment the tone of the design, communicate ideas, lay out directions, and support the overall experience. And we’ll show you how to use your brand identity to craft your website’s “lyrics.”

What is UX Writing?

There are multiple types of writing out there, so we need to draw some distinctions.

The three common types of business writing are copywriting, technical writing, and UX writing. All three require strong analytical skills to break down concepts and communicate them in ways that are easy to understand. 

Copywriting has a strong focus on marketing. Copywriters persuade the audience into buying their products, fulfilling a “want.” The goal is to bring in new customers, appeal to their desires, and talk them into making a purchase.

Technical writing is much more complex. It’s all about communicating complex information and processes in a easy way for the end user to understand and implement. In the UX/UI design field, this usually means material related to computer software and consumer electronics.

If you need an example of a technical document, dig in your miscellaneous drawer and grab the box your iPhone came in (because we know you’re saving it for SOME reason). The instructional manual has to show the average user how to set it up and how to use it.

UX writing combines copywriting and technical writing, but with a different endgame in mind. Simply put, copywriting sells, technical writing teaches, and UX writing solves.

The emphasis is on the user’s journey in UX writing. We’re writing for existing users, focusing on solving a problem and achieving a goal. In this scenario, there is no room for the abstract, so keep it simple and don’t overthink it.

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The Characteristics of UX Writing

While most copywriting services give you plenty of room to explore ideas, UX writing has a few more intricacies. Unless we’re writing a blog or some other long-form piece for a client, we are usually working with limited space.

Like a songwriter that packs a big punch with a well-written lyric, the copy on your digital product needs to communicate a lot while saying so little.

Empathy

UX design is driven by empathy for the user — and our designs wouldn’t be as impactful without written content. Being unrelatable is NOT an option.

It’s all about putting yourself in the user’s shoes and understanding how to communicate with them on behalf of the client. In UX writing, we need to know exactly what to say and when to say it to strike the perfect chord with our audience.

When you’re writing, always be thinking about what the user wants to hear and how the client can get them to the finish line.

Utility

It’s worth repeating every time: our online attention spans are short. We don’t have time or room to write a college dissertation about how amazing our clients are.

We have to reel in the audience with some thoughtful copy, help them understand the big picture, and get them where they need to go. Not only does the content need to be written well, but it needs to be structured perfectly in order of importance.

Utilizing active voice helps UX writers be as clear and unambiguous as possible, but it’s also on the UX writer to cut down on wordy sentences and paragraph length. Just remember the last time you looked at an enormous paragraph and thought “Nah, I’m not reading that” (even if the answer lies within).

Creativity

The client’s digital product is often the face of their brand. We cannot (under any circumstances) lose the client’s voice and tone for the sake of brevity.

After all, the client’s communication style plays a big part in shaping the user experience. We form our designs around these identities, and copy that does not support the look and feel makes for a disjointed and awkward experience.

Be aware of UX writing constraints, but let your imagination run wild within them. Form some key messages that sum up the client’s purpose and weave them throughout the written content with some clever, inventive word choices.

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Establishing Voice and Tone

Whether the client already has their voice and tone set in stone or needs help creating them, they are absolutely crucial in creating copy that resonates with the user.

Think about a high-end luxury watch company. If you go to their website, notice how the messaging isn’t all over the place. It’s smooth, suave, and succinct. You get the big picture of their personality and target customer just from reading a few headlines and buzzwords.

This is because they have an established voice and tone — a style and flair that shapes the storytelling and breathes life into written content.

A company’s communication style plays a massive part in their brand identity. Sometimes it’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions a brand. Take Wendy’s for example…is the first thing you think of their square burgers or their savage Twitter roasts?

Voice characteristics are like personality traits. Let’s stack the watch company and Wendy’s against each other. If they were people, they’d live completely different lives. How would you describe the brand if they were a real person?

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Voice and Tone Discovery

Like all things UX, you’ll get the best idea of the characteristics your copy needs to emulate by talking directly to the end-user. Your interviews will show you how to play into the communication style that resonates with them.

Client interviews are also super helpful because they likely already have an idea of what their brand is about and who their users are. They’ll likely have some key messages about what makes their brand the best and know how they want the user to feel when reading those messages.

The user knows how they like to be talked to. They also know when they’re being pandered to. And the client knows what they’re all about and the audience they want to reach. It’s up to the UX writer to fine-tune that research into characteristics that make a brand stand out.

Ask these questions to hone in on voice characteristics that work for the client and audience:

Client Interview Questions

• How would you define your brand?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses as a brand?
• Who are your biggest competitors? What are their strengths and weaknesses as a brand?
• What sets you apart from your competitors?
• Why should your audience choose your brand?
• What are some other brands/communication styles you admire?
• Who is your target audience? Define them in three words.
• Are there any keywords we should include?

User Interview Questions

• What brands do you gravitate to? Why?
• What are your opinions of the client’s product? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• Why do you keep using the client’s product?
• What drives your purchasing decisions?
• What is most important to you when using a website/mobile app?
• Where do you mostly use digital products? Desktop, mobile, iPad, etc.
• What turns you away from buying/using products?
• What are some of your favorite/least favorite marketing campaigns?

15 Tips for UX Writing

From Hemingway to Wilde and even Taylor Swift, we all have different writing processes. A special routine to help us get in the zone to write a masterpiece of literature (or just some really great digital product copy).

So brew a fresh pot of coffee, put on your favorite playlist to get in the right headspace, and keep these UX writing tips in the back of your mind.

• Be concise. If a sentence is feeling wordy, it is!
• Write for an 8th-grade audience. Not everyone visiting your page is an industry expert.
• Keep your interview notes and voice and tone guidelines handy for quick reference.
• Review brand and style guides beforehand to make sure everything gels.
• Look at competitor messaging and consider how it could be improved.
• Avoid jargon whenever possible. If you have to, explain it in the most basic terms.
• Present tense and active voice are your best friends.
• Use SEO keywords like spices – don’t overdo it!
• Keep a thesaurus by your side to vary up your vocabulary.
• Draft alternate copy to explore more ideas and give the client choices.
• Empathize with the user by leading with the primary goal of the page.
• Keep copy consistent and on-brand.
• Peer reviews are super useful for exploring ideas and catching errors.
• Keep your headlines and microcopy as short as you can.
• Utilize bulleted lists to your advantage to make content scannable.

Who Can Help Me With UX Writing?

Allow us to throw our banana into the ring!

If you need us to take care of the whole design from beginning to end or just need help writing copy for a landing page, we’ve got you covered.

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On top of our expert UX/UI design and full-stack web development teams, we also have an in-house UX writing team to provide copywriting services for all your digital products. Websites, mobile apps, product copy, blogs, investor decks, scripts, social media content — you name it, we can write it.

We’ll work with you to form a unique voice your audience won't soon forget, then craft copy to solidify your style. And since we work in tandem with our UX/UI designers, all the parts come together like a perfectly-produced top 10 hit.

Like what you're seeing? Do you need to UX-ify the copy for your digital product? Start a project with us today!