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!

Google, Amazon, and Apple are among the strongest brands of the last decade. They have created billions in brand value and have industry-leading business performance. What else do they have in common? Their brand success can be directly tied to simplicity–to making life simpler for their users, that is. They also adhere to simplicity rules to define their brand experiences. These rules are worth considering for any brand trying to simplify their customer experience and drive customer satisfaction, commitment, and connection.

Consider the context.

Every brand thinks it’s the most important thing in their user’s life. Seldom is this true. A user’s experience with a brand is just one event in an action-packed life. Good brands map out their customer experience looking for opportunities to simplify, eliminate steps, confusion, and complications in ways that add value. Great brands look to where the brand and the experience fit within their user’s overall life, looking to make not just the experience easier but a user’s overall life easier. Amazon, with its 1-click ordering, is a great example of a brand that ‘considers the context’. Typical web marketing theory of the time said that the goal was to keep customers on a brand’s website for as long as possible to increase interaction and engagement in the belief that this would increase purchase. Amazon took a counter approach, creating a 1-click ordering option where user preferences and purchase information could be stored in order to enable a single click purchase. Amazon’s 1-click ordering, and the resultant user satisfaction with its simplicity, is core to the Amazon’s brand promise. By making online shopping as quick and painless as a single mouse click, Amazon made simplicity and customer-centricity core to their brand over 13 years ago.

Go deep.

Simplicity is not just eliminating steps, clarifying language or using intuitive graphics. Brands that succeed due to simplicity understand that everything must work together, clearly and seamlessly. Apple is a brand that lives this. Not only are the devices beautiful, simply to understand and use right out of the box. Not only do the devices work simply with the iTunes store, iCloud storage, and other Apple systems. It isn’t just that their user interfaces are a model of clarity and simplified interaction. Apple realizes everything matters when it comes to simplicity. That there isn’t an end to what can be simplified and made better. That in order to get it right, they must consider everything, they must ‘go deep.’ Only by going deep can brands understand how everything fits together and how everything matters to the user.

Avoid ‘feature-itis.’

Rather than continuing to add incremental features to a brand experience over time, great brands stand firm once they reach a level of simplicity, resisting the urge to add brand bells and whistles. Melissa Mayer, former VP of Google Search Products, is credited with keeping the interface of the Google search page blissfully simple: a white page with a blank box. Despite constant pressure to use the power of one of the most visited pages on the web to promote other brands, Google resists that urge, maintaining a simple page in the best interest of the user.Simple is a powerful strength for great brands like Amazon, Apple, and Google. Increasingly, it will be necessary for every brand. In a world of ever-increasing complexity, brand simplicity is critical for brands to get right or risk customer disappointment and defection.

Picture it, you’re shopping for an outfit for an event where you HAVE to make an impression. Are you gonna settle with an off-the-rack article of clothing from Walmart or Target, or will you invest in a custom piece from a boutique designer?

Now, we’re not dunking on Walmart and Target too hard (we appreciate budget-conscious options). But in our competitive digital market, a mass-produced templatized solution won’t get you very far with your target audience.

As businesses crawl over each other to deliver flawless user interactions, choosing a UX design partner is not an easy decision. So, if you’re torn between investing in a larger firm or a boutique UX design agency — consider the unique and unexpected advantages of the latter.

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Boutique UX Design Agencies & Their Benefits

Cost-Effectiveness

The allure of boutique UX design agencies stems from the laser-focused attention they offer to their clients. These firms deliberately limit their client intake, enabling a truly immersive understanding of your needs, aspirations, and hurdles. 

This level of personalization results in finely honed, cost-effective solutions. In many cases, smaller and personable teams are more likely to work with their clients to construct designs and visual assets within shifting timelines and budgets. 

With resources optimized and focused solely on a handful of projects, the budget is allocated where it truly matters, enabling a higher return on investment.

Less Reliance On Templates

While a highly researched, tested, and iterated solution might work for one type of audience, there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution in UX.

Boutique UX design agencies excel in shaping journeys that resonate with a client's target audience. Through close collaboration and intimate knowledge of client goals and user needs, these firms craft experiences that feel tailor-made to specific audiences. 

This level of connection ensures that every design decision aligns with the audience's preferences, driving engagement and satisfaction to new heights.

Smaller Teams, Real Impact

Unlike their larger counterparts, boutique UX design agencies boast compact, nimble teams. 

Some clients may worry that limited manpower means the project will take longer. But with fewer clients and more resources at their disposal, the designers and developers can dig deep into your project and truly become extensions of your company.

Every team member's role is clearly defined, contributing to a collective synergy that propels the project forward. This focused approach expedites decision-making, minimizes communication gaps, and maintains an unwavering commitment to project timelines.

A Better Understanding Of Your Industry

Boutique UX agencies stand out through their profound specialization in specific industries. This pinpoint expertise allows them to delve into your industry’s competitive landscape with a keen understanding of its nuances, challenges, and user expectations.

As a result, the solutions they conceive are not adaptations, but rather inventive answers born from an in-depth knowledge of an industry's intricacies. 

By collaborating with a boutique firm, clients benefit from a partnership with experts who effortlessly navigate their field's terrain.

The Value Of Focus

At the core of boutique UX design agencies lies an extraordinary value proposition you don’t see in a large, bustling firm.

In a landscape perpetually defined by unity between businesses and users, boutique firms exhibit an uncanny ability to adapt. Their size keeps them agile, pivoting swiftly and embracing opportunities with unmatched dexterity — an invaluable quality in generating customized solutions and overcoming obstacles.

As a boutique agency ourselves, we’re more than service providers – we’re enthusiasts of the UX design craft. Every pixel and every interaction is infused with genuine passion, forging connections with users on a deeper level.

A UX approach is a strategic investment in excellence, but a collaboration between your business and a boutique firm sparks better digital products and long-term partnerships.

In a market where differentiation reigns supreme, let CreateApe help you unlock the unparalleled value of personalized solutions. Start a project with us today!

As industry leaders in UX, CreateApe has no trouble keeping up with digital trends. New technologies are created every day to simplify tasks, and website design is no different. Staying on top of (and sometimes starting) UX/UI trends is the easiest way to guarantee a flawless user experience.

Just like software, elements in a website’s interface become dated quickly. Redesigning your website with the latest popular features shows that you’re designing with your audience in mind. You may think your website is perfect as is, but ignoring trends eventually leads to a stale, outdated, and (gasp) boring experience for your user.

2020 and 2021 saw an explosion in technologies and platforms that made remote working and living easier...for obvious reasons. AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) were gaining popularity, then exploded because of the pandemic. We can safely predict that design trends will continue to steer in this direction for the foreseeable future. 

Certain aesthetic trends within interfacing elements also started gaining traction in 2021. Busy interfaces are being replaced with more minimalist designs. Bold, bright colors and typography are dominating over more simplistic, muted tones. And websites become more and more interactive with each passing year.

Trends ebb and flow, but we can see these UX/UI trends sticking around for a while.

UX/UI Trend Predictions for 2022

1. Dark Mode

Besides looking REALLY cool, there are many visual benefits of having a dark mode for your website/app. From a design perspective, a black background looks sleek and modern. White text on a black background is more eye-catching and helps the user fixate on the content of a web page.

Dark mode has two benefits for the user. For most modern screens like OLED and MicroLED, each pixel on a screen is individually lit on a white background, which drains the battery pretty quickly. Dark mode reduces the power drain and saves the overall energy consumption needed to power a laptop or mobile device.

Dark mode also significantly reduces eye strain, making for a more comfortable user experience. We spend so much time in front of screens, and exposure to blue light can cause problems over time. A dark, black background is much easier on the eyes, reducing the blue light exposure that causes eye strain from prolonged periods of screen time. 

It seems like every social media platform and mobile app is starting to catch on to dark mode, so we can see this design becoming the new norm in 2022.

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2. Abstract Data Visualization

A simple graph or chart is an easy way to visualize data-but let’s face it, they're overused and not that interesting visually. UX designers need to find new ways to present data that engages the user and encourages interaction.

Think outside the box with data visualization by creating infographics with inventive designs or adding interactive animations to charts. Getting creative with these elements is a great way to show users that you want to make the experience fresh and innovative.

The way you present data is also an opportunity to sneak in your voice and branding elements. Try to incorporate your typography and color schemes into charts to enhance the brand's presence. It's also a good place to add microcopy that conveys your overall attitude.

More and more small website elements will become interactive as time goes on. As a result, UX designers will look for more original ways to bring data to life.

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3. Personalized Experiences

The stereotype about technology is that it is cold and impersonal. As it becomes a more prevalent part of our lives, there is a push to make it more inviting and less intimidating. This idea is at the very core of UX and especially for CreateApe’s design process.

CreateApe prioritizes user empathy in all of our designs. What better way to show we design with the user in mind than creating an interface personalized for them? We can create a tailored experience based on the user’s wants and needs through research and data collection.

Interfaces can be personalized with the user’s location, demographics, search history, and purchasing patterns. By showing the user content that is relevant to their life, you inspire loyalty and show that you want to make your brand convenient for them. Personalize your interface to become a seamless part of your user’s life.

Plenty of big-name companies build their UI’s around personalization (Amazon, Netflix, and social apps like Facebook and Tik Tok to name a few). Since they make for such a smooth navigational experience, we don’t see this trend going away any time soon.

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4. Voice-User Interface

How easy has voice recognition made your life? Do you still watch the weather channel, or do you just ask Alexa what today's forecast is? With voice-activated assistance, you can find answers without having to pull out your phone. After all, typing is awfully time-consuming.

The main draw of this technology is that it completely streamlines the search process. It lets the user quickly find what they need while focusing on other things. We’ve noticed how convenient voice-activated devices are, and some companies are starting to incorporate them into their interface.

That said, the technology is not perfect yet. Voice recognition software is not 100% accurate yet, and some users have privacy concerns when using the technology in public and private. However, technology evolves and works out its own kinks over time.

The software needed to implement a voice-user interface is accessible for developers and the technology can adapt to the user’s speech patterns. It's not super common now, but we can see this feature gaining traction next year.

5. Bold Colors/Fonts

Your website’s visuals are a super important part of UX. However, visual trends can change pretty rapidly. Many websites put a focus on having a clean, professional look with modest colors and fonts. It’s fine to emphasize the website’s function more than the design, but it doesn’t make for an interesting experience overall.

Visual designs are starting to favor bright, bold colors. They’re much more eye-catching and tend to grab the user’s attention right away as opposed to neutral tones. If you’re looking to redesign your website or re-brand, this is an opportunity to take a risk and play with your color scheme a bit. Gradient colors are also popular right now and lend a cool, futuristic look to your site.

Don't let the bold colors distract from your site’s messaging or overwhelm the eye. A good way to combat this is by pairing the color scheme with a minimalistic design that prominently features your messaging or product. Bold fonts in a contrasting color from the background make your messaging stand out. Draw the user in with creative colors, then make sure they can’t miss your message by using a heavy, striking font.

Grabbing the user’s attention within the first few seconds of interacting with your site is critical. With the intensity of the outside world, a fun splash of color is a welcome change. 

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So Why Is This Important?

Your website should always be on-brand. However, on-brand does NOT always mean on-trend. Websites need to adapt to new technologies and aesthetics so the audience will not lose interest. When you are constantly innovating, you keep your audience coming back for more.

CreateApe's designers know how important it is to keep an updated interface. Every element that goes into the site should serve the brand identity and overall utility. We ensure that your website is on-brand, user-friendly, and conversion-optimized.

If you need someone to redesign your website to be current and on-trend, reach out to us today!

A successful digital product can do wonders for your company. But if you’re not actively improving on what you already have, it’s only a matter of time before another brand emerges and steals the spotlight.

Digital products have been making our lives easier for years. And with the recent AI explosion, you never know which new revolutionary technology will become a mainstay for your users.

In our bustling digital world, simply adopting a new technology for your latest feature or functionality isn’t enough. You need solid research and strategies to ensure it’s appropriately implemented and works for your target audience.

This is obvious to us UX designers — as we NEED this testing and validation to guarantee we’re not investing time and money into something useless. What’s less obvious is how to measure the impact of our efforts.

Key performance indicators (which we’ll call KPIs for brevity) are qualitative or quantitative insights into how your product or feature is performing. When starting a UX project, you define KPIs around your business goals — so they can look different depending on the product.

There may be some overlap in KPIs between the initial launch and subsequent features. But whether your goal is to raise consumer awareness, generate leads, or boost revenue with new functionality, the goals must be clearly defined, closely monitored, and adjusted to keep your business on a profitable track.

How Many Different Kinds Of KPIs Are There?

A lot…Not even joking. For every project goal, there are probably several performance indicators and even more tracking tools to measure your product’s efficacy.

But for the sake of this article (and probably because you don’t want to read about 20+ KPI categories), we’ll narrow it down to four critical components within the digital ecosystem.

Stakeholder KPIs

These are the metrics that everyone should care about. But more accurately, they’re the ones stakeholders (clients, CEOs, investors, and other bigwigs) will hone in on.

Stakeholder KPIs give your colleagues visibility into how your design efforts support their larger business goals. They also help them create a benchmark for future product endeavors, ultimately creating a foundation for an ongoing strategic partnership.

• Revenue (how much profit you generate for the company)
• Lead Generation (how many users show interest in the product)
• Attach Rate (how many existing customers buy the product)
• Audience Penetration (how many target audience members buy the product)

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User KPIs

Now for the ones that UX designers care about. Don’t get us wrong, stakeholder goals and KPIs are SUPER valuable in the grand scheme. But User KPIs help us gauge how well we solved the problem we set out to answer.

In UX, it’s about more than just selling a product. It’s about creating a solution for an everyday thing and creating an experience that users love returning to. And these user-centered metrics show us that we fulfilled our purpose in creating a product that builds customer trust and loyalty.

• Activation (The percentage of users that sign up and become active users)
• Retention (The percentage of users that remain active over a given time frame)
• Net Promoter Score (Customer experience insights, usually gathered from surveys)

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Usability KPIs

Sounds similar to the last category, right? You can’t have an excellent experience without being able to actually use the product.

These KPIs are tracked when a company wants to fix or optimize their user experience. But when you’re incorporating a new technology or AI feature, it’s essential to monitor usability KPIs to ensure your product isn’t crashing.

• Cross-Device Responsiveness (How well your product performs across devices and screen sizes)
• Performance Optimization (Load times, crash rates, and error rates)
• Learnability (How quickly users can learn to use your product efficiently)

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Brand KPIs

These metrics are all about your reputation in the consumers’ minds. While individual perceptions are famously hard to measure, there are a few ways you can quantify your brand’s reach and leverage your findings to set you up for a successful future launch.

• Aided Awareness (How many people recognize your brand when asked about your specific product)
• Unaided Awareness (How many people recognize your brand when asked questions about your industry)
• Intent To Purchase (The number of audience members that express interest in your product and will buy it upon launch)
• Social Media Mentions (How much passive publicity your brand gets through word-of-mouth)

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How To Define KPIs For A New Feature Launch

You might think these KPIs could apply to any product or feature launch — and that’s partly true. Each aspect plays a unique role in the long-term success of a digital product. But depending on how your business is growing, you should occasionally shift your focus to achieve a defined goal.

Intent matters…especially in UX design (and ESPECIALLY when you’re incorporating a new technology in your business model). KPIs are there to make sure you get the highest possible return on investment, showing you where you need to pivot to meet your users’ expectations.

With all this in mind, let’s take a look at some common launch scenarios and discuss which strategic KPIs to track.

Scenario: “We’re incorporating a new AI-driven functionality for an established product to relieve a pressing user frustration.”

• Solution: User KPIs
  
• Why?: A new feature has great power to either help or hinder the user experience. As such, it should be tested thoroughly and consistently evaluated post-launch to understand how your audience responds.
  
• What Specific KPIs Should We Track?:
• Feature Adoption: Assess how often and how many users are using specific features within your product.
• Task Completion Time: Measure how long it takes to complete specific tasks or actions.
• Task Success Rate: Measure the percentage of users who successfully complete a specific task or action within your product.
• Error Rate: Track the number of errors users encounter while interacting with your product.
• Abandonment Rate: Assess how many users start a task but do not complete it.

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Scenario: “Our client wants to target a new audience with their latest product update and new features.”

• Solution: Brand KPIs

• Why?: Whether you’re creating a brand new product to reach an established audience or vice versa, you need to ensure that your design, sales, and marketing efforts are landing in front of the right eyes. Tracking brand KPIs will help you evaluate the strength of your brand assets, value propositions, and long-term viability in your new consumer base.

• What Specific KPIs Should We Track?:
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): Measure the rate of users clicking on a specific element, like a button or link.
• Conversion Rate: Measure the percentage of users who complete a desired action, such as signing up or making a purchase.
• Content Interaction: Track how users engage with various types of content, such as articles, videos, or images.
• Session Duration: Measure how long users typically spend in a single session.
• Social Media Mentions: See how awareness for your product is generated through the audience’s preferred online platforms.

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Scenario: “We’re helping our client expand their product suite by creating new products and features geared towards different industries.”

• Solution: Stakeholder KPIs

• Why?: Ultimately, what your client is trying to do here is open up a more profitable avenue for their business through digital products. While it’s important to track other KPIs, lead and revenue generation are the metrics they’ll be focusing on. This will help them identify the best paths for long-term growth and sustainability.

• What Specific KPIs Should We Track?:
• Revenue: (Duh…) Measure the profitability of the new business venture and determine if further expansion is worth the investment.
• Lead Generation: Track how many users indicate interest in the product or feature and complete the sales flow.
• Return Users: Track how many users return to your product after their initial interaction.
• User Churn Rate: Calculate the percentage of users who stop using your product over a given time frame.
• User Ratings and Reviews: Monitor ratings and reviews on app stores or review websites to assess user sentiment.

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Scenario: “Our client is updating their onboarding flow with a new integration software to reduce their abandonment rates.”

• Solution: Usability KPIs

• Why?: We touched on the risks of new technology earlier but from a user adoption standpoint. Every technology can crash and burn, leaving your new feature completely useless and bogging down the experience. Luckily, the efficiency of your tech-driven strategy can be verified with the quantitative data from usability KPIs.

• What Specific KPIs Should We Track?:
• Page Load Time: Assess how quickly web pages or screens load within your product.
• App Responsiveness: Measure how responsive your application is to user interactions.
• Crash Rate: Track the frequency of crashes or technical issues affecting the user experience.
• Error Rate: Track the number of errors users encounter while interacting with your product.
• Task Flow Completion: Evaluate how easily users can navigate through your product and complete multi-step tasks.

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Some Things To Consider

We know, it’s SO easy to take these KPIs and use them as a guide for launching your new product or feature. But to make a real impact, you need to be strategic when defining KPIs.

Each product, business, and user has unique problems they need to solve. While your list of target KPIs may look similar to the ones listed above, it could also be an amalgamation of metrics from every category.

Always keep these factors in the back of your mind when you and your stakeholders are establishing success metrics:

• Alignment with Business Goals: Ensure that your chosen KPIs directly align with your overall business objectives.
  
• Specificity: Make your KPIs as specific as possible. Vague or broad KPIs are difficult to measure effectively and may not provide actionable insights.
  
• Measurability: Define the proper tools to measure your chosen KPIs accurately. Consider the availability of data and analytics tools.
  
• Relevance: Focus on KPIs directly related to the success of the product launch. Avoid measuring metrics that may be interesting but do not directly impact your goals.
  
• Time-Bound: Set clear timeframes for achieving your KPIs. Establish both short-term and long-term goals to track progress over time.
  
• Benchmarking: Take stock of baseline measurements or benchmarks before the launch to compare post-launch performance to the pre-launch state. This helps in assessing the impact of the launch.
  
• Cost-Efficiency: Factor in the costs associated with achieving your KPIs. Ensure that the resources and efforts required are reasonable and justifiable.
  
• Realistic Targets: Set targets that are challenging but achievable. Unrealistic goals can demotivate teams and lead to frustration.
  
• Contingency Plans: Develop contingency plans in case KPIs are not met. This may involve adjusting the product, marketing strategy, or resource allocation.
  
• Ethical Considerations: Consider the ethical implications of your KPIs, especially if they involve user data or behavior tracking. Ensure that your metrics respect user privacy and consent.
  
• Long-Term Impact: Think about the long-term impact of your product launch. Some KPIs may focus on short-term gains, but it's also important to assess how the launch contributes to the product's overall growth and sustainability.

By carefully strategizing the KPIs for your product launch, you can gain client and stakeholder confidence by creating a measurement framework that prioritizes business goals and contributes to long-term success and growth.

Still not sure about your new product or feature’s KPI strategy? That’s a piece of cake for the CreateApe team. Start a project with us today!