The Manifest Names Create Ape as one of the Most-Reviewed Global Product Design Agencies

Clutch released a list of the top UX agencies across the United States and CreateApe was honored to be among them as the #1 UX/UI agency in Orange County! Rock on, team!

Clutch is a B2B firm in located in Washington DC, connecting small to medium businesses to agencies and consultants through research, ratings, and reviews. Clutch covers over 500 different industries, each company evaluated on criteria such as market presence, client base, and industry experience.

CreateApe was ranked one of the top agencies in Orange County for our User Experience & User Interface (UX/UI) design expertise and consistent ability to provide the highest quality of customer service possible. Thanks to all of our outstanding clients taking the time to do the Clutch interview process, CreateApe now has a rating of 4.8, making us the matrix leader in the Orange County UX Designers page organically.

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Clutch Senior Business Analyst IIse Heine commented, “These designers combine cutting-edge techniques with a keen knowledge of human nature and aesthetic sense to help companies achieve their business goals, working closely with them every step of the way.”

“The top UX designers use best practices to optimize a website’s usability, accessibility and overall look,” said Heine.

The top agencies in the U.S. have been chosen based on client feedback, verified through phone interviews, quality of work and market presence.

A recent client of ours provided feedback on a project with us via Clutch and rated CreateApe as a 5-star service. The project was to design and develop a Shopify Plus website with custom features. They said, “CreateApe was knowledgeable, dedicated, and committed to success. They felt like part of our development team—and still do as they monitor our site. We couldn’t ask for more.”

Another reviewer stated, “CreateApe creates clear and unique designs that effectively achieve the company’s goals. They’re able to deliver products that require little iteration with minimal direction. Organized, responsive, and proactive in their approach, they continue to be great partners to work with.”

At CreateApe, we tackle every project no matter the level of complexity with a sense of purposeful passion because we value our clients success as our own. We develop modern, visually appealing products that aren’t only designed to look good, but are functional and intuitive to the User’s experience. But we would be nothing without happy clients. Their feedback to Clutch has been more rewarding than anything else could have been. Thank you to our awesome clients!

Reputation is everything in the online world. The things people say about you will stick and spread. This is why we ensure that only good things are mentioned whenever our performances as a company come up in a conversation.

Fortunately, our work has struck a positive chord with everyone we’ve worked with, as we’ve developed quite a reputation within our industry. Today we celebrate one of our most recent and important accolades. Thanks to our performance over the past year, Clutch has named us as one of their picks for the 100 fastest-growing companies for the year 2022.

Clutch is a B2B research platform that uses feedback and reviews to determine the best companies from every industry worldwide. This award is part of a program that recognizes small to medium businesses quickly making a name for themselves over the past year.

This award represents the culmination of many months of hard work. Our sole focus throughout every project is ensuring our clients get the results they want. The fact that every one of them has rewarded us in their way contributed to our growth and, ultimately, this important award.

“We are both excited and honored to be chosen as a leading UX/UI agency for Clutch's 100! We are a UX/UI agency that aims to provide our clients with unparalleled personalized solution-based service. We pride ourselves on transparency, accountability, and setting our clients up for success.” - Alessandro Fard, Founder of Create Ape.

It’s taken contributions from multiple companies on various successful web projects to get us where we are today. However, if anecdotal evidence isn’t enough, we encourage you to explore our website and contact our team to get more information on what we can do to improve your business.

Netflix binging, we’ve all been there. One hour you’re pressing play on a TV show just to have it on in the background and suddenly you’ve finished a season in the blink of an eye. Here are the secrets behind Netflix’s incredibly successful UX design that keep us all coming back.

Putting customers first.

It’s a line we’ve heard time and time again but it’s what Netflix UX is inherently based on. Through an easy-to-use interface, Netflix understands that when mindlessly scrolling through TV shows and movies it’s exactly that, mindless. It extends to the golden rule of interface design, don’t make me think too hard. What keeps Netflix successful isn’t just selling subscriptions, but selling experiences through tailored entertainment choices.

It’s all about you.

If you’ve been on Netflix recently, you’ve probably noticed your homepage may look different compared to your friends and family. That’s entirely intentional. Netflix’s team has utilized the importance of user experience and transformed their interface to reflect personalized navigation. Most wouldn’t call Netflix a user experience focused company, but it’s been at the forefront of their sales and decision making.

Unique quick previews.

The design functions have gone beyond traditional browsing and are becoming increasingly personalized. No longer are customers reliant on a title and short blurb about the movie, but hovering over an image will play a short clip that illustrates the emotional gist of the movie without revealing the entire plot. You may be thinking well yeah, isn’t that just a trailer? Not entirely. These clips are custom clips edited by Netflix, with curated snippets and music that suggests a certain mood or genre, it helps convey an experience to the user. Within a few seconds of just hovering over a show or movie, viewers know exactly what they’re getting.

Great suggestions.

In a world of big data, Netflix utilizes its data to create a better experience for the user by predicting viewing habits. It’s no secret that Netflix algorithms are heavily data driven, knowing when and where we start a show, when we pause, rewind; all these factors contributing to how they shape our time on Netflix. Instead of sorting through thousands of movies or shows you’ll just never have an inkling to watch, Netflix streamlines the filtering and suggests shows that are user compatible based on prior selections.

CEO Reed Hastings has even mentioned, “One day, we hope to get so good at suggestions that we can show you exactly the right movie or TV show for your mood.”

Founded in 1997, Netflix skyrocket to over 70 million users lies in its users experience. They have created a friendly relationship with the user that says, “I know you’ll be back, see you next time” without any repercussions. Not only have they managed to survive in the digital age, but they’ve redefined the way we view movie watching and the traditional “television” program, and that’s exactly what keeps us coming back.

One of Europe’s leading marketing events is hitting SoCal for the first time this year! The B2B Marketing Expo began and planted its roots in the UK. This year the event will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on October 2nd & 3rd, 2019. THIS WILL BE THE FIRST B2B MARKETING EXPO OF MANY (we’re sure)!!! Our proper villain, Alessandro Fard, is one of the key speakers and we can’t help but brag.

Each year the event attracts vast, highly targeted audiences and offers a truly engaging experience. We expect this event will be even larger as it will be the first time it hits the US. The B2B Marketing Expo is currently responsible for over 50 shows across the world ranging from niche industry events to major global events. No discrimations!!! They have offices set up in Germany, Hong Kong, US, and the UK (and we’re sure it’s not stopping there).

Our CreateApe team will also be exhibiting at this event along with over 200 other exhibitors. There will be hundreds of seminars and the expo is expecting over 10,000 visitors at the Los Angeles event this fall. THIS WILL BE A HUGE EVENT! You don’t want to miss…

The marketing industry is always changing, and this expo offers organizations some insight from thought leaders like Alessandro who can share their strategies and breakthroughs. Free access to proven leaders in their fields? No brainer. #winwin

Alessandro will be hitting the stage to talk about all things UX/UI related. LIKE A BOSS. Other keynote speakers include Nike, Google, and Microsoft to be sharing their thought leadership ideas. 

Jeetendr Sehdev author of The Kim Kardashian Principle will be the official headline host for the event. Sehdev is a media personality, the world’s leading authority on celebrity branding, and a sought-after advisor to top international companies. We are prepared to be dazzled by THIS INFLUENCER’S INFLUENCER. 

Some of the event highlights will include influencer marketing, data and analytics, direct marketing, AI, account based marketing, and UX/UI development (of course), among many other topics. This is the ultimate event for keen sales professionals.

Tickets are free for this event and can be requested here. Don’t worry if you can’t make it, you can still follow Alessandro Fard’s stories on Instagram/Facebook to get behind the scenes and watch him live in action! 

We are looking forward to this event and hope you will be too. SAVE THE DATE: Wednesday October 2nd, and be prepared for some “proper villain” magic from our CEO. Make sure to stop by our booth for more information about UX/UI. Let us show you how much proper UX/UI can benefit your business. See you in October!

SEO. It’s another one of those acronyms and buzzwords people in the tech space love to throw out. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it’s the reason why certain keywords show up first when using search engines.

SEO can be vital for organic growth

Studies will show if you’re not on the first page of a search engine, it doesn’t matter where you are. In fact, if you’re running a small business or an entrepreneur, you’ve probably received a phone call from companies claiming to be Google and promising your company top placement on the first page. Chances are, they’re probably not Google. As much as we’d love to believe those in charge of ranking and indexing at Google have our personal cell phones, that’s not the case.

The Google SEO Game

This is important because in my opinion, if you want to play the Google indexing and ranking game, you probably want to look in to PPC campaigns. PPC stands for pay per click and is usually the single specialty of an agency. If you’re going to pay Google, actually pay Google and pay for the clicks. That way you know every dollar you spend is going towards a click that could be a future client. Essentially, you’re paying for eyeballs on your content. The cost per click might be pretty high, but is probably a wiser choice than paying an arbitrary company who claims to have the “secret sauce” to changing the SEO game.

WTF Is A Google Partner?

I’ve also noticed the new “Google Partner” badge on some company websites. First off, if I’m a UX/UI designer what does being a Google Partner have to do with anything? Google partner has to do with search, PPC, and SEO. If you’re an agency and you’re a Google partner… good for you I guess. If all you focus on is SEO and PPC it makes some sense, but you’re essentially paying a ton of money to have a fancy badge on your website.

As a UX/UI vendor, putting that you’re a Google partner is nonsensical. It holds no bearing on your design chops, user testing procedures, or any other capabilities in your wheelhouse. Even if you’re doing development all the way to design, being a “Google Partner” still doesn’t have any benefit.

What to Actually Invest In:

When creating a website, there’s still basic semantic SEO, meta tags, and keywords. Then there’s actually implementing campaigns around high ranking metrics, organic SEO, or a PPC campaign. I would argue if you are looking to do a PPC campaign, you should go to an agency where PPC is all they do day in and day out. If they offer UX/UI, development, social media, branding, SEO, and PPC, they may be able to do it really well, but typically in my experience it’s better to go with people who specialize. Do you want somebody who does a little bit of everything kinda okay, or do you want somebody who does one thing extremely well?

If you’re looking for great UX/UI, go to a great UX/UI agency. If you’re looking for a PPC campaign, go to an agency where that’s all they’re known for. Although there are some benefits for being a Google Partner if you’re in the space of PPC or SEO, it really is a badge that validates how much money you put into Google. SEO results don’t happen overnight and neither does Google indexing.

And remember, no company has a magic bullet. They cannot guarantee specific metrics overnight. Do your research and let an expert team guide you towards achieving your goals.

In UX design, the tiniest elements on your webpage can make or break your site. The overall design, images, color schemes, and typography are all important to the user interface. These elements must support your brand voice.

Written content is no exception. Would you publish a blog on your site that had nothing to do with your brand? Would you use words in a heading that don’t convey your company’s personality? 

Your voice is unique — the copy on your website should reflect that!

Microcopy is small bits of written content that don’t occupy a lot of space on the webpage but instead guide the user through the interface. It’s an underutilized tool in UX, and a good copywriter (like the ones here at CreateApe ?) can use it to set a page’s tone, encourage users through conversion, and build a fully realized brand experience. 

Microcopy includes everything from:

• Call-to-action buttons                               
• Image captions
• Placeholder text
• Billing/shipping text
• Navigation tabs
• Error messages 
• Loading screens
• Instructions
• Search bars
• Cookie messages

Good microcopy should confidently guide users, gain their trust, and reinforce brand identity. It should also help the user understand website functions and complete tasks successfully. 

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The smallest microcopy can carry the user through your site and back again, or it could drive them away entirely. So, pay big attention to the small words!

CreateApe’s Guide to Microcopy

In our UX process, creating copy is just as important as the design and user flows. We know how to make everything on the site on-brand and user-friendly, including the words that drive conversion. Follow these steps when writing and evaluating microcopy:

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Evaluation

‍When evaluating a website, we take every single interfacing element into consideration. The first step to creating a user-friendly design is discovering pain points that slow down or stop conversion. Ask yourself these questions when evaluating microcopy:

• Is it visible?
• Is the wording ambiguous/misleading?
• Does it guide the user to where they want to go?
• Does it communicate our voice?
• Is the messaging clear and compact?
• Does the messaging inspire trust from our users?
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User Empathy

‍Anticipate your users’ needs to keep them coming back to your website. At CreateApe, we heavily rely on data and analytics, but it’s not all a boring numbers game. 

We use this information to create fictional user personas and give insight into the types of users visiting your page. User personas help us visualize and empathize with the user, creating an experience designed with a specific person in mind. A UXperience, if you will.

Ask yourself these questions to help empathize with your users:

• What does the user do on the website?
• Why are they doing it?
• How do they feel when doing it?
• How long does it take them to complete tasks?
• What, if anything, drives them away from completing tasks?
• What words and phrases speak to them?
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Voice/Tone

‍Once you get a big picture of your audience, figure out how to use your voice to guide them through your website. Write microcopy that supports your voice so the user knows they’re interacting with your brand in the conversion process.

On-brand microcopy lends uniqueness and authenticity to the overall UXperience. Consider this when applying your voice to microcopy:

• Does the user know they’re communicating with us by reading the microcopy?
• Does the copy reflect our attitude?
• Is it conversational/does it engage the user?
• Does it help the user understand how the site functions?
• Does the tone of the messaging reflect the actions?
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Testing

‍Iteration is key in ensuring your digital product is the best it can be. Test your microcopy to see if users can navigate your site, log in, checkout, and complete the onboarding process. Consider this when testing your microcopy:

• Did it direct the users where they wanted to go?
• Did it help them easily complete tasks?
• Did it drive them away at any point?
• Did it distract them from completing a task?
• Did it confuse/mislead them?

Revisit and revise your microcopy until you’re happy with it!

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So, Why Is All This Important?

By personalizing your website’s microcopy, you can subtly reinforce your brand identity and build a more personal connection with your user. When used right, it drives an effortless UXperience and boosts conversion. Keep it clear, conversational, on-brand, and aware of the user’s needs.