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10 steps to creating great digital products

With up to 88% of users less likely to return to a website after a bad experience, and 90% of users ditching an app due to poor performance (Toptal), can you afford to ignore the importance of UX/UI design?

Digital products, whether a website, app or membership portal, have the potential to drive growth for your business. Combine that with a user-informed design and you could see a significant boost in the number of customers you not only acquire, but retain.

With that in mind, here are 10 steps you can take to create engaging digital products that delight your customers and support your business goals.

Your road map starts here:


Jump to:

Create a great brief

Prep work

Kick-off conversations

Initial user research

Build an informed strategy

UX and UI design

Usability testing

Development

More testing!

It’s a cycle

Final thoughts


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1. Create a great brief

Design briefs lay the foundation on which you build your future project. They give agencies an insight into your frustrations and set the scene for the changes you’d like to see.

Here are some key points and questions to consider when putting your brief together:

Project overview

  • Explain the background of your project in 3 sentences or less.

  • What triggered the need for this project?

Ambitions and measures

  • What goals are you looking to achieve?

  • What metrics will measure the success of this project?

  • Who are your competitors?

Design

  • Are there any experiences that already exist that you are looking to replicate or take inspiration from?

  • Consider whether the UX agency will have access to customers and stakeholders or not.

  • Is there any pre-existing research into your users that would be of benefit to the project?

  • Are there brand guidelines that can be worked from? What about brand assets? Let the agency know whether these need to be sourced or created.

Note: this area is particularly important. It will help agencies to identify the amount of time needed to make your goals possible. It will also inform the level of research needed to understand your users or whether you are looking to bring a product up to a modern standard based on a pre-existing solution and research.

Budget and timelines

  • What budget do you have in mind?

  • What deadline are you working towards?

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2. Prep work

After you’ve agreed on a scope of work and budget based on your brief, here’s how you can prepare ahead of time to ensure your chosen agency can hit the ground running.

See how your products are currently being used by installing behaviour analytics tools (like Hotjar). Whilst we would always recommend chatting with engaged users (and doing so early on in your projects – you’ll need to refer back to them later on in the process!) first-hand observations through methods like this will always provide an unbiased answer or perspective.

“But I have Google Analytics installed!”

Great start, but you need to really make this type of solution work for you. Ensure your goals are set up, events properly triggered and traffic filtered if you have a platform serving multiple purposes, i.e. acquisition of new customers vs pre-existing customers logging in. Doing this before you start working with a UX agency means you already have data to share, based on your business goals.

Never miss a valuable insight, or pay for knowledge you already have in-house. Now is the time to gather input from internal parties and get those stakeholders involved to prevent internal politics coming into play further down the road. Don’t stop there though. Focus on teasing out information from a wide range of people across your business for a well-rounded, well-informed vision going forwards.

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3. Kick-off conversations

Any good agency will start your project off with an initial meeting. Getting face-to-face (or screen-to-screen) provides both parties with an opportunity to review the data you’ve collected during step 2 and really hash out the details of your brief even further and get everyone working towards the same goal.

Take this time to:

  • Review your user personas

  • Nail down the goals of the project

  • Look into inspiration for both the design and user experience

  • Analyse your competitors (what are they doing well and what can be done to make you stand out)

  • Explore key user journeys that support both their needs as well as your business/organisational goals.

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4. Initial user research

Carrying out in-depth research is integral in creating user-centred products. If new or updated user research has become part of the scope of work, now is the time to really formulate a clear idea of:

  • How they are using your existing product

  • What their pain points are

  • When or where are they experiencing friction during their user journey

  • How they want or expect your product to work.

This can be done using a variety of methods but we would recommend starting off with analysing current user behaviours, as seen in our User Behaviour Audit, to obtain actionable insights and recommendations.

If user research is of particular interest to you, our article ‘User research: the key to successful digital products’ discusses the reasons and methodologies in more depth.

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5. Build an informed strategy

Put that user research to good use and place the end user at the centre of your strategy!

By using the data that’s been gathered you can tilt the focus of your project towards what is most important or relevant to your audience.

Use the research to:

  • Challenge your assumptions

  • Identify preferred product features

  • Inform design and layouts

  • Understand user journeys and information priorities.

This not only provides the pathway towards a user-friendly experience but it also provides you with a framework for testing.

Adopt testing early on in your product’s journey as a failsafe. If the product you’re developing is a website, understanding the effectiveness of your site structure and navigation early on is an absolute must – we’d recommend tree testing to identify issues with information architecture before wireframes are designed.

By using data to build your strategy around your target audience, you can create a more intuitive user journey and develop a product that engages users beyond their initial interaction.

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6. User Experience (UX) & User Interface (UI) design

This is where your user really becomes the central focus of your project as you start creating customised experiences and interfaces specifically for your audience.

Here, wireframes are used to map out user journeys (UX) and your brand’s visual identity is created and applied (UI).

During this phase you should:

  • Listen to the research to decide the strategy for the overall experience

  • Fail fast using wireframes to test journeys, information hierarchy and language

  • Keep interfaces and journeys as simple as possible for quick understanding

  • Create a UI that is ownable by your brand, accessible and sets you apart from your competitors

  • Lean on proven design patterns to ensure success

  • Make space to innovate once a foundation/Minimal Viable Product has been created.

Wireframes created versus…

Designed user interface

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7. Usability testing

Now is the time for some real critical thinking! Check in with your users throughout the process to validate the design of your product and ensure the user interface compliments your UX strategy.

Usability testing involves observing users carrying out a specific task to evaluate whether a product or interface is operating effectively. It allows you to determine:

  • current pitfalls

  • what is working well

  • areas for improvement

  • points of frustration during customer interaction.

This might involve testing the wireframe through a clickable prototype, taking on feedback from users and adjusting the design where necessary.

Testing a prototype or new feature before it’s rolled out is a cost-effective approach that enables any design decisions to be made before time and budget is spent developing and marketing something new.

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8. Development

Once the wireframes have been tested, reiterated and signed off, the development phase sees your ideas, research and designs become a tangible product.

Things to consider during the development phase include:

  • Page speed: Making sure that all pages and screens load within 2 seconds to avoid customer drop-off.

  • Google lighthouse: Tools like this verify the quality of your site. Aim for high scores across metrics like performance, best practice, SEO and accessibility, to ensure the product performs at an optimal level for your users.

  • Modern development standards: Use tested, modern technology to ensure the very best options are being employed to create a smooth and fast user experience.

  • Reducing bloat: Ensure all your components – from images to scripts – are optimised. This will reduce load time and requests which will have a direct impact on the speed of the product.

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9. More testing!

Don’t let your final product launch without testing its usability first. This way you can work out any niggles and refine user journeys now to make sure that your users’ first experience and impression of your new product is a positive one.

This type of testing significantly reduces the amount of bugs which make it out into the digital world, increasing the likelihood of returning (and retaining) users. We opt to do this from the staging environment so the user experience is as designed and expected by users from day one.

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10. It’s a cycle

What we love most about UX design is that the creation process goes from being linear to cyclical. It means that you can continuously learn about your users and offer improved solutions that better meet their changing needs which, in turn, lengthens your products' lifecycle.

This cyclical approach is at the heart of our motto: "higher retention, less churn". By continuously refining and improving the user experience based on real user feedback and data, we help businesses create products that users love to come back to.

UX/UI is a cyclical design process

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Final thoughts

Creating a successful digital product isn’t a one-off task – it’s an ongoing process that focuses on the users needs throughout to keep your product and service offerings relevant.

Remember, the insights gained from user research and testing are invaluable. They not only inform your design decisions but also empower you to create experiences that resonate with your audience.

By committing to continuous improvement and remaining responsive to user feedback you not only add to the overall value of your digital products, but you build a relationship with your users that encourages them to return time and again.


For more insights see the following blog entries:

What can a digital product or service do for your business

What do you include in a UX design brief

User research: the key to successful digital products


Want to start developing a great digital product?

Book in a FREE 30 minute session with our UX Director, Jason Hancock.