User Experience

User research
UX testing
Usability

What do we understand by the term UX today?

Answering this question is actually quite easy. UX, User experience is the answer to five simple questions: How, when, where, what and why someone uses a service/product.

So UX is everything that has an effect on the actions of a user/visitor.

Testing the user experience of a website/product/brand is usually a very expensive thing, but you can give the user a better "user experience" with the simplest change.

The eight steps of the UX process

Our main goal is to solve your "end-user problems", because the success of your product/website/brand ultimately depends on the ability to communicate with customers through design. The UX process is divided into three parts: User Research, Consulting and UX testing.

1. Requirements analysis

Business requirements are often clearly declared, but the user requirements remain in the background and are ignored.
But remember one thing - the users decide about the success!
We analyse the needs and wishes of your users/customers and help them to find the optimum user value for your offer.

2. Personas

At the beginning of your user research personas are indispensable because they represent the prototype of a group of users. By observing real people, we derive fictitious persons who represent the majority of your future users. This derivation helps you to better understand your target group in your product development, so that you can fall back on the information about "need" and behaviour of your personas when finding solutions.

What does the development of a persona look like?

  • Development of a rough sketch of your persona
  • Derivation of demographic information and behaviour
  • Description of the biggest problems and needs
  • Description of a possible solution with the help of the needs

Important: The differentiation of personas does not happen via demography but via needs.

3. User story

User stories are a powerful tool to see the product functionality from the user's point of view. But how do you write, when do we write and how detailed do you write the story? We show you how, when and how detailed.

But first of all we have to think about the right personas to write the right stories. There is no way around here! 

How do we proceed when we have created the personas?

  • Derive epics: Use the goals of the personas to determine the functionality of the Website/Product/Brand. Ask yourself how the Website/Product/Brand should address the user's problems and create the desired "benefits". Take the functionalities of the personas and set them as high-level stories. Now only pack the epics that support the goals of this persona among them.
  • Decompose the epics step by step into user stories: Start with a holistic but coarse description of your website/product/brand to decompose your epics step by step. You can now derive the user stories from the epics.

4. UX monitor

Why use a UX monitor?

Let us ask you the following: Are there websites that you used to like very much, but no longer, or from one day to the next? Surely you have noticed that the dissatisfaction with this website has grown and at some point resulted in averting? Exactly here we need the UX monitor. This is a question form which helps you to evaluate the dissatisfaction of your users and to act fast enough to be able to prevent the result of the prevention.

  • Measures to improve user satisfaction
  • Earlier recognition of decreasing or increasing successes
  • Influence of the individual pages or content on the whole
What do we test with the questions?
  • Usability
  • Usefulness
  • User enjoyment
  • Recommendation behaviour
  • Return
  • Effectiveness and efficiency

5. Card sorting

Optimization of the information architecture also called Card sorting.
Card sorting ensures that the navigation of a website /product/ application is user-friendly and can be optimally understood by the target group.

There are two ways to perform card sorting: Online with a tool, or offline with cards.

How do we proceed? We are a fan of offline card sorting.
  1. A list of content topics (word, phrase, specific or simple) is created. The limit is 50-60 words. This means that there may not be a map/word for each page.
  2. Now write down the most appropriate overwords for these cards..
  3. From your point of view, the cards are sorted according to related content and grouped under the generic term.
  4. The moderator has the task to document the unity of the group!
What can we find out?
  1. Are your menu names understandable for the desired menu group?
  2. Where are the contents structured from the point of view of the company but fail for the user?
  3. Do the users expect your navigation points when they search for something?
When is card sorting useful/necessary?

Card sorting is especially useful during the conception phase, i.e. when you are not 100% sure about the navigation concept. Thus, the information architecture can be optimally adapted to the needs of the user with little effort.

What do you get as a result?

The final result of card sorting is the sitemap. The sitemap/structure view contains the names, the categories and the dependencies by the umbrella term from the user's point of view. Each of your contents has found its point through card sorting, where it should be from the user's point of view.

6. UX benchmarking

How does UX Benchmarking help you?

Know exactly how your website compares to your competitors:

  • Response time
  • Success rate
  • Satisfaction of the visitor needs
  • Brand perception

What are your competitive advantages? What are your weaknesses? Identify areas where you exceed your expectations and areas that need improvement.

Gain important insights into competitor product strategies. Get metrics on how users perceive your website/brand/product and take advantage of it.

What are the product goals that will increase sales for the next release? Gain insight into the competition and establish your design. With data drive insights you will have the opportunity to develop a product that is more innovative and therefore superior to the competition.

7. Conversion optimization

How does conversion rate optimization help me?

What use is it to you to be in the top 5 in the most common search engines? This is a significant advantage compared to other shops; that's true! But what if you still have to ask yourself the question:" Why don't my sales increase significantly, even if I am shown to the searcher immediately?

Many factors can lead to this:

  • SEO
  • SEA
  • Processes too complicated

Of course, creative ideas are required, but in practice it should meet the expectations of the user.
The way to order in our example should be kept simple and lead straight to the goal. Complex ordering processes are out of place!
But let's put it this way: There is no such thing as the perfect way.
There is only the possibility to constantly increase the efficiency of the website by continuous conversion optimization!


8. Usability test

The Usability test is the ultimate method to find problems and the associated improvement potential. What do we find out with our tests?

  • Is it easy for the user to find the valuable information he is looking for?
  • Are your texts easy to read and understand?
  • Is the user easily guided through your processes?
  • Are there any abort points?

Get your website tested for usability

Testing usability is the most common way for a designer to test his design. The basis here is to test his design, brand or/and product in reaction with the user. Does the brand, design and/or product achieve the desired reaction with the user? If it does not achieve the desired success, there are two things to test for: Whether it serves the desired purpose or not, and what you need to change to achieve the desired effect anyway.

But designers only test the design, not the user!

Every design is constantly evolving. A designer conducts a usability test at every stage of the design process.