User experience is a type of design that focuses solely on how consumers interact with a given product or design.
It’s a very specific type of digital design niche that puts your consumers first.
And an agency that puts your consumers first is one that has your future growth in mind.
How To Select A User Experience Design Agency
The Best User Experience Designers Create A Range Of Digital Designs
User experience design is focused on how the product works. And in the case of professional user experience companies, these experts focus on the power your digital interfaces have on the intended audience.
They ensure that functionalities and features are appealing and engaging. These designers care about leading users on a journey that results with them making a final action — whether that be a download, an inquiry or a sale.
More than 60 percent of consumers won’t recommend a brand with a poorly designed mobile platform.
These UX designers create powerful mobile app designs, mobile-friendly websites and desktop platforms to keep your audience coming back for more.
Industry-Leading UX Designers Provide Additional Branding And Web Design Services
The best user experience designers also provide a host of corresponding design and branding services.
These additional services highlight the key features of your product and promote your brand on a broad scale so as to increase brand awareness, drive sales and give your audience a pleasing interface to interact with.
These additional services come in the form of a cohesive and comprehensive app and web development services and software support. In addition, they create key branded materials and content.
Consumers want custom content.
In fact, 78 percent of consumers say that brands who focus more on creating custom content are more trustworthy.
And in some instances, these robust UX design firms even offer marketing campaign support in order to ensure a fluid and functioning user experience across devices and mediums.
Top-Rated User Experience Design Agencies Have Costs Within Your Budget
Cost is a huge factor when it comes to choosing a UX design firm — or any firm, for that matter.
Web design and development costs are expensive. They range from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars invested — and this could be for a quick job or a long-term project.
But industry-leading UX firms don’t cost an arm and a leg. They are realistic about the specific charges for their services and they create a customized plan with your unique brand and budget in mind.
A Top UX Design Company Has A Functioning Process
Having a functioning process is key to success. You need to have a structure and a strategy in place in order to meet key deadlines and achieve results.
The best UX design firms have a strict process in place to ensure that your web design project achieves these results. There is a foundation and an outline they follow to ensure success.
For every $1 billion invested by businesses, $122 million gets wasted due to poor project performance.
But a carefully outlined project can ward off these lost dollars.
The Best User Experience Designers Have A Track Record Of Success
Past experience can shed a unique perspective on the track record and capabilities of a user experience web design firm.
When you take a look at their portfolio or work and the goals they’ve been able to achieve, you can get a better sense of the digital work they can do for you.
Similarly, this deep dive into their past can tell you just how much or little they invest in their professional partnerships.
You want your agency to be knowledgeable. You want them to care. Luckily, the best UX developers do.
Top User Experience Design Companies
12 Questions To Ask Before Hiring A User Experience Designer
Ask A Top UX Design Form How They Will Strategize And Plan Out Your Project
When you first set out to begin a UX design project, you want to know that the agency you’re working with has a strategy set in place.
This strategy will outline their timeline, their goals and how they plan on achieving them.
- How will you create a strategy and process for designing and building this website?
- What tools do you use to gather information about my brand and audiences?
- Do you have project managers that will oversee this project and keep me informed?
- Do you conduct market research or will we need to provide this for you?
- What elements go into your strategy from brainstorm to launch?
Ask A Top-Rated UX Designer How They Will Achieve Goals
You need to make sure that your partner agency has a process for setting and achieving goals.
A lack of clear goals is the biggest cited reason for failure when it comes to projects.
Therefore, ask about these UX designers’ process for goal setting and achievement.
- What goals will this new website achieve?
- What problems will this UX design solve and how?
- What goals have you had success achieving in the past?
- How do you set goals?
- How do you plan on achieving these goals?
Ask A Reputable UX Design Company How They Plan To Promote Their Designs
Once a design goes live, it needs to be promoted. Website and apps can’t just exist without some sort of marketing.
A great UX design agency will have the tools and resources to get your platform in front of the right audience. You need to ask them how.
- How will we inform the public about our new website or app?
- Do you have marketers on staff to help us promote these digital platforms?
- How much change will need to be made to other platforms and collateral?
- How can you ensure users will be welcome to the new site?
Ask A User Experience Research Company How They Will Maintain Your Designs
Maintenance is also an essential aspect of the UX design process. If you don’t have the tools in-house to create these designs, then you probably don’t have the resources to support and maintain them.
Your brand needs the help of an agency that will keep monitoring your project long after it launches.
- How will you ensure the website is well-received by the public?
- How will you capture and represent our brand?
- How will you maintain site performance?
- Do you conduct QA testing?
- How long after launch will you continue to monitor our designs?
Ask What Additional Services These Leading UX Design Firms Offer
Additional services give a user experience design agency more credibility and authority. It shows that they not only understand what users want and how to give it to them, but want to go out of their way to solidify this experience.
Ask your potential agency partner about what their strategy is for further promotion and what additional collateral they can create for your needs.
- Are there any additional services or collateral you can create?
- How will you infuse this branding across our overall presence?
- Do you have marketing capabilities?
- What can you do to ensure our website keeps working at peak capacity?
Who Makes Up The Team Of UX Designers Working On Your Project?
The Best User Experience Design Firms Have Project Managers To Oversee Your Project
97 percent of companies believe that project management is essential for optimal project performance and success.
That’s just one reason these UX design agencies employ project managers.
These key points of contact connect you with the team members working on your project. They provide key insights and information about status and goals.
They keep you in the loop and ensure your project is a success from start to finish.
Top UX Design Companies Employ Branding Experts To Create Consistency
Brand consistency is vital for business success.
Brands consistently presented see 23 percent higher revenue on average.
Therefore, the best UX design agencies need to employ these experts. They know innately what your brand is all about because they know what research to conduct.
They then take this information and help designers infuse just the right coloring, messaging and overall design that takes users on the perfect journey.
Top-Rated User Experience Design Companies Hire Copywriters For Content Creativity
That’s also where copywriters come in.
Messaging is important when it comes to the content on your website. So top-rated user experience design firms make sure to keep these wordsmiths on hand.
Knowing what to say and how to say it to evoke just the right emotions and actions is imperative when it comes to web and app design.
Therefore, they don’t mess around.
Reputable UX Design Firms Employ Web Designers And Developers To Give Your Platforms A Solid Technical Foundation
Of course, the foundation of these UX design project is the actual web design and development piece of it.
Your website needs to be built and infused with integrations that optimize it for your audience, for SEO and for the competitive landscape at large.
This means hiring designers and developers that care about how the design looks and how it functions overall.
It can’t be slow loading, unorganized or uninspiring.
It has to check all the right boxes which is what web designers and developers can achieve.
Top UX Design Firms Have App Designers And Developers On Staff For Mobile Applications
In addition to web designers, the best UX design firms also have app developers and designers on staff.
These professional experts innately understand what goes into building, testing and launching a successful mobile app.
From knowing what features to integrate to creating a journey within the app, these developers have the skills and experience to build an app that consumers use long after their initial download.
The Best UX Designer Companies Employ UX Designers That Put The User First
The user experience and overall user journey are what top UX designers are concerned with.
They care about how users interact, what they use these platforms for, and how they can make the experience even more enjoyable and pleasing.
94 percent of users will stop interacting with a site and a brand if they find the content or layout outdated.
UX designers keep these subtle features and considerations in mind throughout the experience. They will use their research, these insights and more to craft a journey unique to your brand and inspiring for your audience.
Leading UX Designers Employ QA Testers To Ensure The Digital Platform Is Ready Pre And Post-Launch
QA testing keeps consumers happy because this testing is conducted from the user’s perspective. Thus, it ensures the platforms have a great first impression and are easy to use.
This is important considering most apps tend to lose 95 percent of their users in under 90 days.
QA testing gives your brand and your app the ability to grow and adapt before you release it and even after it launches.
It allows you to add integrations and get rid of things blocking users on their journey — which results in a successful app overall.
The Best UX Design Firms Have A Streamlined Process
1. The Best UX Designers Define Their Strategy
Top UX designers define goals, target audience, mission, and core values right at the start of the process.
This is important for creating a fluid plan and brainstorm to jump off from.
With this structure in mind, these UX design professionals can lay out the web platform they plan on creating with key targets and research on hand.
2. Top UX Design Firms Conduct Research
Research is important for UX designers because it helps them further understand who your brand is, who your audience is and what your industry is all about.
They have access to top tools to track the demographics of your audience and stay on top of evolving trends.
This allows them to cater their UX design specifically to your brand so that you know you can succeed.
3. User Experience Design Companies Design The Platform
Once these designers set out on their strategy and do their research, it’s time to design the website.
This is the next step in the process. Whether creating a website, mobile-friendly platform or an app, this information is used to build a robust interface that puts the user first.
This development and design process includes:
- User flows and user experience
- Information architecture
- Feature outline
4. Top UX Designers Provide Quality Assurance Testing
Testing is an imperative step in the process.
Quality assurance is intrinsically linked to better user experiences.
It’s at this step that designers and developers can see how the app or website platform works. They can see how users interact with it and what fixes to make to keep this engagement high.
Testing can be done before and after a product is released. And it is essential for a serene user experience.
5. Reputable User Experience Design Companies Finalize And Launch Designs
At this step, UX designers ensure they help with problem-solving (design thinking), user experience, the customer journey, and more by finalizing key features and functionalities.
They provide insights through final analysis. They make sure they infuse the right integrations like chatbots, VR and more to answer questions and solve problems.
And once the design launches, more testing and monitoring takes place to keep performance at peak capacity.
6. UX Design Companies Maintain The Platforms They Design
The last step is maintaining the design once it goes live.
Websites and apps need to grow with brands and with the times. There will always be new trends, new technological innovations and insights that can change how a platform should look and app.
And technically, there will definitely be bugs that need fixing. So maintenance is vital.
5 Traits Of The Best User Experience Designer
1. The Best User Experience Design Firms Put The User First
Even a one-second delay in loading time can significantly decrease customer satisfaction.
That’s because users don’t like to wait. They don’t have patience. In this digital world, we want what we want when we want it. Most people want things on-demand.
The best UX designers understand this impatience. They also understand what key features in the form of software integrations, customer service bots and more to integrated into a desktop or mobile platform in order to give the user the experience that will ensure they come back to your platform or brand.
2. A Top UX Design Agency Understands Your Brand And Your Audience
The leading user experience design companies gather data and analytics about your brand, your target audience, your industry and your market to understand what will work on your digital platform, what won’t and why.
They do this by doing extensive research using cutting-edge tools that allow them to understand the big picture.
These professionals use their past experience, their skills as well as their knowledge about the technical landscape to then create an online platform that answers key questions and resolves consumer pain points to make for a fluid user experience.
3. Reputable User Experience Design Companies Offer Additional Brand-Building Services
The best UX design firms offer comprehensive services including branding, marketing, design, development, support and maintenance.
A website isn’t a “set it and forget it” kind of project. It requires extensive collateral building, maintenance and updating. This ensures that it is always giving your audience an innovative platform through which to interact with.
User experience designers won’t just give you a user-friendly web design and make you figure it out from there. They will create a cohesive experience across mediums and devices and provide you with the support to keep them relevant.
4. A Successful UX Designer Emphasizes The User Journey
Professional UX designers care about how users interact and feel about an interface.
Of course they do, it’s in their job title after all.
They emphasize the user journey through user testing, reviews, data analysis, consumer feedback tracking, technical problem-solving, and journey mapping.
They analyze how a user interacts with your existing design using heat maps. What does their journey look like? How long do they hover over given pieces of content? What areas do they stay away from?
With this information, they create a customized journey that is intuitive, smooth and interactive.
5. Award-Winning UX Designers Create Platforms The Communicate A Consistent Brand Message
The best UX design consultants build websites and digital platforms that communicate a consistent brand message to consumers.
90 percent of all consumers expect their experience with a brand to be consistent across all platforms and devices.
Therefore, your digital designs need to hold onto that relevancy and consistency. That’s something you don’t have to worry about with a UX designer.
They keep branding at the front of their designs, ensuring your audience is always their number one priority.
Top User Experience Design Companies
How Does The Best User Experience Designer Charge For Their Services?
Top User Experience Designers Charge For Desktop And Mobile Friendly Websites
User experience designers care about the user and their interactions with your digital platforms.
One way they interact and engage is through desktop and mobile devices.
67 percent of shoppers are more inclined to make a purchase with a brand that’s mobile-ready.
This means having a mobile-first platform and approach to web design which is a key service these UX designers charge for.
Creating a responsive design isn’t the same as creating a straightforward web design. So the best UX design agencies will take these additional tweaks and integrations into consideration when it comes time to pay.
Professional UX Design Firms Include App Design Costs In Their Pricing
Considering 67 percent of consumers own and use mobile devices, your brand needs a presence on mobile.
One way your brand can fluidly interact through this device is with a mobile app.
Mobile applications increase brand awareness, drive sales and give your brand a competitive edge in the market.
But they aren’t easy to develop, prototype, test and promote. That’s why this type of UX design will also be added on when it comes to your bill.
A Successful UX Designer Will Also Charge For Maintenance
Continued maintenance and support is another service top UX designers charge for.
These platforms need to be monitored and maintained. Bugs need fixing, integrations need adding. It’s a lengthy process.
But it’s one that will ensure your app and digital platform are constantly evolving and innovating. This aligns your brand as a leader and one your consumers can trust.
Why Your Brand Needs To Invest In UX Design
“Good user-experience just makes sense”... and 95 percent of users agree.
That statistic shows that users understand what works and what doesn’t when it comes to design.
It also shows that design makes an impact on their buying decisions.
Therefore, investing in a top UX design agency will put your brand on the path to increased leads, conversions and sales because it is giving your consumers exactly what they want in the digital space.
Compare the best user experience design companies in the Agency Listing Table above.
