UX & UI DESIGN FOR SAAS DEVELOPMENTOur UX Design Process & Deliverables
A curated collection of some of our projects. We're still catching up with our portfolio maintenance, so expect to see more case studies popping up.
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As a UX design agency, our primary goal is to gain a thorough understanding and insight. We strive to learn all that we can to develop an optimal design solution.
But first, what exactly is UX design and why does it matter?
In essence, UX design is the process of crafting a product to be useful, easy to use, and valuable. The goal of UX design is to boost user satisfaction and ensure a smooth interaction between the product and the user.
And why is it important? UX design is essential because it prioritizes the user. A positive user experience fosters loyalty to a product or brand. Additionally, a rich user experience allows for a more precise mapping of customer journeys, which is key to business success.
Trust our Design Process, we've done this many times.
Phase 1
UX Audit
Full review of your product, your business, and user goals.
Phase 2
Research
Deep dive into your niche, target users, and competitors.
Phase 3
UX Strategy
Use data to drive the strategy for your product.
Phase 4
UX Conception
Design concepts to turn your product vision into life.
Phase 5
Visual and UI Design
Develop scalable and consistent design interfaces.
Phase 6
QA & Analysis
Measure results, learn, and improve after product launch.
Phase 1
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Understand & Audit
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Phase 1 〰️ Understand & Audit 〰️
Understand & Audit
Goal: Evaluate the product to gain insights into business objectives, user needs, and technical constraints.
A fundamental principle of UX design is understanding your client. Who are they? What do they do? Where are they headed? How are they engaging with users? This is why we begin with a UX audit.
But what exactly is a UX audit?
A UX audit is a technique used to identify the weaker aspects of a digital product, highlighting which parts of a site or app are problematic.
During a UX audit, we employ a variety of methods, tools, and metrics to detect areas where a product deviates from established standards or goals.
Typically, a UX audit involves activities such as usability testing, desk research, user interviews, and more.
UX Audit
Business Goals and Requirements
Before we begin analyzing any digital product, we first need to understand your business goals and brand vision.
To achieve this, we gather and document information through desk research and stakeholder interviews. These activities help align the team on crucial aspects for the product’s success.
Here are some example questions from our stakeholder interviews:
What are your short and long-term business goals?
Who are your users?
What are your company values?
What are your product concerns?
Who are your major competitors?
What are your primary sales channels?
How do you define product success?
Part of a business goal and requirements gathering document
Part of gathering business goals and requirements involves creating a detailed document. One of our preferred methods for collecting requirements and understanding your goals is conducting a discovery workshop. This allows us to rephrase problems into opportunities, select focus areas, and generate ideas and potential solutions.
Analytics Data
After understanding your business objectives, we need to assess their real-world performance. At this stage, we dive into data to determine exactly where your product stands on the progress scale.
Different types of Heatmaps
Specifically, we seek definitive answers to questions such as:
What are your users searching for? Where are they coming from? At what point in the sales funnel are they dropping off?
We utilize a range of UX analytics tools, including Google Analytics, Hotjar, Kissmetrics, and Omniture, to transform data into valuable insights about:
User demographics
Conversion metrics
Sales data
Traffic flow and engagement
Customer care data
Heatmaps
Scrollmaps
Form analytics
Poll/form results
User testing results
All this data is then used to create personas and user journeys, which help us and stakeholders better engage with and target users.
Heuristic Evaluation
The last step of the audit phase is to conduct a heuristic evaluation. Heuristic evaluation is a method used to identify any usability issues with the design interface. In simple terms, it tests how user-friendly the user interface is.
Unlike user-testing where users test the product, in a heuristic evaluation, the product is evaluated by usability experts. Though there are plenty of criteria by which a digital product can be evaluated, the majority of heuristic evaluations utilize Jacob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design or a variation of these heuristics adapted to the project, platform or interface:
Visibility of system status.
Match between system and the real world.
User control and freedom.
Consistency and standards.
Error prevention.
Recognition rather than recall.
Flexibility and efficiency of use.
Aesthetic and minimalist design.
Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors.
Help and documentation.
10 usability heuristics
All issues uncovered during the audit phase are meticulously documented. We compile and synthesize our findings for clients, prioritize the list by impact and severity, and provide suggestions designed to deliver the best ROI based on the client’s budget and timeline.
Example of a UX Audit Report
Phase 2
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UX Research
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Phase 2 〰️ UX Research 〰️
UX Research
Goal: Delve deep into the market and, most importantly, into the minds of our users to eliminate uncertainty and guesswork.
With business objectives in focus, the next step in our design process is conducting research. As you know, research is an essential part of any design project. The research phase is the heart and soul of a project.
By using various UX research methods, such as competitive analysis, user research, and contextual inquiry, we gain valuable insights into users’ needs, behaviors, and motivations.
It’s important to note that the information gathered during this stage will shape the entire project flow. It’s like laying the foundation for a building. This is why we take extra care to ensure our research methodologies run smoothly, ensuring your building remains strong.
Here are the stages covered in the research phase:
Competitive Analysis
User Research
UX/UI Research
Competitive Analysis
The saying goes, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” When it comes to digital products, this couldn’t be more accurate.
Part of a competitive analysis
For a product to succeed, it’s essential to keep tabs on competitors. This involves monitoring what they’re doing and how successful they are.
Our job is to help you analyze your competitors and their products or services.
There are two key principles of a successful competitive analysis:
Knowing what information to look for.
Synthesizing that information into actionable insights.
Our goal is to adhere to these principles so you can fully benefit from competitive analysis:
Identify ways to solve usability problems.
Understand where your product stands in the market.
Recognize market gaps that can be utilized.
Acknowledge competitors’ weaknesses and strengths.
Validate your design decisions.
User Research Takeaways
At this stage of our UX design process, we aim to connect with users to understand their decision-making process. What motivates them to keep using your product—or stop using it? What do they consider a deal breaker when interacting with your product—or a similar one? Is there a pattern in user behavior worth investigating?
We set out to uncover these insights and communicate our findings to you. User research allows us to learn more about your users and their behavior. To conduct user research, we employ various techniques, such as surveys and personas.
User Surveys
Surveys are user research tools designed to gather extensive data about your users. While they are primarily used to collect quantitative data, they can also be used to validate qualitative insights.
Example of user surveys
What we love about surveys is their ability to generate a lot of feedback quickly and efficiently. The key to a successful survey lies in knowing what questions to ask, how to phrase them, and who to target.
In our experience, the most effective surveys are short, focused on specific topics, and include a mix of closed and open-ended questions. This approach ensures we gather sufficient context while keeping participants engaged.
User Personas
User personas are fictional characters created from research data to represent the various types of users interacting with your product, service, or brand. Typically, a persona is presented as a 1-2 page description of an archetypal user.
User personas usually include the following information:
Demographics
Background
Needs
Goals
Frustrations
Motivations
Example of user persona
The purpose of user personas is to illustrate how different users experience the same environment. They are a crucial tool in the UX design process, offering a deeper understanding of the target audience and guiding the ideation process.
We use personas as an effective user research tool to identify which user groups to target and how to approach these user types.
User Story / Jobs-to-be-Done
A user story is a brief, specific scenario outlining what the user wants to achieve by using the product. It describes basic goals such as signing up for a new account, finding the checkout, or contacting support.
Since user stories are short and specific, multiple stories are needed to align the design with users' goals. However, they are an effective way to organize and prioritize design tasks.
Implementing user stories during our design process helps us achieve three things:
User stories ensure the design is user-focused.
User stories clarify the design process to avoid feature creep.
User stories coordinate various stages of the design process.
We share our user stories through a collaborative spreadsheet where clients and stakeholders can add any stories they feel are missing.
We also use job stories to help define user tasks in product design. A job story focuses on the 'jobs that need to be done,' emphasizing context, causality, and motivation, rather than assumptions and personas.
Example of jobs to be done
Use Case
A use case is a written description explaining how users will perform various tasks, much like a design instruction manual. Each use case outlines a sequence of steps showing how the system should behave when triggered by a user.
The goal of a use case is to define the correct sequence of actions users need to complete to accomplish a task. A use case consists of the following elements:
Preconditions: Conditions that must be met beforehand.
Actor: Anyone using the system.
Trigger: An event that initiates an action.
Standard flow: The typical pathway a user takes to achieve a goal.
Alternate flow: A secondary pathway if a problem occurs.
Stakeholder: Anyone with a vested interest in the system’s behavior.
Example of a use case
This part of the research phase is crucial as it explains to stakeholders how the system will work. It also provides an opportunity for them to brainstorm additional functionalities or identify potential problems.
Experience Map
An experience map is a design tool used to observe the user’s experience with a product or service. It visualizes the entire end-to-end journey a user takes to accomplish a goal.
Creating an experience map helps stakeholders identify strategic opportunities, address user pain points, and optimize conversion funnels.
Example of an experience map
Mapping the user experience allows us to anticipate any friction in the UX before it becomes an issue. This enables our clients to organize and prioritize their activities related to user experience effectively.
Storyboards
Stories are among the most effective tools for delivering information. Using images to map the user experience enhances this further by capturing, relating, and exploring experiences in the design process. This is why we incorporate storyboards into our research phase.
A storyboard is a chronological sequence of images that visually narrate the user’s journey.
There are three main elements of a storyboard:
Scenario
Visuals
Captions
In our experience, storyboards provide additional context to both our design teams and stakeholders.
UX Storyboard
User Scenarios
A user scenario is an extension of a user story, aiming to describe a fictitious narrative of a user achieving a goal by interacting with a product. Focusing on the user’s motivations, a user scenario documents how the user might use a design in their persona’s context.
User scenarios are excellent research tools for predicting different ways users might engage with the product. We implement user scenarios during the research phase to generate design ideas. They also help identify the most important areas to test during subsequent usability testing.
Example of a user scenario
We provide a key takeaways document that highlights major research findings. Additionally, we offer all source materials used during the research phase, including interview scripts, research templates, recordings, notes, and a competitive analysis matrix. These documents assist in securing stakeholder buy-in regarding user goals and design features.
Phase 3
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UX Strategy
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Phase 3 〰️ UX Strategy 〰️
UX Strategy
Goal: Develop a robust UX strategy by synthesizing research data.
At this stage of our UX design process, we combine the data collected from the previous phases and define a set of KPIs, creating a clear and actionable UX strategy.
A UX strategy is the blueprint for the digital product. It should articulate the brand, provide guiding principles, and support the long-term vision of the business. It differs from a customer experience strategy, which focuses on aspects like customer service, sales processes, brand consistency, pricing, and product delivery.
A well-defined UX strategy consists of four components:
Business strategy
Value innovation
Validated user research
Flawless user experience
UX Strategy
The UX strategy has one main purpose – to solve specific problems. For this reason, we take extra care to ensure that the business vision, user needs, and technical capabilities are aligned.
User Experience Design
Goal: Define a design concept that aligns interaction patterns, user paths, and interfaces.
At this stage of our design process, we use a variety of methodologies to define a concept that will shape the entire design: interactions, relationships between elements, tone of voice and copy, transitions, animations, and more. Essentially, everything needed to align the product vision with reality. Here’s how we do it:
Information Architecture
User Flow
Low-fi Wireframes
Hi-fi Wireframes
Interactive Prototype
User Testing Report
Phase 4
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UX Design
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Phase 4 〰️ UX Design 〰️
Information Architecture
We use the data collected during the research phase to build the information architecture (IA) for the product. Information architecture focuses on organizing information in a clear and logical manner.
We typically present the IA using a mind map, providing a bird’s eye view of the system and showing the relationships between parts, which helps users navigate complex sets of information. In our experience, this mind mapping process is particularly effective when performed in collaboration with stakeholders.
Example of an Information Architecture
By visualizing the overall project structure, it becomes easier to understand the scope and define feature priorities. The goal is to ensure the product is more usable and intuitive for users.
User Flow
User flows visualize the steps a user takes to complete a specific task. The purpose is to illustrate the pages, logic, and actions needed to achieve the goal, while also providing developers with a detailed description of all possible user flows, alternate triggers, and errors.
We provide stakeholders with a user flow document in a design-specification format, merging screen layout designs with flowchart-like representations of user interactions within the system.
Example of a user flow
As the design progresses, we continuously update this document throughout the project’s lifespan. This allows us to iterate on the user flows more efficiently and identify any problems early in the design process.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes are the most basic visual representations of the design layout and features of the product. They are typically static and serve to map out the skeleton of the interface, including screens, user flows, and information architecture.
Example of low-fidelity wireframes
Low-fi wireframes allow us to communicate visual ideas to stakeholders, making the design concept easier to understand. This enables us to quickly act on feedback from stakeholders and users, allowing for changes to be made before further design and development take place.
High-Fidelity Wireframes
High-fidelity wireframes are more realistic representations of the final design compared to low-fidelity wireframes. They are created in the advanced stages of the UX design process and are usually interactive, mimicking authentic interface interactions.
Example of high-fidelity wireframes
Final iterations are made at this stage, with a focus on refining layout, graphics, and spacing. In our experience, high-fidelity wireframes are useful for showcasing a more accurate depiction of what the final product will look and feel like before it is finalized.
Interactive Prototype
To provide stakeholders with a realistic visualization of the product in progress, we create interactive prototypes as part of the wireframing and design processes. We use various tools depending on whether we need to test simpler or more complex functionalities.
An interactive prototype benefits the overall design process in several ways:
Brings the design to life.
Generates feedback in the proper context.
Reduces overall development time.
Acts as a reference tool for developers.
Confirms a shared vision among users and stakeholders.
Validates assumptions and tests hypotheses.
User Testing Report
We find it valuable to periodically step back and validate our assumptions and design decisions by conducting user tests with an interactive prototype.
After completing usability testing, we develop a user testing report that summarizes our findings and offers suggestions for improving the design. This document provides insights into users’ expectations and is crucial for evaluating a product’s success.
The user testing report also provides context by outlining testing goals, test setup, and user demographics.
Example of Qualitative User Testing, Moderated Usability Test
Phase 5
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Visual & UI Design
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Phase 5 〰️ Visual & UI Design 〰️
Visual and UI Design
Goal: Develop and standardize the graphical interface of the product.
At this stage of our design process, we begin developing the product’s graphical interface. We apply insights gained from users and stakeholders to design interfaces that are consistent and scalable.
All decisions regarding the visual design of the user interface are documented in a UI style guide. This guide standardizes the grid system, layout, color palette, typography, iconography, logos, and imagery.
Here are the stages we cover in the visual and UI design phase:
Moodboards
Visual Design Mockups
UI Animations
Design System & UI Library
Design Specification for Developers
Moodboards
Once we have a solid understanding of the user flow, it’s time to consider the product’s look and feel. A great way to start is by compiling a moodboard, which is a diverse collection of design inspiration. This helps us explore various options. Based on these options, we develop a look and feel that is consistent with the brand, practical, and delightful.
Example of a moodboard
Visual Design Mockups
Mockups are visual representations of the user interface. They can range from low to high fidelity, be static or interactive, and include single or multi-page designs. We develop our visual style either based on branding guidelines provided by stakeholders or by creating a style from scratch.
Example of a visual design mockup
The great thing about mockups is that they allow us to experiment with color schemes, typography, and styles to see what works best. They also enable us to make design changes quickly and efficiently.
Example of a mockup
UI Animations
We incorporate short animations into our UX design to enhance the overall presentation and interactivity of the product. UI animations illustrate key interactions, transitions, and flows within the system.
Example of some UI animations
When used appropriately, UI animations make the design stand out and guide users toward their goals. Additionally, animations and illustrations enhance user delight, which boosts retention and overall enjoyment of the product.
Design System & UI Library
A UI design system is a collection of iterative components and guidelines that explain how these components function. Simply put, it is a set of standards for design and code that ensure design consistency.
A design system includes the following components:
Part of a design system
Style and design guidelines: Icons, typography, colors, spacing, and illustrations.
UI libraries: Form design elements, images, navigation, and overlays.
Content style guide: Voice, tone, language, principles, and objectives.
Having a design system document is a powerful toolkit for our clients’ internal design teams. It enables them to maintain consistency and scalability when building new pages and adding new functionalities.
One methodology used to develop design systems is atomic design. This methodology consists of five stages that work together to create interface design systems in a hierarchical manner. The five stages of atomic design are:
Atoms: Basic elements such as form labels, inputs, and buttons.
Molecules: Simple groups of design elements that function together as a unit.
Organisms: Relatively complex components that form distinct sections of an interface.
Templates: Groups of organisms that function together and demonstrate the page’s underlying content structure.
Pages: The highest level of fidelity that shows what the interface will look like with real representative content in place.
One of the greatest advantages of atomic design is that it allows a more critical approach to the UX design process, letting us examine each component both individually and as part of a larger whole. This encourages a more consistent and scalable design.
Design Specification for Developers
Design specifications are created at the end of the design phase for use by developers. These documents provide details about the UI—such as colors, typography, and measurements—and information about the product—such as user flow, behavior, and functionality. Developers use these specifications to build the product according to the designer’s vision.
Example of design specs
In our experience, design specifications for developers are crucial to the success of the final product. While certain aesthetic choices—like fonts—might not seem significant to developers, the design specs explain the rationale behind these decisions. This ensures everyone is on the same page and developers implement the design as envisioned.
Example of a developer handoff document
Phase 6
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QA, After Launch & Implementation
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Phase 6 〰️ QA, After Launch & Implementation 〰️
QA, After Launch & Implementation
Goal: Determine if the product is producing the desired results.
Once the product is launched, it’s time to measure the outcomes. Have the desired KPIs been achieved? Have metrics shifted? Are users interacting with the product as intended? Is the product producing the desired results? These are the questions we seek to answer at this stage.
To do this, we provide clients with a correction document for developers and a usage analytics report:
UI Polishing & Correction Document for Developers
Usage Analytics Reports
Usage Analytics Report
A usage analytics report offers insights into improving the design and enhancing the user experience. It includes not just data and visuals, but also explanations and recommendations on where and why design improvements can be made.
Usage analytics
We use a variety of tools to collect new usage data and user feedback. Our goal is to provide you with a comprehensive overview of interactions, including which features are being used and by whom, how much time users spend on different pages, and observed trends in user behavior.
A usage analytics report also serves as a valuable record to assess the impact of design changes implemented by developers according to the correction document.
Bottom line
We’re committed to going the extra mile for our clients, providing designs that ensure a seamless user experience. Get real solutions to real problems. We’re here to support you every step of the way.
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