Appealing UX/UI design is the key to conversions and increasing user retention. If you doubt this, here are the numbers: design affects first impressions in 94% of website visitors. Moreover, 75% of visitors decide to trust a web solution solely based on its look.
These statistics highlight the importance of UX/UI design for product success.
UX and UI designers’ efforts alone can be insufficient. Performance matters, too. For instance, 47% of visitors are ready to wait for only two seconds for website download, and each extra millisecond only increases the bounce rate.
To execute looks and experiences that convert, designers must collaborate closely with other members of a web development team, such as front- and back-end (or full-stack) developers, QA engineers, DevOps, and maintenance specialists.
Understanding UX/UI Design
What is UX/UI design in web development? UX/UI design is the process of creating top-notch user experiences and includes five essential elements:
- strategy (UX),
- scope (UX),
- structure (UX),
- skeleton (UX), and
- surface (UX & UI).
UX design
UX design focuses on meaningful user interactions with a web product by studying user needs and problems, collecting requirements, creating user flows, determining interface and content structure, offering value-generating functionality, conducting user testing, and analyzing user feedback.
UI design
UI designers work on visuals, ensuring the website or web app looks intuitive and user-friendly. They offer page structures, organize layouts, and provide single elements such as buttons, types, contact forms, and color schemes. They can also prepare a brand book to facilitate web solution expansion.
The Role of Web Development
Because UX/UI web designers work on the vision of a web solution, they need the help of tech experts who can bring this vision to life by developing functionality, implementing changes, and ensuring service availability:
Front-end developers
Front-end developers work on the website or web app’s client side, ensuring interactivity, fast response, and a great look on different screen sizes.
Back-end developers
Back-end developers are responsible for creating business logic of a web solution, data processing, exchange, and storage, as well as solution security.
Full-stack developers
Full-stack developers can deliver both front and back ends, providing quick turnaround on small projects.
QA engineers
QA engineers carefully examine solution behavior based on identified user scenarios, check the correct work of all elements, and identify security flaws.
DevOps and maintenance specialists
DevOps and maintenance specialists set up server infrastructure, check system health, and help with troubleshooting.
How UX/UI and Web Development Synergy Drives Success
Efficient integration of UI/XU designers into the web development workflow enables closing the gap between the client’s idea of the future web solution, its visual presentation, and technical implementation.
Tight team collaboration is essential on all web development stages:
Initial Stage
UX/UI designers and web developers discuss project vision with the client, clarify single requirements that can affect the product design and implementation, and document them in project specifications.
- UX/UI designers analyze project vision and identify requirements and possible gaps.
- Web developers validate requirements and assess project feasibility.
User Research
Designers and developers work together to create a strong foundation for the future web product.
- UX designers conduct user research to identify user needs and expectations. They define goals, brainstorm user flow, and visualize ideas.
- Web developers help estimate the scope of work and timeline based on provided input and assess implementation risks.
Sharing and Editing
UX/UI designers prepare design elements, wireframes, and general layouts. Web developers evaluate implementation and offer improvements. They can also deliver clickable prototypes to help UX/UI designers examine user flow.
- UX/UI designers analyze feedback and make tweaks in user flow or layouts.
- Web developers reconsider tweaks and provide further feedback.
Usability Testing
It is crucial to provide the new web solution to real users and stakeholders for testing before full-scale development starts:
- UX/UI designers modify visuals or flow when those do not best serve the needs of real users.
- Web developers check the feasibility of changes and re-estimate the scope.
Final Design
UX/UI designers finalize the flow and visuals, making everything ready for the development stage.
- UX/UI designers update all elements, approve them with the client owner, and hand them off to developers.
- Web developers ensure they have all needed information at hand for fast-paced product development.
Development & Launch
Web developers take center stage at this step. They build a web solution based on the provided structure and layouts, and then test the source code.
Once the website is finalized and goes live, UX/UI designers and web developers work on constant tweaking to meet changing customer needs with top-notch experiences.
- UX/UI designers focus on conversion rates and increasing user satisfaction.
- Web developers ensure high performance across user devices, improve functionality, and monitor solution health.
Conclusion
UX/UI designers and web developers work on different product aspects. The former envisage product look and feel and user flow, while the latter are responsible for the product implementation.
Tight collaboration between web developers and UX/UI designers makes a difference between product success and shatter. Their synergy enables engaging, easy-to-navigate, and high-performance solutions that ensure user retention.
