How to Chose the Right UI/UX Design Services Company

Intro

When people go on dates, interviews, or to meet their in-laws, they always take special care to look their best. They know, like anyone else, that the most important impression is the first one. It takes only a few seconds to leave a mark that could last forever.

As it concerns your business, what your customers see first will be your UI/UX design. This is the bedrock of how they interact with your website and app and is the basis upon which they will first judge your company. It only stands to reason that your UI/UX design services decide how many people give your company a chance.

If you are on the lookout for a UI/UX design services company, there are a few things to pay attention to. Keep reading as we discuss how to choose the right one.

What Is UI/UX Design?

The terms UX and UI get thrown around a lot, but many people might struggle to define them. In the simplest terms, this is the emotional, visual experience a customer has using your website or app. UX and UI are not the same thing, but they are two sides of the same coin.

What Is UI Design?

UI design stands for User Interface. When you visit a website, you need a way to interact with it. Therefore, the UI is the buttons, input controls, organisation of information, and informational elements.

Let’s use YouTube as an example. When you visit your YouTube homepage, you get a list of recommended videos. You can select videos to watch, add them to Watch Later lists and find curated sections for specific categories.

The UI is how YouTube looks, how you interact with videos and everything in between. UI is as much the three-dot info button as it is the playback controls within the actual video.

These are graphical elements that your UI UX design services craft by hand. And as you may have noticed, they all adhere to a strict design theme. That’s why you can easily tell YouTube apart from any other video hosting website.

Why UI Matters

UI isn’t just there to look pretty. It’s meant to be a powerful user interface that people can understand without explanation. After all, one of the key elements of good design is that anyone can intuit how to use it.

Unintuitive designs can frustrate people. This gives them the incentive to leave your website and never return. Conversely, excellent UI is a joy to use and requires little experimentation on the user’s part.

What Is UX Design?

It’s easy to get UI and UX confused because of the acronyms. UI stands for User Interface, but UX stands for User Experience.

Unlike a UI designer, a UX designer isn’t creating main menus or interactive buttons. Instead, they’re taking these design elements and making them work together for maximum impact. The end result is a cohesive, narratively consistent whole that makes customers feel good.

A UI/UX design services company often has these teams working together. UI designers create a cohesive visual theme, and UX designers decide how customers will experience it.

Think of an Apple product page. It allows you to scroll through a dynamic advertisement for a specific product. When scrolling, people feel a sense of style, luxury, and allure from the sleek metallic finishes and brilliant screens.

This is a perfect example of UX. UI UX design and development services craft a visual experience that lingers with customers for a long time.

How to Choose UI/UX Design Services

Alright, so let’s get to the big question of the hour: which UI/UX design services company is up to the task? After a cursory Google search, you will find a hundred competitors who will take your money. Here are a few tips on how to vet them.

Study Their Portfolios

A UI UX design services company will be loud and proud about their previous work. This is a cut-and-dry example of what they’re capable of. Resumes aren’t always that useful for art-related fields, so a visual example is the next best thing.

You want to make sure that they are versatile. If you notice a common theme among all the designs, that could be a hint that this design team cannot think outside the box and venture beyond their own speciality. But if every design looks entirely unlike the next–and looks good–you ought to grab their business card.

Check out their list of previous clients, too. Be on the lookout for testimonials and websites you can visit for yourself. You may just discover that this particular UI team has worked with big-ticket clients in the past.

Slick’s portfolio on Dribbble 

Prioritise Diversified Expertise

A UI UX design services company has a lot more on their plates than just creating pretty buttons. They ultimately transform your site map into a fluid navigational experience. What’s most important here is that they can map a user journey through your brand and your products.

Obviously, there’s a lot that goes into crafting the interface and experience, far more than just the graphic design part. So as you hunt for a team, make sure they can rise to any task that you give them.

Make Frequent Communication a Necessity

The process of designing and mapping your UI/UX experience is one that happens in stages. It begins with the early concepts, planning, and then moves on to testing and execution. There are alpha, beta, and final stages, whether this is a website or mobile UX design service.

The point is this is a multifaceted process that may go on for months. You need a company that will keep you in the loop from day one until launch. The last thing you want is one that goes AWOL and fails to answer your correspondence promptly.

Further, you want a company that knows how to work with its customers. Little miscommunications can lead to massive misunderstandings that waste your time and money.

You want to have the confidence that the UI UX design service that you hire can comprehend your needs. They should be able to bring these needs to fruition without needing you to hold their hand the entire time.

Make Sure You Jibe with Them

Good communication is great, but do you get along with a potential partner? If you went out to lunch with them, would it be a positive experience or a stiff business interaction?

This might seem like a silly thing to consider, but business partners should be people you can trust. Part of building that trust is getting along. Plus, it will grease the wheels for any disagreements or arguments that may come along the way.

Consider Hiring a Smaller Agency

It’s easy to allow yourself to be cajoled by the big UI/UX design and development services. They have bulky portfolios and snappy websites with a huge list of testimonials. But what they don’t have is a personal touch and attention for individual clients.

If there’s one thing that describes large companies well, it is this: they’re impersonal. When you put your projects in the hands of a large company like this, you know in the back of your head that they’ll treat you like a number. Another statistic in their sales report rather than a group of living, breathing human beings.

Smaller agencies have a smaller client base and can give more attention to each account. You know that you are going to get correspondence from real people instead of boilerplate advisory emails. A smaller firm has more to lose, and so they’ll treat your project more seriously.

Ongoing Support

Have you ever noticed how app logos and UI elements seem to change on a regular basis? This is intentional as an effort to make things look fresh and enticing. Companies order redesigns, sometimes on a monthly basis.

This is only one example of how your UI and UX design services may refresh and renew your design over time. If it isn’t redesigns, then it’s adjustments to fix errors and streamline processes.

It’s good to have the same team that designed a website or app on call. They were the ones who built it, so they’ll know best how to fix it.

Find the Right UI/UX Design Services for Your Company Today

In our digital age, where everything is online, you need UI/UX design services that can meet your needs. If you’ve never hired someone to do this sort of work for you, it can be a daunting task if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Keep the above tips in mind as you begin your search, and you will be just fine.

At Slick, we make sure your company’s design rises above all the rest. Take a look at what services we can provide for you.