Starting On the Right Foot

Software development can be a long and expensive process without a proper plan in place. Going into it blind can lead to project scope creeps, extended deadlines, and increased bugs which all make the project increasingly mismanaged. To limit, and possibly avoid, these setbacks it is important to make sure that adequate due diligence has been taken prior to embarking on your software development journey. A big aspect of keeping the development process smooth, is to make sure that you incorporate UX/UI design in your process. In this blog, we are going to discuss why it is important to complete UX/UI design prior to starting a software project:

1. Validates Your Idea

So you have this great idea that you think will be a big hit, just to start working on the project and discover that it already exists. Ouch!

As part of the UX/UI design process, you will discover potential competitors and other software projects that may be doing something similar to what you are trying to accomplish. Doing UX/UI research will help you unpack what makes your idea unique, and what other ways exist that solve the problem you are attempting to fix. By doing so, you will have a better idea of the audience you are catering to, how to speak to them in your designs, and how you can do it better than your competitors.

2. Gives a Foundation for UX Flows

As you complete your UX/UI design, you will obtain a clearer idea of how you should map out the interaction flow of the software. Proper UX flows are important as they are literal blueprints of the different screens and flows in the application. It is important to have these mapped out to ensure that the user experience is seamless, all edge cases are addressed, and that the core functionality of the interface is optimally designed. These UX flows will be used by the software developers to ensure the proper flow of interactions is implemented. If you don’t build out UX flows for your software project, you run the risk of missing out on key details that could lead to your app experience failing, which could lead to a possible rebuild.

3. Focuses Your UI Style

Now that you have the grit of the project complete, you get to focus on the fun stuff: the UI. Going through the iterative process of mocking up varying UI styles and researching UI trends are imperative to ensuring that your app looks the part. UI, or User Interface, is the look and feel of the application. It coincides with the feelings and functionality you want to portray in your app experience. It sometimes follows along branding guidelines of the entity it is designed for, but can also be something more specific to a design trend. Your UI is an extension of your UX through visual means. These visual aspects can be a simple as what color scheme you want to as deep as what color does a certain button turn into when hovered or clicked. During the UI process, you will venture to find ways to make your application accessible to the audience you are speaking to, while also using the UI to ensure the proper hierarchy of information and interactions are put in place. For example, you wouldn’t want a “Delete” button to be green, as it implies that “Delete” is a positive action.

Ensuring that your UI coincides with the user experience you want to implement is important to creating a cohesive and balanced software application, and facilitates the development of said software.

Now that you have the core elements taken care of, you are now at a good starting point to begin developing your app idea. Along the way, tweaks and changes may naturally arise but these would be kept at a minimum if you’ve done the proper UX/UI design. Most people want to skip this part of the process to save time, money, and possibly disappointment but when spending potentially big bucks to develop a product you shouldn’t cut corners—especially corners that are quite essential. Doing the proper research may seem like an inconvenient added cost in the beginning, but in the long run you will be glad that you did as it could save thousands of dollars down the line that would have been put towards fixing mistakes that could have easily been avoided. Great software takes time to be well done, which isn’t a bad thing at all. We hope this makes your software journey easier! Drop us a line here to get started with us on your app journey!