The Often Overlooked Aspects of UX and UI Design

Five experts weigh in on the areas they feel need improvement.

In today’s digital world, the importance of user experience has never been more apparent. You have about 0-8 seconds to entice the reader before they leave, and so your website or app has a significant impact on a businesses’ sales, and indeed on customer satisfaction.

Designers need to create a unique experience across devices, customer-centric strategies, and constantly adapt to the user’s changing needs. Yet, there are still areas which are being underserved by developments in UX and UI. Ahead of the UX & UI Innovation Summit, we asked five UX/UI executives their opinion on what the industry can do to better serve consumers.

Leo Marti, Senior UX Designer, BBC Worldwide

“UX is too often seen as a way to make a digital product easy and appealing to use. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that UX can also be a strategic tool that can help sharpen a product vision and strategy. It balances the business’ needs with users’ needs.

“I also think we still have a lot to learn about design leadership. UX is a very young discipline, and only a very few people have experience managing and scaling large design teams.”

Vincenzo Zuccarello, Senior UX Architect, Aviva

“I feel that currently financial services is still seen as a beast that takes money away from people but doesn’t give it back when they need it the most (i.e. when claiming). This is particularly true when proposition pages are made shiny yet the claim aspect/process is still complicated and cumbersome to users.”

 

Andru Dunn, Senior UI Developer, John Lewis

“I think accessibility compliance is sadly still not part of every UI developer’s workflow, and as a community, those who don’t are excluding a lot of people. It’s part of the fabric of my day to day job, and I hope it becomes more of an expected standard.”

 

Tiago Marques, Senior UX Designer, Lloyds

“Technology-wise, most banks are struggling with outdated IT. Because their legacy back-end systems often impose enormous constraints on what can be created or modified, it is very difficult for traditional banks to experiment with UX, and that reflects on the end customer experience.”

 

 

Mark Shahid, Senior UX Architect, Sky Betting and Gaming

“We’re potentially missing good UX standards. In a world full of opinion and pushy boardroom meetings, UX-ers are being chased for guidelines and principles that they can gestate towards whenever they’re put in an awkward defensive situation.

“Although ISO 9241 broadly covers usability standards (in a roundabout and expensive way), UX practitioners today still need a solid yardstick to measure the effects of their hard work by. We often claim we can cause bumps in the bottom line or even more smiley faces in the surveys, but measuring success in a large organisation can be full of red tape and massive huge overhead. We’re also missing CXOs. We need more really senior UX folk, in the boardroom, at the top, having those in-depth detailed strategy and vision conversations.”

Hear from many more leading UI and UX experts at the UX & UI Innovation Summit, taking place from 12-13 June in London.

The Summit brings together 100+ UX designers, UI architects, and design experts in an intimate environment of collaboration and learning. Learn how your peers are finding success and integrating new technologies into their UX strategy.

To see the full schedule, click here. Make sure you use the special UX Mastery promo code: UXM100 for £100 off two-day passes.