So, your company has chosen to improve customer experience presenting your business online more efficiently. But how do you go about selecting the right UX agency, asks Nicholas Del Conte, of digital marketing agency Digital White.
Agency search and selection
Whether it’s a website or an app, in recent years the knowledge and expertise of how to create better online products has evolved considerably and is now considered a science more than an art.
In the words of James Jesse Garrett, a User Experience designer awarded by Wired magazine, “it has been interesting to watch the evolution of user experience”. In the course of 10 years user experience has become an essential part of product strategy and one of the factors to attribute to this change, according to Garrett, is Apple’s success. The Cupertino company is, in essence, a UX company, “they imagine experiences and then work out what are the right technologies to leverage to create the experience they want to deliver” says Garrett.
Finding a good UX Agency
When you’re looking for an agency handling your account, appealing graphics and stunning visuals shouldn’t be the only two things to look for. An intelligently designed website or app is of the utmost importance. People will not bother engaging with your product if it's difficult for them to use it. Many struggle to recognise the importance of user experience, a mistake to avoid.
“Regarding human engagement, not only how a person interacts with a service or product but what happens afterwards is important. What did they feel? What did they do? What did they tell everybody else?” asks Brian Solis, an eminent industry analyst. “What’s going to take for the decision makers to understand the importance of user experience? Is it first to understand the importance of the human being to the relationship of their business?”
Top tips for UX Agency Search and Selection
You not only need to choose the right agency but see if the team you’re hiring is competent in such a new field. Yet what to look for in a designer? Stu Collett and Odette Colyer of Super User Studio and UX Jobs Board, told Smashing magazine “It’s a balance of finding a person with the right attitude and personality, twinned with skills needed to do the actual job.” While Justin Cooke, from the Fortune Cookie agency, would look for “someone who can make the complex simple, beautiful and ever so slightly fun”.
When it comes to selecting an UX Agency, look for one that:1) Listens to you and understands your business requirements. An expert team will provide you an empathetic analysis of your customers.
2) Has a cross-disciplined team that knows how to collaborate through an holistic approach.
3) Has passion and curiosity. In this field, it is important to keep up to date with innovations and constantly evolve. A good team will always gather knowledge from any project and challenge themselves to improve in the next one.
4) Will work with both you and the end user during the process.
5) Will translate your service into beautiful, enticing and simple to use online products.
Finally, it is a good sign if the agency tells you NO sometimes. Compromising for client happiness at all costs won’t allow the agency to lead you to excellency and won’t help their team produce its best work. Clients will always want work produced faster and for less money, it’s important that the agency can manage realistically your expectations.
First impressions are important, but following these tips will help you better understand if they are to be trusted or not.
