24 May, 2019

UX Company vs Web Design Company: How do they differ?

Web designers were the only person you could probably go to, if you needed a good looking website, with a great design, a decade ago. However, with technological advancements moving in, today we have UX designers, UI designers, UX engineers, Design thinkers, Production designers, Instructional designers, Service designers, Visual designers and so on, just to ensure you have a good looking, attractive and customer engaging website, that will attract a huge customer base and push you ahead in the competition.

Web designers

Web designers design websites. This is true even today. However, today it is not sufficient enough for a web designer to offer the look and feel of the websites and mobile apps, that attract customers and has the capability to uplift the face of a website, making it stand out prominently in the increasing competition.

UX designers

This term was coined a few years ago by Don Normann. UX design focuses on elevating the experience of the customers, while using mobile apps and websites, to a whole new level. UX design is much more than a website designed without any flaws. UX designers focus on offering more. They offer unexpected experiences to the customers, to make it more engaging and engrossing. This whole new experience focuses on each element of the website or mobile app, rather than the entire website. UX designers use animations as well as microinstructions extensively to ensure exclusive experiences offered to the users.

Interaction designers

As the name suggests, interaction designers are experts in offering seamless interactions between the machine and the humans. They elevate how users interact with the interface of the mobile app or website and how fulfilling are the interactions for the customers. Interaction design also includes the voice-controlled interaction with the mobile app or website, where the customers can use voice control to use the app, instead of touch and swipes.

Product designers

UX designers who work on the design of products are often given a different name of product designers. For example, Google Chrome is a popular browser, used globally. However, it is a product and technically a website. Most of the UX designers are Interaction designers as well as product designers, hence often categorized under the category of UX designers.

UX company vs Web design company- the difference

The workflow at a web designing company is as below:

1. Meeting with the web designing company
2. Explaining your requirements
3. The designers write down the list of features and content types of your website
4. A sitemap diagram is created to show how the content is broken down into various pages
5. Once you agree with the sitemap, the designing phase starts
6. After the first design is done, you provide your feedback and based on that further modifications can be done
7. Once the design is completed, it is passed on to the developers for building codes

The workflow at a UX company is as below:

1. Meeting with the UX designers
2. Understanding your requirements through brainstorming and your active participation
3. During these sessions of brainstorming, the UX designers take a closer look into your business model, target audience, the technologies that you intend to use and other intricate details
4. The UX designers also try to take a deeper insight into your goals and mission
5. UX designers go through the whole customer journey of your website and offer suggestions and scopes on improvement in every phase
6. Once these initial brainstorming sessions are over, UX designers start with the prototype, helping customers to get the look and feel of the actual product that will be made
7. As usability testing is done, you, as a client are also invited to participate
8. During these testing sessions, your feedback is taken into consideration and this process of iteration continues until you are satisfied
9. Once the prototype is completed and easy-to-use interface is designed and approved, the final UI/UX screens are designed
10. After the design phase, it is handed over to the developers

The main difference between the workflow of the UX company and web design company is in the variations in the involvement of the client. Designing of the prototype also makes a significant difference. UX designers are more customer satisfaction oriented and focuses on personalized services and offerings to the customers. They ensure to offer customer-oriented engagements, thus making the website and app designs more competitive and customer engagement.