User experience design (UX design) is essential in today’s digital world. It’s no longer enough to have a functional website or app. A great user experience makes your digital products intuitive, enjoyable, and effective. Whether you’re building a new product or optimising an existing one, understanding the principles of UX design can significantly impact user engagement, satisfaction, and business outcomes.

Investing in user experience design brings significant benefits to your business. Here’s how:

• Increased Conversions: A user-friendly interface encourages users to take desired actions, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.
• Higher User Retention: A seamless experience makes users more likely to return to your product.
• Lower Support Costs: A well-designed product reduces confusion and support requests.
• Improved Brand Perception: A positive user experience values trust and strengthens your brand’s reputation.

Research states a UX development budget by 10% can lead to an 83% increase in conversions.

Common UX Mistakes to Avoid

Even the best designers can make mistakes. Here are a few common UX pitfalls to watch out for:

• Inconsistent or Broken Experiences: A product that doesn’t work well across different devices or platforms can frustrate users.
• Confusing Navigation: Overly complex menus or deep navigation trees make it hard for users to find what they need.
• Mandatory Account Creation: Forcing users to sign up before they can try the product can be a turn-off.
• Information Overload: Too much content without a clear hierarchy can overwhelm users.
• Ignoring Mobile Users: Failing to optimise for mobile devices is a huge oversight, especially considering that more users are browsing on smartphones.

In today’s digital landscape, user experience design is more important than ever. By investing in research, prototyping, usability testing, and accessibility, businesses can create digital products that not only meet user needs but also deliver positive, delightful experiences. Good UX design leads to happier users and better business results.

If you want to improve your UX design or learn more about effective strategies, consider exploring more articles and resources on UX best practices.

Design Thinking in Complex Systems: How UX, UI, and Interaction Designers Each Play a Distinct Role

In today’s most complex environments—healthcare, logistics, finance, defense—digital tools are not just apps or dashboards. They’re decision-support systems. They must align with workflows, meet regulations, and serve expert users under pressure. That’s why design thinking is critical. It offers a human-centered, structured approach to solving problems that affect real lives.

But within that process, different design roles contribute in different ways. While terms like UX, UI, and interaction design are often used interchangeably, they reflect unique skill sets and responsibilities, especially in the context of complex system design.

Let’s walk through the design thinking process—and clarify how UX designers, UI designers, and interaction designers each bring value at every step.

Phase 1: Discovery

Understanding People, Workflows, and Problems Before Building Anything

This first step in design thinking is about empathy: observing, listening, and learning about the people using a system and the context in which they operate.

• UX Designer’s role:
  UX designers lead this phase. Their focus is on understanding the user’s journey, pain points, and motivations within the broader system. In a hospital, for example, this might mean shadowing nurses or mapping the end-to-end flow of patient discharge to identify friction points.
• Interaction Designer’s role:
  Interaction designers begin to shape mental models of how users make decisions, move through systems, and transition between states. They sketch early flow diagrams or interaction maps based on field observations.
• UI Designer’s role:
  They may help visualize research findings or assist in making research reports more apparent, but they are not yet focused on screen design.

The Discovery phase is about uncovering user needs and system realities—not visual design.

Phase 2: Ideate

Generating Ideas and Concepts Grounded in User and System Insight

Once the problem space is well defined, it’s time to brainstorm solutions. The ideation phase explores a wide range of possibilities—ideally without jumping to finished designs too early.

• UX Designer’s role:
  UX designers frame ideation sessions using personas, scenarios, and user needs uncovered during research. They help define constraints (e.g., regulatory rules, user roles, or data flows) so that ideas remain practical.
• Interaction Designer’s role:
  They sketch possible workflows, decision trees, and behaviors—how the system should respond to user actions, how states change, how one screen flows to the next. They prototype interactive sequences, not just static screens.
• UI Designer’s role:
  UI designers may join ideation sessions to begin thinking about layout, hierarchy, or visual affordances. However, their core contribution comes in the next phase.

Ideation is where the “what ifs” get shaped into concepts.

Phase 3: Develop

Prototyping, Testing, and Iterating to Explore Viability

This is where ideas become testable. In complex systems, prototypes often simulate decision points, data inputs, alerts, and task flows.

• UX Designer’s role:
  UX designers help structure usability testing. They work closely with domain experts to ensure the prototype captures the real-world task accurately. They’re asking: Does this design actually help the user do their job better?
• Interaction Designer’s role:
  Interaction designers focus on the logic of flows. They refine the timing, feedback, transitions, and contingencies within the system. Their work often includes wireframes or clickable prototypes that simulate behaviour, even before visual design is applied.
• UI Designer’s role:
  UI designers take rough wireframes and bring them to life. They apply design systems, visual hierarchy, typography, accessibility principles, and interaction cues (e.g., button states, visual feedback). They ensure the system is not just usable, but intuitive and visually coherent.

In development, each designer works in parallel—refining the experience from different angles.

Phase 4: Implement

Building and Evolving the Final Product

Design thinking views implementation not as a final step, but as a continuation of learning. In complex domains, the solution must be tested, adapted, and supported in the wild.

• UX Designer’s role:
  UX designers continue to gather feedback from real-world usage. They work with product managers, engineers, and users to adjust features based on outcomes and evolving needs.
• Interaction Designer’s role:
  Interaction designers collaborate with developers to ensure the behaviour of the system aligns with the intended experience. They help translate flows into functional specifications and test edge cases.
• UI Designer’s role:
  UI designers partner with front-end engineers to ensure fidelity to the design system. They refine visuals as the product moves from staging to production—fine-tuning, spacing, responsiveness, and accessibility.

Implementation isn’t just handoff it is a collaborative effort.

Quick Summary: Who Does What?

Final Thought: Designing for Complexity Is a Team Effort

In simple apps, the lines between UX, UI, and interaction design may blur. But in complex systems, the differences matter. Each role adds a distinct layer to the final product:

• UX designers make sure the product solves the right problems.
• Interaction designers make sure the system behaves the right way.
• UI designers make sure the product looks and feels right to use.

Together, they transform insights into interfaces—and complexity into efficiency.

Artificial Intelligence, AI Driven UX helps to design useful digital products or services.

Improve Machine learning, NLP, Computer vision, or AI through UX design. With potential to better personalisation of data, efficiency and monetisation. Help user’s get their needs from AI and meet your business goals by adding added value through UX design. Here we explore basic principles and strategy’s for helping you monetise.

Principles

Get to know and understand the users

User Research helps to identify users needs, preferences and pain points. Build a delightful experience for the user of your digital AI product or service.

Trust

Building trust in use of a product or service is paramount. Provide users with control over their data and ability to customise any interactions.

Personalisation

Improve your conversion rate and deliver targeted content or features for a personalised experience.

Improving on our previous product:

Provide a way to regularly feedback to enhance your product or service lifecycle. Update or enhance your product with new features or content.

Strategies

Ramp up those Product Offerings:

Build features or premium offerings the users will want to pay for such as:

• Advanced analytics
• Personalised AI coaching, Chatbot help using Conversationalist AI
• Exclusive content
• One off collaborations with other brands.

Consider a Subscription based Model

• Allow users to choose levels of AI integration suiting their goals. Use a Subscription-based pricing for AI-driven features.
• Offer free trials of your product to your user base.
• Use Tiered Models a User can choose with a range of packages.
• Use freemium models with a basic version or reduced feature set of your product or service. This helps to attract users and prove the value of premium content or features.

Data-Driven Insights

• Use AI for analysis of user behaviour and preference.
• Marketing strategies
• Product development
• Provide insightful improvements to existing customer service strategies.
• Use aggregated data gathered by AI for market research and strategic planning.
• Use predictive analytics

Advertising, to suit your audience:

• Deliver targeted advertising with AI in your digital product or service.
• Ads should be non-intrusive, and enhancing.
• Partner with brands for sponsored content that is of the user interests.

Ai’s efficiency and Cost savings though UX:

• AI improves operational efficiency through automation of repetitive tasks.
• Competitive pricing can help the users to save on cost. Reinvest saved costs to enhance UX further.
• AI-driven efficiency will help to provide a user with better cost realisation. Navigate potential hazards of data analysis on a large-scale. Improving ROI something to shout about in your marketing.

UX basics

The UX business canvas

What no one tells you about User research

UX Design definition:

UX is for creating products and services providing meaningful and relevant experiences. 

User Experience Design (UX) enhances interaction between a user and a digital product or service as part of the experience of a brand or organisation.

What User experience designers use to create UX Design (UX)

Effectiveness: 

• The product or service UX enables users to achieve goals when using a product or service or to complete a task.

Efficiency: 

• Ensuring users accomplish goals with minimal effort. This helps reduce the number of steps to complete a goal or task.

Learnability: 

• Is the product or service easy to learn? Is it possible for the user to get through a basic task? How fast can the user understand the controls needed to work with the interface (UI).

Memorability: 

• How well users recall how to interact with a product or service after some time. 

Accessibility:

• Design products or services accessible to everyone meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). 

Interaction Design: 

• Designing for the user’s behaviour when interacting with a product or service.

Information Architecture: 

• Organisational structures that are clear and concise to help users efficiently find information and complete tasks.

User Research:

• Involves understanding user behaviours, needs, and motivations through techniques like observation, and task analysis and methods including interviews, surveys, usability testing, and analytics. However a combination of techniques maybe used to reach a conclusion.

Aesthetic Design: 

• Enhancing the aesthetics of design with suitable images, typography, space, layout, and color. This supports the overall user experience and brand identity for both UI/UX.

Prototyping and Wireframing: 

• Low-fidelity (wireframes) and high-fidelity (prototypes) of a product or service to test ideas.
• Allows for early testing and validation of design concepts.

Goals of UX Design

User Satisfaction: 

• Is the product enjoyable and satisfying to use?

Efficiency: 

• Users may achieve objectives quickly and easily.

Effectiveness: 

• Does the service or product do what it is intended to do?

Engagement: 

• Creating a compelling experience that encourages users to continue using the product.

UX Design Process

Research:

• Understand user needs and problems.

Analysis:

• Interpreting data collected during research to identify key insights and areas for improvement.

Design:

• Design solutions based on research findings then Sketch, wireframe, prototype. Working with developers and product owners to bring a design to life.

Tests:

• Usability test to identify issues and areas for improvement.
• Iterate tests through regular feedback processes.

Tools 

Sketch, Figma, Adobe XD, InVision, Axure, UserTesting, Google Analytics, Miro, Trello

UX basics

Our top ten UX skills

The top 7 User experience mistakes

A quick guide to what the user experience designer does

UX Design definition: UX is for creating products and services providing meaningful and relevant experiences. 

Projects we love them and we often get asked what are our top UX skills that we use regularly. So here are our top 7:

User Research: Understanding user behaviour to gather valuable insights to inform on the design process.

For more about UX, or a no obligation consultation, please get in touch with us today on 07858110704, or email info@ixdlab.co.uk.

Get inspired with some of our favourite UX quotations! We use them for brainstorming sessions, or for inspiration on projects in our consideration of how users feel, and use an interactive product.

We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better. –

Jeff Bezos

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. – 

Bill Gates

It takes no skills to make something crappy. Skills are only required to make something great. – Jared Spool, Founder at User Interface Engineering

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”Steve Jobs

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” –Albert Einstein

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Strange, strange things… At ixdlab_ we aren’t convinced that Chatbots can fully replace a trained human employee entirely.  We do believe they offer business added value in supporting out of hours contact, or brilliant for handling regular simple tasks like applying a flag to customer bank accounts that the customer is using a card in another country. They can be useful for answering customer queries on delivery dates for ordered goods, or to help identify and apply voucher savings on a range of products for promotional reasons. 

Building a Chatbot to successfully respond to every customers query isn’t without its challenges. Researchers currently predict that within the next five years 70 – 90% of customer queries will be successfully dealt with by Chatbots, the resulting cost saving making Chatbots worth considering. 

So how do you work out how to construct a useful and successful chatbot?

1. Work out what questions your customers ask on a frequent basis.

This could range from simple queries:

• Delivery times
• Shipping addresses 
• Order status 
• Onboarding 
• Updates to pricing 
• Discount

and simple tasks

• Changing a PIN number 
• Applying a discount to the right product 
• Password resets 

2. Work out how many of the regular queries answered by your staff can be directed to the chatbot

Time savings for your staff answering customer contact queries and completing simple tasks can be measured over a typical day, week, or month. So if a member of staff regularly addresses the same queries in say the average industry time of 10 minutes for responding to a customer query with a specified time period then it is possible to benchmark the most common queries and work out an average cost of handling responses.

3.  Chatbots have problems recovering from incorrect input by customers or deviation off topic

Chatbots often work on linear scripts that have very specific steps. It’s better if the design of the Chatbot is far more flexible, and adaptive to identifying changes in request for what the Customer wants. This is not however without issue. Designing a Chatbot which can identify context of query is better than designing with a tightly scripted linear type script which is too inflexible to adapt to customer changes. Other ways to compensate for incorrect input is to show the Chatbots menu to the customer to help resolve a query.

Typos and indirect questions can also challenge the Chatbots responses. So make sure that a design compensates for these eventualities and has flexibility in the interpretation of contexts from the customers answers.

4. Sometimes understanding between customers and company Chatbot need a little help.

If all other routes to answer a customers query become too over complex. Provide alternative contact to the customer such as a phone number, access to a human being, or a reasonable alternative. 

5. Never hide the fact from the customer that they are conversing with a Chatbot 

Avoid the frustration of the customer by making it obvious that contact is with a Chatbot initially. If the customer of the chatbot cannot find the right answer put them in contact with an actual customer advisor, but advise the customer before you transfer the conversation. 

That by designing flexibility into a Chatbots scripts and into the design of its responses in context of a customers query can prove to be a valuable addition to your business strategy. Despite the problems with a Chatbots high interaction cost and the questions around spending more on a website or app to avoid the need for a Chatbot they still are useful for providing coverage 24/7 for simple queries and tasks. They can also lessen the distractions associated when a customer is making a purchase.
Chatbots have potential to improve on the return on investment for your company so that you and your staff can concentrate on the less mundane aspects of customer support. 

Improving User Experience with IXDLAB

At IXDLAB, we help the world’s top brands to create digital experiences that work for their users. From user research and design, to evaluation – our UX experts will ensure that your digital products are right for your audience.

For more about UX, or a no obligation consultation, please get in touch with us today on 07858110704, or email info@ixdlab.co.uk.

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

Here are some of our top ten tips for working at home.

1. Meetings.

Stuck for a way to have a meeting with more than one person? Use Google Hangouts, or Zoom for meetings. For a more personal approach try Skype.
Always, always have a decent suit jacket to reach for if the occasion arises.

2. Its lunchtime. I do sport or go to the gym.

For those of us sporty types, an online class or two for yoga or pilates is enough to while away an hour. Check your gym for online classes. Use ‘Youtube’ to find a pre-recorded exercise class session. We recommend les mills online but don’t do bodypump in a confined space!

3. I’m Wanting to Network!

Try an online community boasting a pub, a beauty salon, a gym, the kids club, the travel clinic at the virtual village. Startup or Entrepreneur? try Startup nation , use twitter hours to network and advertise your business. Join your local chamber of commerce, or the yorkshiremafia but remember no hard sell!

4. Productivity apps

Worth checking out for writing documentation as an alternative word processor is Grammarly. Grammarly has the ability to store documents. It offer’s targeted content tonality checks. This means you can tell if your writing is ‘friendly’ to your audience. It is also lightweight for use in the browser.

5. Space

Find a decent sized workspace when you can sit unhindered by life’s distractions. Yes. Right! Okay, okay i hear you. If your fighting for workspace with your cat, your housemate, or your family try this approach. Create an uncluttered area in your home which is off-limits to them between normal working hours. Remember that the understairs cupboard won’t do if your in IT and don’t forget that you still need a source of light.

6. Lists

List everything you need to do at the start of the day, get a schedule, or get alexa to remind you. This helps you to focus on what needs to doing. As opposed to how many jobs in the house need doing.

7. Get a break…..

Normally we would suggest going for a long walk at lunch. Unusual but valid approaches to this include using a running machine for a ten-minute walk in the house. Getting up to have a cuppa and a few biscuits. Or doing something completely different.

8. Call people…

That’s right call them just to say hello if you are missing your office social life, or even skype them for a chat.

9. At some stage you will get distracted.

If you can stop distractions like tv, and neighbours calling round. Distractions like dog’s attacking next doors prize Persian cat, and foibles like inappropriate social media memes aren’t always solvable. If this happens don’t worry! Move on. Nothing to see here. But do block your work colleague responsible for memes from social media accounts, and put the dog on a leash eh.

10. Logging off

Don’t forget to keep to your normal working hours. So if the working day clock stops at 5pm you log off, if it starts at 9am you start or log in too. Try Clearing your desk afterward so your house gets back to a home!

Companies that allow remote work have 25% lower employee turnover than those that don’t. (Owl Labs)

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Whether it’s your website, app or software – great usability and UX design is an essential part of the package.

It doesn’t matter how amazing the ideas, features or designs are, if your customers can’t use it, don’t enjoy using it, or don’t understand it!

In this post, we explore the top 7 things customers hate about UX (and how to create digital experiences customers will engage with).

1. The system doesn’t work as it should

People hate it when things don’t work!

If customers can’t use their preferred browser or device to access your website, web apps, mobile apps or software – they won’t use it!

Users dislike being limited to using a specific browser or device and in 2019, they shouldn’t have to. It’s up to businesses to create ‘device agnostic’ experiences. This means that whatever you make, you need to ensure it offers full functionality, and looks the same on every platform.

2. The product isn’t made for them

If your experience doesn’t connect with your customers’ values, expectations and limitations, they won’t like it. You need to make users feel as though your digital experience has been made for them, with their needs in mind.

Before designing anything, it’s essential that you get to know your users. You need to understand exactly what they want from your product or service. It’s important that you understand their expectations, behaviour, motivation and goals. Investing in user research and creating clear customer personas is the best way to ensure your experience is right for your audience.

3. The website or app asks for too much information (the customer journey disrupted)

Customers are using your product or service for a reason. Let them use it!

Too many websites and apps bombard new users with unnecessary barriers. These include unexplained permission requests, forced account creation, newsletter signup prompts, excessive terms and conditions and suggested setting changes.

These are likely to frustrate users and make them suspicious of your intent. This is especially true if they’re encountering your business for the first time online and don’t know whether they want to use your product or service.

Remove barriers wherever possible and make it easy for your users to get straight to the value.

4. The navigation is confusing or unclear

If your users can’t find what they are looking for, they are going to go elsewhere.

Dead ends, poor organisation, broken functionality or ‘creative’ navigation) won’t do you any favours.

Clarity, ease and simplicity matter and the best digital experiences provide an easy to follow journey for users. Your users should be able to find the information or functionality they want in as few steps as possible. Applying the right information architecture principles to the design is the best way to achieve this.

As a general rule, navigation should have a specific number of categories. These should be listed in a logical manner, such as alphabetical order. The navigation should work for everyone, whether they are using touchscreens or traditional laptops and desktops.

5. There’s too much information (information overload)

The average human attention span is around 8 seconds.

If you fill a screen with too much information, you risk confusing or overwhelming users. The risk is that they lose interest and go elsewhere.

The solution is to keep things short, simple and clear. Your users need to be able to find what they are looking for – whether it’s specific information, instructions, calls to action, or buttons.

6. There’s too many features

Less can be more!

When it comes to apps and software, the temptation is to try and fill screens with as many features as possible. This can overwhelm and confuse users (especially new ones).

User experience testing often reveals that people prefer products that focus on a limited selection of features. Take time to prioritise and research what matters most to your users. This will ensure you’re focusing on the features they want.

7. It’s full of jargon!

Did you know that the average reading age in the UK is about 9 years old?

Language matters – and industry jargon and complex terms can be a real turn off for your users. When creating experiences, it’s easy to use insider industry terms and complicated tech speak.

Always communicate in language that your users understand and are comfortable with. Creating personas and investing in user experience testing will help you to get this right.

Improving User Experience with IXDLAB

At IXDLAB, we help the world’s top brands to create digital experiences that work for their users. From user research and design, to evaluation – our UX experts will ensure that your digital products are right for your audience.

For more about UX, or a no obligation consultation, please get in touch with us today on 07858110704, or email info@ixdlab.co.uk.

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

Facebook’s Libra is a ‘Permissioned blockchain digital currency’. A higher degree of security is built into this peer to peer network so new computers being added into the network have to be pre-authorsied to join. The present Blockchain of Bitcoin, uses a permisionless Blockchain which some argue is still as secure as pre-authorisation that Libra intends to transact using. Libra is trying to be seen as more security conscious. Libra also hides transactions, or obsfucates these similar to Cryptocurrency ‘Monero‘. The idea being that only members of the Libra network can analyse, and extract info from the distributed ledger so the network is closed and transactions unlike Bitcoin cannot be viewed. Libra however is not ‘decentralised’ and is ‘permission based’, and offers the ability to generate ‘Smart Contracts’.

Libra unlike Bitcoin does not rely on mining to generate coins. Libra has a permissioned proof of stake system which allows a network to receive distributed consensus on a transaction, via random selection on the stake, which could be wealth, or age, as opposed to ‘Mining’. So the more ‘Coins’ you own, the more power you have with the proof of stake system. Even as a Bitcoin miner you need to stake at least an amount to mine a block.

Libra has an impressive list of name companies, and backers on board known as the Libra Association. Visa, Uber, Paypal, and Andressen Horowitz are all involved in developing this new payment technology.

It is expected that libra will be policed by facebook to remove fake libra related sites. Regulatory issues, have placed Libra under the spotlight as cryptocurrency, and digital currencies generally seen as a ‘huge risk’ to financial stability. All agree these type of developments are ‘inevitable’, particularly the US. Facebook has at present over 1 billion users on its platform. Stats for end of 2018, fourth quarter, showed facebook, without its cryptocurrency in use had 2.32 billion monthly active users worldwide. One admittance about the technology is it cannot right now deliver necessary scalability to support billions of people using a Cryptocurrency.

Libra is expected to be incorporated into Facebook within the next 18 months causing concern with legislators. Reportedly an ‘anti-trust’ probe is now being launched by EU regulators, concerned that libra shuts out competitors. Facebook Libra’s, main rivalry is Binance ‘Venus’.

Despite these teething problem the launch date for Facebook’s libra is set for 2020.

What will be able to buy with facebook libra?

• Pay for goods and services on facebook
• Use payments for car rides with Uber
• Pay for Spotify online subscriptions
• Proposals for more diverse financial based products are also in the pipeline for development

Here at ixdlab_ we can help you to understand and formulate opinions on using electronic cashless payment technologies such as Bitcoin, Ripple, XRM in your business. Look out for more on #Cryptocurrencies later on.

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