User Experience Research & Design

Improve Your Product & Grow Your Customer Base With User Experience (UX) Research & Design

Key Service Benefits

Market Differentiation & Competitive Advantage

Save on Longterm Support & Maintenance Costs

Improve Customer Satisfaction & Digital Experience

What is User Experience (UX)? Why is it Important?

User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products.

 

- Neilson Norman Group, 1998 

While businesses often know their key customers well, business goals and customer needs may not always align perfectly.

Companies may not fully understand the motivations, painpoints and experience of the myriad of users in any given business process, so gathering user feedback from both customers and administrative staff is crucial. Furthermore, contextualising these insights against current business goals can be vital not just to projects at hand but to projects, 6,12 or 24 months down the line.

Organisations can grow substantially by understanding user behavior and interactions across different platforms. They become more competitive, innovative, and unique in their market. Users appreciate when companies show that their opinions matter. Improving end-user and administrative staff user experience with systems can go a long way in strengthening the connection between your company, your staff and your customers - leading to improved brand loyalty.

Additionally, by hiring UX researchers and designers, you ensure that any given project remains end-goal-focused. UX research can help identify the limitations of your current design, uncover weak points, and discover areas for improvement and can help keep any given project on the right track. By validating design decisions early through research, UX researchers can help reduce development time (and costs). 

DDSN follow a design thinking approach, utilizing research and insights to inform problem definition and employing iteration throughout the design process, to come up with amazing solutions for clients.

Incorporating user feedback throughout the design process ensures developers work with a clear blueprint, minimizing the need for costly rework and preventing unnecessary feature creep that can lead to delays or added costs.

Ultimately, UX research provides a unique opportunity to improve customer satisfaction, increases engagement, and achieve a better bottom line for businesses.

Read on below to find out more about the different types of UX research and design activities that could be incorporated in your next project.

 

What is DDSN's Approach to UX Research & Design Projects?

While human-centred design principles and UX considerations are at the heart of everything we do at DDSN, there are significant operational gains to be found from investing in dedicated UX research and design activities. Some of these activities can be incorporated on an as needs basis under DDSN's client engagement plans but we also offer end-to-end UX projects that fall into the broad categories below;

If you would like to discuss standalone UX research and design activities under an engagement plan, ask us.

Table 1.  UX Project details across a number of specific services. There are four UX Project tiers and the inclusions in each of these tiers are compared. If a feature is included the cell will contain "Yes", or if a feature is not included the cell will contain "No". There is one level of row headings.
Service Component Inclusions

Starter / Basic

AUD $5k
approx 2 weeks  ( 1)

Light

AUD $8-10k
approx 1 month ( 1 )

Deep

AUD $10-20k
approx 2 monthst ( 1 )

Premium

AUD $20k+
approx 3-6 months  ( 1 )
Planning Workshop
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Enquiry Analysis (contact form, reception, complaints and feedback register)
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Definition of 'Target Audiences' & 'Key Tasks'
Yes
1-2 personas. Only important key tasks defined
Yes
3-5 personas. Only important key tasks defined
Yes
3-5 personas. Most key tasks defined
Yes
5 personas with extensive task definition.
Analysis of Key Task interfaces - evaluation of key screens against intuitive design
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Customer Interviews
No
Minimal
Yes
Excludes observed sessions of customer use of existing site  (2)
Yes
Includes observed sessions of customer use of existing site (2)

Deep Process Blueprinting

(for technical processes or processes that have human, physical and digital processes combined - Intranets, Customer Portals, third party platforms)
No
No
No
Available by negotiation (3)
Analytics Review
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Specialised Analytics Review (heat mapping and screen recording of user activity)
No
No
No
Available by negotiation (3)
Content Audit
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Market Analysis
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Card Sorting
No
No
With customer groups if Taxonomy Development is undertaken
With customer groups and internal client stakeholders groups (4)
Taxonomy Development (otherwise known as Information Architecture or Site Map)

No

Simple sitemap included in content audit

No

Simple sitemap included in content audit
Yes
Yes

User Journey Mapping

(user journey maps consider even more than key task flows putting user behaviour and decisionmaking in better context)
No
No
Yes
up to 3 personas
Yes
up to 5 personas
Prototype Development
Only for key transactional pages
Yes
For set of 5 transactional pages
Yes
For set of 15 transactional pages
Yes
For all transactional pages
Prototype Testing
No
 For 5 transactional page only For 15 transactional pages with most key customer workflows tested
With all key customer workflows tested and recorded on video - made available to client.
Prototype Iteration
No
No
Yes
Yes
Prototype Testing - Round 2
No
No
Yes
Only major usibility issues identified during this process will be actioned
Yes
In addition to major usability issues, any ongoing usibility issues identified during this process will be documented and costed and put forward for consideration by client
Expert Analysis 1 Senior Agency staff member to review Research, Hypothesis and Prototype prior to handover 1 Senior Agency staff member to review Research, Hypothesis and Prototype prior to handover Dedicated agency-wide workshop held with whole agency - bringing together the expertise from across multiple areas of the business Dedicated agency-wide workshop held with whole agency - bringing together the expertise from across multiple areas of the business
Accessible Content Author Training
No
No
No
Yes
 Accessibility Review 
No
No
No
Yes


(1) Dependant on rounds of iteration and customer availability.

(2) Organised by client. DDSN scheduling and booking of interviews can be arranged by negotiation.

(3) Suitable for organisations that have complex multi step processes or processes spanning multiple locations and systems and or teams ie; intranets, customer portals, websites, face-to-face interaction, phone orders etc; or organisations looking to deep dive on a specific user journey.

(4) Suitable for organisations with multiple teams with differing (sometimes competing) objectives.

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