Many businesses struggle today due to poor experiences users have when using their products. However, there are no shortcuts – you either get the user experience right and enjoy the benefits or get it wrong and suffer the consequences. Therefore, you need the right tools to provide pleasant experiences for your users and achieve business success. Without the right UX tools, you’ll get minimal results for your efforts.
So, which tools do you need to improve user experience in your business? What roles do they play in product development? What should you consider before choosing UX tools? These questions and more will be answered in this article.
Why you need a UX strategy
Choosing tools without having a UX strategy is equivalent to putting the cart before the horse. You need a plan before considering the tools needed to carry it out. Without a solid strategy, UX endeavors will produce little effect.
A UX strategy is a set of actions designed to improve the user experience of a business over a decided period. It is a comprehensive plan to align user experience with company goals and objectives. The scope of a UX strategy can cover one or more products, features, services, or the whole company.
Find below the benefits of an effective UX strategy:
- It harmonizes user needs with company goals and technological capacity
- It allows the company to set yardsticks for success
- It gives an overview of user interactions with your product and brand
- It helps prioritize the user
What are UX tools
UX tools are app and web design tools used by UX designers at each stage of the product design process to design great experiences for users. Each step in the design process requires different tools. Therefore, using tools for each phase improves user experience and drives business success.
What to consider before choosing a UX tool
There are many options in the UX tool market, and choosing the most suitable for your business could be confusing. Not anymore, though. The criteria below will help you make the right choice.
- Functionality: how well does the tool solve the problem it is meant to solve?
- Usability: how easy to use is the tool?
- Integration: how easy does it integrate with other tools?
- Collaboration: does it make collaboration with team members easy?
8 innovative tools to help you improve user experience
Now that you know what UX tools are and how to choose the right one for your company, let’s learn about specific tools that help boost user experience.
1. Maze
Maze is a continuous product discovery platform. With it, you can conveniently collect and utilize user insights throughout the whole cycle of product development. In addition, this tool allows you to validate your ideas by running unmoderated research and getting responses that translate into metrics.
With Maze, you will achieve the following goals:
- Collection of user insights
- Anonymous teams
- Participants recruitment
- Continuous product discovery
- Collaborative learning
Maze easily integrates with other design tools like Figma, AdobeXD, etc. You can build your participant database with Reach or choose from the Maze Panel. This tool lets you customize your content, make comments and integrate tools like Miro, Figjam, and Notion.
2. InVision Freehand
InVision is an all-in-one collaborative online whiteboard is just what you need to plan and execute your projects. Every design project phase can be connected with this all-around collaborative platform. Beyond helping your team be on the same page regarding projects, you can also use InVision Freehand to bring other stakeholders in the design project up to speed.
Available on this app are templates for all phases of the design process as follows:
- Problem definition
- Research
- Brainstorming
- Designing
- Gathering feedback
- Improvement
3. Flowmapp
Flowmapp is a portable tool that helps designers to create various UX outcomes for their products. In addition, this app has many intuitive tools that designers can use to collect, organize and collaborate in the design process.
The tool is easy to use, and with the following 6 steps, you can achieve your design goals:
- Generate sitemaps that enable collaboration among teammates
- Create flowcharts for the team
- Perform user-based research to get comprehensive knowledge of users’ behavioral patterns.
- Draw out user journeys
- Upload file and input content
- Share with stakeholders and get feedback
4. Balsamiq
Balsamiq is a low-fidelity wireframing tool that seamlessly lets you sketch your user interface ideas. It allows you to sketch on a computer, paper, or a whiteboard. This app lets you focus on content and structure and ignore other distracting activities. As a result of the faster wireframes you make with this tool, you can create as many as necessary until you arrive at the ones that work.
This tool is uncomplicated, and non-technical professionals can easily find their way around it. With tons of built-in user interface icons and control, the drag and drop feature, and a shareable design, this tool helps improve your users’ experience.
5. Axure RP
If building functional and realistic prototypes is your aim, then this tool is your best bet. With this app, you can do prototyping with endless blends of actions, conditions, and event triggers that produce great digital experiences for your users.
The Axure RP widgets let you produce working forms, easy-to-arrange grids, and vibrant interfaces. In addition, the lively multi-state panels allow you to create a pop-up, swipeable, and scrollable screen. The views are adaptable; you can design them for phones, desktops, and tablets, and the right view will show automatically. The best part is that you get all these features without a line of code.
6. Marvel
Marvel empowers design teams to prototype, test, and do handoffs quickly and seamlessly. It has an intuitive design; with it, you can produce design specs and link integrations that boost your work process.
Easy to use, any newbie can figure it out. This is because Marvel has a huge library of straightforward assets and templates that simplifies the design process. You can easily visualize your design and get to work fast. Also, this tool lets you store your work in the cloud, making it easy to access from any device. Lastly, Marvel is scalable, and you can use it at any business phase.
7. Figma
Figma is a one-stop shop with features that make the design process smoother and faster. Great for prototyping, designing, and creating design systems, Figma tools let you achieve your design goals easily. With Figjam, the sister tool like an online whiteboard, you can easily map out the entire design process and collaborate effectively.
With the auto layout feature in Figma, you don’t have to resize manually; objects stretch to fill, leading to responsive design. The plugins in Figma are the real jackpot, as you can perform routine tasks more straightforwardly and faster. Once you generate consistent styles, you can apply them to objects and texts across projects.
Without using any code, you can transform your designs into animated prototypes and create an interactive experience.
8. Adobe XD
Adobe provides a wide range of design solutions, including UX design. The Creative Cloud, created for UX/UI designers, is perfect for app, website, game, and brand design. Features available on Adobe XD include:
- content-friendly layouts
- repeat grids
- vector drawing tools
- auto-animation
- reusable elements
- 3D transforms
Bring your ideas to life and design realistic and vibrant prototypes with motions. You can also generate voice commands with the voice-enabled features on Adobe XD. In addition, you can opt for sound effects to boost your designs’ personality and usability.
Invest in UX tools for better user experience and business growth
The role of user experience (UX) in business success has been long established – the better the experiences you give users of your product, the more you sell, and your business grows. However, great user experiences don’t just happen; having a rock-solid UX strategy and tools makes the difference.
The benefits of having a good UX strategy include user prioritization, harmonizing the user needs and company goals, enabling the company to set success metrics, and having a clear overview of users’ interactions with your product and brand.
When choosing UX tools for your product(s), ensure they solve the problems they’re meant to solve, are easy to use, integrate with other tools, and improve collaboration among team members. Some of these tools have features that overlap; study them well and choose the ones that best suit your UX needs.
