User Experience Design & Enterprise UX at generic.de
Why user experience matters for enterprise solutions
Few factors in software development are as important as the user experience. Yet it is often neglected, especially when it comes to complex business applications. But how successful can an enterprise solution be if the digital tools do not support your employees properly?
For us, the perfect user experience in enterprise solutions is crucial to their success. The criteria for enterprise UX are very different from those for consumer UX - which is why we work differently to a typical design agency.
Your benefits
You increase the security of your investment by avoiding false trends
User research gives you an objective basis for decision making
Cost-effectively validate and confirm hypotheses
You increase the productivity of your solution
Increased user acceptance
You reduce future training and support costs through intuitive operation
Our workflow for the perfect user experience
User experience design doesn't just start with interface design. Our UX design team is involved in the development process as early as the requirements engineering phase, and sees it through to the end. Our UX designers take on a variety of roles and disciplines.
Requirements Engineering
In addition to the functional and technical requirements for the future product, our requirements engineering workshops also identify the needs of the users. Using design thinking methods, we'll look at who the future users are, what their reality is like and what processes they represent. To do this, we first identify personas, which provide information about, for example
At the same time, we look at the problems users currently face and their requirements. Once these questions have been answered, screen flows are used to sketch out the most important dialogues, reflecting an initial idea of the future product.
User Research
In user research, we validate whether the requirements, processes and personas defined in requirements engineering actually correspond to reality. We use interviews, workshops and site visits to gain a better understanding of users' day-to-day work, problems and needs.
Using creative methods, we work together to brainstorm problems and solutions and develop the first wireframes. But user research is not a closed process. We iteratively check whether the solutions we have developed work and where there is potential for optimisation.
Interaction Design
In interaction design, we study how users interact with the system. To do this, we create lo-fi clickdummies from the wireframes that have already been developed. We put them in front of the users and give them different tasks. Such usability tests allow us to analyse and learn from the interaction behaviour of users. We use qualitative methods such as interviews and live monitoring and evaluate quantitative parameters such as heat maps and user flows.
The role of the user in UX design
We believe that software can only be the right solution if users are involved in the development process. Ideally as early as possible. This means that we need permanent access to the users - and the users must have enough freedom to work with us.
Good styling supports usability
It has been proven that visually appealing interfaces are perceived as easier to use - even if that is not the case at all. Even though such assessments are more subjective in nature, they still reveal an objective truth: good styling supports the usability of your product.
Our path to a user-centered interface
Wireframes as a basis
The classic design work on the user interface begins as soon as we have validated an initial interaction concept using wireframes. The wireframes serve as a basis and show where which elements are installed and which information the individual screens transport.
Visual Design
Visual design is about visualization in detail and about filling wireframes with life and your corporate identity. Which primary, secondary and accent colors are used? What do icons and buttons look like? Which fonts and styles are used? Does the new product fit into your software environment?
Hi-fi Clickdummies
The results of interaction design and visual design meet in hi-fi click dummies. These already look like your later product and visualize its functions. The big advantage: The user experience of your product can be tested realistically using these prototypes without the software behind it already having to be programmed.
High-quality usability testing
The results of methodically carried out usability tests using hi-fi click dummies contain a high level of truth about user behavior. In doing so, they make a significant contribution to the process of optimising the user experience. And they form the perfect basis for our developers, who finally pour the design into code.
Usability in accordance with standards
Is it called “input field” or “mask”, “button” or “button”, “slider” or “switch”?
We are convinced that working in accordance with defined standards makes cooperation with you and your employees easier and more efficient. At the same time, standards help us to implement uniform and generally applicable ergonomics. That is why we are working on our projects DIN standard EN ISO 9241 And stick to the seven principles of dialogue:
User interface style guide
The user interface style guide ensures that the developed user interface design is consistently applied. If you already have a style guide, we will add the new product to it. The aim is to help our and future developers and designers so that their software solutions always look and feel the same.
Components of the style guide
The style guide as a single source of truth
As a living database, the style guide also makes developers' workload easier. True to the single-source-of-truth concept, adjustments to interaction elements, colors, fonts, etc. are recorded in the style guide database, whose database the application uses. Adjustments made once therefore have a universal impact on the entire solution.