At Lizard Global, UI/UX design forms one of our core services. In order to give you a better understanding of what the UI/UX design process at Lizard Global looks like, our skilled designers give you a sneak peek behind the screens of our UI/UX design processes.

UI Design & UX Design

UI/UX Design are two distinctive practices requiring skill sets that are totally different from one another. The two roles have existed for decades but have only been recently defined in a more formal way by the tech industry. Due to a lack of understanding from communities outside of the tech industry, it is often bundled as a single role and therefore creates the misconception that all designers are able to masterfully execute both. Yet, one precedes the other in practice. At Lizard Global, we see UI and UX as unique practices and we have experts in both. However, our UI and UX designers are working closely together.

The groundwork is first laid by the UX designer with a human-centered Design Thinking approach to product design. This approach can be to both physical and digital products and focuses on the full experience from a user’s first contact to the last. It creates structural design solutions for pain points that users encounter anywhere along their journey with the product and results in products that delight users with their effectiveness. We call this journey of the user from starting point to the completion of a task the “User Journey”. Once the user journey is structured and visualized the UI designer comes into play with a human-centered approach to designing the aesthetic experience of a product. Its application is only for digital products and focuses on visual touchpoints that allow users to interact with a product. It creates combinations of typography, colour palettes, buttons, animations, and imagery that results in products that delight users aesthetically.

The methodologies, psychology, and motivation that UI designers and UX designers at Lizard Global share are based on the principles of Design Thinking, the awareness of the needs of the end-users, and the creation of products that satisfies users as a core objective. However, the skill set of a UX designer does differ quite a bit from the skills of a UI designer:

UX Designer skillset

• Competitor analysis
• Customer analysis and user research, potentially utilizing the practice of empathy mapping
• Product structures and strategies
• Content development
• Prototyping and wireframing
• Testing and iteration
• Coordination with UI designers
• Analysis and iteration

UI Designer skillset

• Understanding of UX design process and research
• Customer analysis
• Design research
• Branding and graphic development
• User guides and storylines
• UI prototyping
• Interactivity and animation
• Adaptation to all device screen sizes with a responsive design
• Implementation with developers

Wireframes, mockups, and clickable demos

They are three stages within the design process at Lizard Global. When a UX designer obtains all the information regarding the user research, commercial goals, identified problems and solutions worth exploring from researchers, product owners, design sprint workshops with the client and internal discussions with the entire project team, he/she can get started by devising an overall product experience that results in low-fidelity designs, also known as wireframes. Wireframes can be defined by an outlined drawing of an interface and can even be done on paper or whiteboard. Think of, for example, match stick figures; it’s fast to create and understandable with some notes. This first deliverable is used to promptly demonstrate to both the project team and client how the user will interact with the product to reach the various user and commercial goals and assess the complexity of what will be programmatically built.

We then move on to mockups, also known as high-fidelity designs. These will be constructed by the UI designer. Mockups consist of branding and visual elements that are designed based on the experience devised in the wireframing phase. It will define the tone of voice and personality of that product in a visual way, but also typographically. It is not uncommon to have a UX designer specialized in writing involved during this phase. The deliverable from the mockup phase is what the product will look like and can already be passed on to the development team to build.

Finally, we implement the clickable demo, which forms a vital step within the Lizard Global design process. A clickable demo, in its simplest form, is a keynote presentation on steroids. All the screens devised in the mockups and the paths and experiences devised in the wireframes are put together in such a way that the client and project team can click on the various CTAs and menu items; navigating through various screens and journeys, without a single line of code. This provides a more concrete, clear, and aligned understanding to everyone involved in the project and can even be tested among target groups for further insights before or during development. Based on the feedback from users interacting with the clickable demo, the design team can implement adaptations and improvements in order to optimize the overall user experience.

The Lizard Global UI/UX Design experience

Now we have a clear understanding of the elements that come to look at the design processes at Lizard Global, it’s time to look at the process itself. This process focuses on the following steps:

• Research for inspiration
• Design consultancy
• Scaled-down user stories
• Wireframes, mockups & clickable demos

1. Research

When we first obtain the project brief and product backlog from the project owner, we dive into research. We get to know the competitive landscape and the defined target audience. We draw inspiration not only from competitive apps but also solutions to similar problems in industries and markets that are unrelated to the project. For inspiration, we also make use of popular UI/UX design platforms like Dribbble, which is a digital environment where designers from all over the world share their creations. Depending on the budget available for the project, the research could be a few hours of scouring through the internet for valuable information, to an in-depth research phase that includes online surveys that will be completed by the target audience.

2. Consultancy

From there we apply our experience as experts in the form of consultancy. We liaise with our internal peers on a technical level, with external stakeholders on a commercial level and product level. We constantly leverage market needs and effective solutions against technical complexity and commercial value and iterate on techniques and paths for efficient growth hacking, growing the user base, and lead conversion. Consultancy is not a one-time step but rather a continuous process throughout the project’s lifecycle.

3. User stories

We then move on to breaking down all the information gathered and themes and epics from a project brief into smaller chunks of user stories with the definitions of done for each of them. This allows the development team to estimate the time required to implement them, the project manager to plan resources, and the project owner to leverage the most valuable pieces for the phase and the complexities that accompany them thus building a prioritized backlog of items.

4. Iterative design sprints

Finally, we move on to the last creative pieces that include wireframe designs, mockup designs, and a clickable demo. The mockup stage generally offers two rounds of revisions if further refinement and adjustments are required. During all the steps of the design process at Lizard Global, we make sure that our ways of working are optimized in efficiency and speed, without losing quality. UI/UX design makes use of specific methodologies that complement agile, namely Design Thinking and lean UX. These two approaches allow both the UX and UI designer to shine and showcase their expertise. Wholeheartedly diving into problems from every possible angle, empathising with the difficulties faced by users as well as their motivations, ideating on solutions; by following these practices we are able to experiment, learn, measure, and draw new conclusions to continuously and incessantly refine the solution.

Meet the Lizards: Eric, Creative Product Director

To give you a closer look at the world of UI/UX design at Lizard Global, we asked our Creative Product Director Eric to share his experience of being part of the Lizard Global design team:

“My favourite thing as a UI designer and a UX designer is when I have a satisfied client with delighted end-users. It’s an amazing feeling when you get compliments for devising an idea that was originally on a piece of paper, in a few vague sentences, and successfully bring that vision to life and witness the elation of users when interacting with the solution. There is no greater satisfaction than this as a designer; I created something out of nothing - a product that will be used by many and potentially play an important role in people’s lives.”

“I love the strategic processes involved in the practice of UI and UX design. It requires logical and critical thinking at every turn, every decision is driven by genuine purpose and to achieve that you get to hit off ideas with colleagues from various disciplines and skill sets. You cannot work on your own in such a cross-functional team - communication is key and a day at the office is always different and full of twists and surprises. You cannot get complacent in a routine either, as the tech industry and its design practices are constantly evolving, setting new standards and trends. Lastly, what I cherish about working at Lizard Global is that I get to solve issues in various industries for various user groups and demographics. Every project is different and there are always moments when you have to step out of your comfort zone and are challenged to solve something uncommon. You have to constantly grow as a person, so does your general knowledge, and I do take a lot of satisfaction from that.”

Need a hand?

The team of designers at Lizard Global are amongst the most seasoned staff of the company. Lizard Global’s growth and successes has been exponential in the last few years and that has reflected on the expertise and knowledge of our designers. We have evolved and adapted through our exposure to numerous verticals and can confidently adapt to any scenario that lands on our plate. Our designers don’t shy away from challenging scenarios. If anything, we thrive on the challenges and work through them with genuine passion and care. Our evolution is still ongoing as we continue to refine our processes. Our reviews on Clutch and Sortlist are testament to the company’s maturation and experience.

Are you still looking for a digital partner for the UI/UX design of your application? Or are you interested in partnering up with Lizard Global for the digital conceptualization, design, custom development, and growth strategies of your product or service? We gladly lend you a hand. Get in touch with us via the contact page on our website, give us a call, or send us a quick message on WhatsApp.