How to choose the best web design agency in 2022 – A complete guide March 10, 2022
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Design was once thought to be a generic component of a website. But the scenario is not quite the same today. If you’re a business owner wanting to launch or redesign your website, you’re going to need a UI/UX design agency. You might be thinking – “why do I need such an agency?” Or “why web design is so important?” Well, let’s talk in numbers.
According to a research by GoodFirms -
# 38.5% of your visitors will leave the site because of outdated design.
# 61.5% of the users dislike a website for bad navigation.
# 73.1% of the visitors will bounce back from a website if it’s non-responsive.
# 88.5% of visitors will leave a website if it has a slow loading issue.
To avoid these problems, you need to hire a professional UI/UX design agency. We will show you how you can choose the best web design agency in 2022. But first, let’s start with the basics.
What is Web Design?
Web design refers to the design of a website that visitors see when they browse through the internet. It has two components – user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). User interface refers to the graphical layout of a website or app. Hence, UI designers are responsible for identifying the overall site structure, buttons, texts, sliders, images, text entry fields, and any other element to be put on the website.
On the other hand, user experience deals with the interaction of visitors with the website or app. So the basic responsibilities of a UX designer are to make browsing the website smooth and intuitive and to make the navigation logical. In short, UX designers determine how easily users can interact with the elements that UI designers have designed.
What is Web Development?
Web development is associated with building the website for real. When the design is finalized on the sketch board, developers take the design and start writing codes to turn the design into a live website. Web development also has two components – front-end development and back-end development. Front-end developers are closely related to UI/UX designers as they are mainly responsible to implement what UI/UX designers have designed. Back-end developers, on the other hand, works on the server side of the website and determine how data will be stored and retrieved.
Web Design VS Web Development
Now that it’s established that design and development are two separate disciplines, it’ll be easier for you to understand the difference between these two. Many of you may have already got the point, but for those who need some more clarification – designers are responsible for a website’s general look and feel. They may use image editing softwares such as Adobe Photoshop to create an image or app prototyping tools such as InVision Studio to design layouts and mockups. But none of these tasks require the knowledge of coding.
On the other hand, coding is the primary tool for a web developer. They are responsible for implementing the design that’s on the storyboard and making it a live website. In a sense, they don’t create anything out of nothing like the designers do. They just materialize the visual assets into reality.
So we can see that a website will run smoothly when the design and development phase work in harmony. But there is no denying the fact that building a website starts with a clean and modern design that can deliver an unparalleled user experience.
Why Do You Need Web Design Services for Your Website?
The question has two different aspects. One is, why web design is important for your business. And the other is, is it really important for your business to hire a professional web design agency? So let’s start with the first aspect.
Significance of web design services for your business
1. First impression is your last impression
Your website gives your audience the first impression of your business. They’ll judge your business in seconds. If you have an unappealing or outdated website, they’ll just hit the ‘back’ button and visit somewhere else. So you have to make sure that your website creates a solid first impression in the first three seconds of a visit.
2. Watch out for SEO
Design elements have a huge influence on how you publish content on your site. And the style of your content affects how search engine spiders crawl your pages and index them. The design itself also has an impact on SEO, so try to make your designs as SEO-friendly as possible.
3. Audience trust building
It may sound funny, but the truth is – people generally don’t trust websites with poor designs. So you need a website with good design and easy navigation so that your audience may trust your business and don’t hesitate to place an order.
4. Move ahead of your competitors
The business world is a competitive one and all of your competitors are using web design services on their websites. If you are not using it too, you are already one step behind them in the race – which is not a very good aspect for your business. And most importantly, your website’s design has the power to set you apart from your competitors in the industry.
Do You Really Need A Professional UI/UX Design Agency for Your Business?
When it comes to designing websites, you have either of the two choices –
- Hire an in-house UI/UX designer
- Hire an agency to accomplish your task
Now, if you are a large company planning to launch multiple sites at a time, hiring an in-house designer might prove cost-efficient to you. But if you’re a startup or a medium-sized company, finding an agency to outsource the task will be a good business decision. Now let’s have a look at why you need a professional UI/UX design agency for your business.
1. It saves time and money
Hiring a designer to work for you requires a sizable amount of money in the form of salary and other benefits. When you’re a startup, you have a small team of passionate people working in unison. So monitoring a designer might become difficult for you or your team. Rather nesting the task to a professional agency saves your money and gives you more time to focus on the business itself.
2. It guarantees high-quality work
Agencies have a pool of skilled designers who are experts in their own fields. As a design is more than just a sketch on the story board, you have a higher chance of getting the best quality work from this pool of professionals.
3. Agency members stay up to date on the latest trends
A good agency is always working on multiple projects at a time. So they have to keep themselves up to date about the latest trends in the industry. This is very important for your business because otherwise, your website will have an outdated design which your visitors won’t like at all.
4. Creativity works better in a team
A designer might be supremely creative. (S)he might have the potential to create stunningly designed websites. But the irony with creativity is; it works better in a team. So you should always go for an agency rather than an individual if you want more creativity in your task.
5. Agency ensures a stress-free experience
Let’s say you have a website with lots of images. Now the problem with images is – it loads differently on different browsers. And then there are screen sizes e.g. laptop, mobile, and tablet. If your images are not placed keeping all these factors in mind, your images won’t load. That’s just one example. There are at least a thousand others like this. So hiring a professional agency that knows what they do can give you a worry-free life.
6 Things to Consider Before Choosing A Web Design Company
Office size and location
The first credibility factor of a web design agency is its office. If an agency has a physical office located in a business district, they are there for business. On the contrary, agencies with just a virtual setup may lack the expertise needed to carry out your project.
Size of the team
If a UI/UX agency has a team of say 10 professionals, you can count on them that they will deliver your project within the specified time. Small teams generally lack time to complete all the projects at a time and therefore fail to meet deadlines.
Industry presence and experience
Try to know for how many years they are working in the design agency and how many projects they have completed successfully. It’s not that newcomers can’t deliver good results, but in most of the cases, it’s seen that experience matters.
Specialization
There are so many OS platforms and it’s quite impossible to specialize in all of them. So try to identify their specialization area so that you get the perfect solution for your requirements.
Check for reviews and testimonials
If an agency is working for a long time, it has a long list of clients. Try to know what their past clients are talking about their works. Find online reviews and ask for testimonials to know how satisfied their past clients are.
After-sales support
Designing a website is not the ultimate task. There are lots of other phases that follow the process. If you find any difficulty in the development phase and they don’t have a strong support feature, you will be doomed. So be very sure about after-sales support before finalizing a UI/UX design agency.
7 Questions to Ask Before Choosing The Right Agency for Your Design Needs
When you have done your research and come up with a short list of prospects, it’s now time to finalize one. But how can you do that? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! We have accumulated a couple of questions you should ask to know who from the list can be the best candidate for your job.
1. How will you formulate strategy?
Ask your agency how they’re going to formulate a work plan. Research is the most important factor to understand your business, your clients, and your goal. If an agency cannot do an extensive research on all of these, they can’t deliver an impeccable UI/UX design service to you.
2. What is your pricing?
It’s very important for you to get an estimation of all the costs associated with their task. Ask them their price and any other cost or charge to know if it will fit your budget or not.
3. What is your work process?
Design cannot be done on a need-to-do basis. Every good agency follows a clear work process to accomplish the total task. Get to know what their process is and give it a thought if the process is right for you.
4. What’s the timeframe?
Once you have cleared everything you need, your agency should calculate and give you an estimated timeframe. A better option is to break the whole task down to several milestones. That way, you will know about the progress of your work from time to time.
5. Who will provide the content?
Most of the design agencies provide website content from their side. But if your agency doesn’t or if you don’t want them to, have clear communication about it in the beginning.
6. Use of premium resources?
If your task needs any premium resource, who is going to pay for those – you or them? This is specifically vital in the case of images and plugins.
7. Custom-made? Or just templates?
Agencies normally are reluctant to design a website from scratch for their budget clients. They use templates and do some tweaks in the design. Clarify this before starting to work with any agency.
Top 10 UI/UX Design Agencies in 2022
Now that you know how to research and select the best UI/UX design agency for your business, it’s time to present you with a list of the top ui/ux design agencies worldwide. We have made the list with extensive online research and client feedback. Let’s have a look at the list.
Clay is a renowned name in the design industry. They offer design and branding services to some of the top companies around the world and some major tech companies like Facebook, Google, CISCO, and Slack. Their services include web design, web development, UI/UX design, motion design, mobile app development, digital strategy, etc. Their office is based in San Francisco, California.
Zainik Lab is an Asia-based web design agency with a proven track record. Born only 6 years ago, this agency has already been working with some of the biggest brands out there. The best part about this agency is that they are visionaries. Every member of the team has a considerable amount of experience and expertise. All of their design works stand out in a crowd which helps your brand to be established in no time. And most importantly,their pricing seems quite fair compared to their services. So if you are searching for an outstanding web design agency within a reasonable price range, Zainik Lab could be a great option.
Frog is yet another San Francisco-based digital product design consultancy and web design agency. They started their operations back in the 1970s as a product design firm. But over time, they have embraced the digital model and are now delivering impeccable design services via their offices in New York, Boston, Austin, London, Paris, Madrid, Munich, Milan, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Shanghai, Malmo, and Mexico City.
From the first-ever Mac mouse to internet-based blood glucose monitoring system, Ideo has left its mark everywhere. They are known as the pioneer in human-centered design thinking. Their designs have laid such an impact on the world that it’s said that the world is incomplete without them. They have a team of 700 employees working in Chicago, Cambridge, New York, San Francisco, Palo Alto, London, and Munich.
Fjord was founded in 2001 as a sister concern of Accenture. It is a design and innovation consultancy firm that focuses mainly on bridging human experiences with the digital world. They help their clients to deliver purposeful experiences by incorporating human insights into their business. They also help their clients to achieve growth through strategy, venturing, incubation, and market traction.
Ramotion was founded in 2009 in Burlingham, California. Their services include web design, ui/ux design, app development, and branding. Though they are operational for just over a decade, they have already attracted the attention of some of the biggest brands like Netflix, Transcend, Salesforce, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Inspo. But the story doesn’t end there. They have also helped startups to raise over $750m in funds.
Momentum Design Lab was founded in 2002 and is now ranked #1 UX agency as per Clutch.co. They started as a startup but later became a part of HTEC Group. Some of their completed projects include UBiqube, Broker.io, and SocialCode.
Codal is another award-winning web design and development agency. To date, they have served over 160 clients and millions of end-users. Their mission statement is pretty simple – Work with the best, design with a purpose, and engineer for a sustainable future. And you might also love their work process. They have a 5-step work process starting from Discover. Strategize, Design, and Engineer are the following steps. And finally, they Amplify by partnering with their clients.
Neuron was also founded in San Francisco, California as a UI/UX design agency.Their vision was to create world-class digital experiences so that businesses can succeed in today’s digital world. They help tech companies to create intuitive and engaging digital products and services with their expertise in UX design, digital strategy, and front-end development.
The last on our list is Jordan Crown. This is a small agency with just 10 designers. But they’re a perfect example of what a small team can achieve with their creativity. They were named as “Top Web Designers” by Clutch in 2020 and became an official member of the Forbes Agency Council the same year. Their client list includes Scantron, SCJ Alliance, LinkedIn, COMCAST, CDK Global, Reviews.com, T-Mobile, Pental, and PeopleFirm among others. With a 4.9 star rating and 43 reviews, Jordan Crown could easily be your choice for web design services.
A Little More About Zainik Lab
We are Zainik Lab – a Bangladesh-based UI/UX design agency working in the industry for the last 6 years. Our company started as an individual endeavor back in 2015. After a year, our company was formed with 5 new faces – each expert in their own fields. Since our inception, we have delivered only the highest-quality designs to our clients which helped us to establish a solid footprint in the design industry. Today we have a team of just short of 50 professionals and a portfolio we can be proud of.
Here’s a list of some of our products:
Quizai – Interactive quiz creation platform
MoneyFarm – AI-powered personal online financial manager
Doctor’s Point – Doctor’s appointment system
Brainy – Online trivia game
Zaifit – AI-powered cloud-based weight loss solution
Why choose us?
“Future designs at today’s price” – this is our unique selling proposition. When you work with us, we don’t just deliver the task. We give you an experience that’s hard to find anywhere else. No matter how many projects are we currently working on, we won’t assign anyone else to be your key account manager. Our founder and CEO will manage and coordinate your project personally. And we know how valuable your time is, that’s why we won’t take a minute more than what’s needed to get your work done. Still confused? Let’s have a talk and see for yourself.
Key Takeaways
It’s very important for your website to have a unique, SEO-friendly design to outrank your competitors. For that, you need to find the best UI/UX design agency. Do some research before choosing one and select an agency with a sound portfolio.
For any design-related assistance, you may send us an email at [email protected]
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