What Does a UX Consultant Role Include, and How to Know When You Need a UX Consultant?

Have you ever realized that a solid and engaging user experience is a cornerstone of digital products, both new and existing ones? This is because intuitive and user-friendly interfaces lead to increased user satisfaction, and this, in turn, ensures high conversion rates and the overall market success of products. For that reason, user experience consulting services are gaining momentum across ambitious and forward-thinking companies worldwide. Andersen’s experts explain what benefits they bring and how they help businesses unleash their potential to the maximum.

What is user experience consulting?

To better understand this, it's worth shedding light on the concept of the user experience first. The term refers to all possible points of contact of a user with a product or service. Effective and meaningful interactions are possible thanks to adroitly elaborated product design, namely, well-thought-out and intuitive interfaces, eye-catching content, and easy-to-navigate architecture.

Sometimes, even with all the above in place, there are still issues in a product that prevent it from skyrocketing. That is when a UX consultant role is needed. This specialist conducts an in-depth analysis of the product’s architecture, layouts, marketing metrics, and design, and comes up with a strategy and a comprehensive approach to its improvements that will enhance and advance the user experience.

The above is also true for new products. The expert engaged throughout the entire development lifecycle takes part in product planning, designing, creating, and post-release support to ensure its flawless look and feel, i.e. attractiveness and user-friendliness.

In summary, UX consulting helps companies to expand and prosper by analyzing and examining their products as a whole, which involves advanced business analysis techniques, system thinking, and viewing them from a general perspective. The specialists are then able to propose a résumé of these products’ strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of users and the steps for user experience improvement.

What does a UX consultant do?

What is a UX consultant in lay terms? They are intermediaries between your team, users, and stakeholders. Being both proficient designers and seasoned analysts, they carefully study the product and its users to detect and eliminate the flaws in its look and feel and bring user experience to a new level.

What does a UX consultant do in particular? When involved in the development of a new product or in auditing and improving an existing one, they usually perform the following sequence of steps:

Conduct thorough research

Specialists collect as many insights as possible on the business itself, the existing or future service or product, its users, and the market situation. Subsequently, they analyze this information to provide an expert opinion on its perception by the audience and the ways to improve its performance while cutting costs. This is done while taking into consideration the business’s strategic goals and overall brand positioning.

Outline user personas

A UX design consultant knows your audience inside and out and completely understands their needs, demands, doubts, and behavior. Together with the team, this expert creates user personas to describe your business’s typical clients and the paths they take to achieve their goals.

Guide the team

Experienced UX consultants rely on proven techniques and best practices when consulting with the team on how to best create software wireframes, layouts, and prototypes. The work is performed based on a solid UX strategy with clear goals, scope, and deadlines.

Test the results

Finally, the specialists participate in testing both prototypes and end products to ensure that the goals are accomplished and the users can enjoy the product’s seamless performance. When evaluating the work results, the experts exploit well-defined UX metrics and draw up the necessary reports and other documents.

When do you need assistance?

How to recognize when your business needs the hand of a UX consulting company? The following situations indicate this:

• Your app, enterprise website, or other software is underperforming in spite of substantial efforts and resources invested and you want to deal with the issues in a professional and business-like manner;
• You nourish the idea of building software from scratch and want to rely on a solid strategy to ensure its success while optimizing the development costs;
• Your team requires UX strategy consulting and a proven source of expertise to gain a fresh perspective on the product’s design, goals, and users, as well as master the industry’s latest trends and redesign best practices;
• You are in need of an end-to-end audit and testing to unleash your service’s or product’s potential to the full, outperform competitors, and meet the business’s key metrics.

How can Andersen help your business?

If you are deciding on whether or not to turn to UX consulting services, consider the following deliverables and opportunities that they will ensure.

Provide a holistic and data-driven view of the product

With seasoned experts at your side, you’ll benefit from a professionally devised strategy and well-oiled processes with effective work prioritization. All this will allow you to make data-based and metrics-driven decisions to improve performance, uncover new business options, and enjoy cost-effective solutions.

Help to create cutting-edge and highly competitive software

The specialists rely on usability heuristics and Agile best practices to guide your team in creating an intuitive and visually attractive design. The resulting unique and business-tailored software will allow your company to stand out from the crowd while delivering outstanding UX.

Ensure smooth user interactions with the app or website

A responsive, well-elaborated, and accessible solution provides for seamless UX, which, in turn, leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. Your UX consulting company of choice will help you to reap benefits from a solid brand reputation while generating leads and increasing conversions and sales.

Enlarge your team’s knowledge base and help it to advance

Proficient specialists with a systematic approach and leadership mindset will supervise, guide, and educate your in-house team to nourish strong professionals. This will help your business scale and reveal fresh perspectives for its growth.

Things to look for when hiring an advisor

Now, we would like to explain more about the professional and personal qualities one should look for when interviewing a specialist from a UX consulting company to reinforce your team.

Proven expertise

The first thing to consider is the richness and diversity of the candidate’s portfolio, the industries they specialize in, the techniques and methods they apply in their work, as well as the customer feedback provided upon collaborating with them. Thus, you’ll be able to evaluate the specialist’s mastery of the latest tools and frameworks and reinforce your team with an industry-specific professional.

An ownership mindset

To drive business value, the specialist of your choice should be a true businessman at heart who is willing to take the initiative and possesses strong management skills. Choose team players who are able to make long-term plans, build a strategy, and take responsibility for their decisions, while remaining self-motivated and open to new challenges.

Strong analytical skills

To deliver solid outcomes, a UX consultant must possess well-developed analytical skills and advanced techniques that will help them grasp both the product’s peculiarities and the market landscape. Subsequently, they should be able to suggest actions that will lead to an improved UX and steady business growth.

An inquisitive mind, flexibility, and eagerness to learn

The technologies and industry trends are developing at a breakneck pace. Thus, top-notch UX companies should support a corporate culture where specialists are eager to absorb knowledge, develop new skills, and rapidly delve into the details of business initiatives.

Advanced communication skills

Last but not the least, a true professional should be a team player who gets along well with diverse specialists, whether they are designers, sales managers, developers, business analysts, QA engineers, or others. Thus, they will be able to effectively get their point across and rally the team to achieve a common goal.

Conclusion

If you aim at undergoing a digital transformation that is based on a solid UX strategy, thus resulting in your business’s consistent growth, consider turning to a reliable UX design company. Andersen will be happy to evaluate your business idea or conduct an end-to-end audit of your existing solution to draw up a customized action plan. Feel free to contact us for further information on our UX consulting services.