UI UX design agency in California

For a live product, an incremental redesign lets you change screens in stages when existing users may resist a sudden shift. A full redesign is worth considering when the product’s structure no longer matches the way people use it. The choice affects how much of the existing interface you retain and how much needs to be reconsidered.

An established UI kit or open-source component library gives an early product a quicker starting point. A custom visual language makes more sense when the interface itself is part of what customers pay for. That choice gives you more control over the visual design, with more work to define the components and their appearance.

Your development arrangements also shape the brief. Design-only work suits you when your own developers will build the screens. If you want one party responsible for the finished product, a combined design and build brief gives that team responsibility for carrying the work through. Decide who will build before settling the handover requirements.

For a business open to the public, accessibility needs to be part of the screen brief. US guidance says the ADA covers goods and services offered on the web and identifies WCAG as helpful guidance. We design readable text, sufficient colour contrast, visible focus states, clear labels and tap targets that are large enough to use. For state and local government websites and mobile apps, the applicable rule calls for WCAG 2.1 Level AA; we use those criteria to shape the screens and their interactive states.

Bring what you already have so we can discuss the work in concrete terms.

• Your main user types and their tasks, marking those that bring revenue or generate support calls.
• Analytics, session recordings, support tickets or sales call notes showing where people get stuck.
• Your logo, fonts, colours, brand guidelines and any existing design files.
• Your developers’ framework, existing component library and known back-end limits.
• Products your users already know, with notes on what works and what annoys them.

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  Polishing screens too early

  Agree the flows first, so attractive visuals do not need restructuring when the task steps change.

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  Designing only the ideal path

  Include errors and empty states in the brief, instead of leaving developers to invent them during the build.

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  Ignoring technical limits

  Check the chosen front-end framework and existing component library before designing components that are difficult to build.

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  Leaving labels inside fields

  Use clear field labels, readable contrast and sufficiently large tap targets, especially for people using a phone.