Let’s drop the jargon for a moment. When I say “UX design,” I’m talking about that feeling you get when you use a product that doesn’t just function — it works for you. It’s not just how something looks, it’s how it behaves, how it fits into your life, how you forget you’re using it. The best kind of design makes itself invisible.

Beyond the Interface

See, many people confuse UX with the visuals — the colours, the typography, the “look.” Sure, that’s part of it. But true user-experience design goes deeper. According to the Interaction Design Foundation, UX design “is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users.”
It includes everything from branding to usability to how someone feels after they’ve completed a task.

Why It’s Critical

Working in a studio or hiring an agency — especially one of the top‐tier ones, the kind you find when you’re searching for award winning UX design agency to partner with — you’ll see that UX isn’t a “nice‐to‐have.”
It’s strategic. Good UX reduces support costs, improves conversion, builds loyalty. It’s the difference between an app someone downloads once and forgets, and an app they rely on week after week.

What Agencies Deal With

A dedicated UX agency isn’t just doing pretty mockups. They are drilling into research, flows, wireframes, testing. As one piece puts it, a “UX design agency specialises in creating meaningful digital products and experiences that improve customer satisfaction, loyalty and conversions through smart, research-based design.”
They might start with: Who are the users? What do they want? What’s stopping them now? Then prototype. Then test. Then iterate.

Why Location or Studio Profile Doesn’t Matter As Much (But Still Does)

You might second-guess: “Should I pick someone local, like from the list of top design agencies in New York?” Local may help when coordination is key. But the real value is in their process, not their address.
What matters is: Do they understand your users? Do they measure outcomes? Do they treat UX as a full lifecycle—not just the screen you see when you open the product?

A Few Quick Myths

• UX = UI: Nope. UI (user interface) is the screens and visuals; UX is the whole journey.
  
• UX is just for consumer apps: Nope again. Whether SaaS, internal enterprise, kiosk, kiosk-to-mobile hybrid — UX matters everywhere.
  
• It’s all about fun and delight: Delight is great, but a user cancelling a task or confused? That’s a fail. Usability and usefulness come first.
  

How to Evaluate UX Quality

Here are some things you can ask or look for when judging a UX process:

• Did the agency conduct user research or is it assumed “we know our users”?
  
• Is there prototyping and testing—are users actually involved before the final design goes live?
  
• Are clear metrics or goals defined? Is it “make it look good” or “reduce time to complete task by 30 %”?
  
• How do they handle feedback and iteration? Is design frozen after “approval”, or is it intentionally flexible?
  

My Two Cents

I’ve worked on designs that looked incredible — but people hesitated. When you chase perfection in visuals without thinking about the journey, you create friction. On another project we took a messier visual route, but the flow was smooth and intuitive. The team and users preferred the latter.
It taught me: UX is not about the flashiest design. It’s about fit. It’s about ease. It’s about answering the question: What does this product help me do, and how effortlessly?