UX is a hot topic today. This term may be familiar to you. User Experience and how it affects your business may be unfamiliar to non-designers.
UX is one of the most in-demand fields today, but it has existed since the 1990s. Smart devices are now a significant part of our lives. User experience goes beyond “making things look good.”
UX design creates helpful, easy-to-use, and enjoyable products for customers. It’s about improving user experience and ensuring value.
User experience boosts business. Forester found that companies that invest in UX have lower customer acquisition, support, and retention costs and higher market share. The top 10 customer experience companies outperformed the S&P index by nearly three times. The research shows UX investments average $100 per dollar—9,900% ROI.
User experience helps many successes. Jeff Bezos initially spent 100 times more on user experience than advertising. Intuit co-founder Tom Proulx pioneered usability testing and emphasized product usability. Airbnb’s Mike Gebbia credits UX for reaching $10 billion.
What makes UX companies successful?
Design goes beyond aesthetics.
User-centric means something other than pretty. UX companies value product aesthetics as much as usability and user satisfaction.
A well-designed product is easy to use. No matter how beautiful or smooth the iPhone is, reading a manual for the first time is not fun. Experience makes a good design great. Only a user-friendly product can succeed.
Experiences, not products, sell.
When you buy a BMW or iPhone, you join the “platinum” club and acquire an identity. The brand becomes the customer’s identity as the product adds value. Customer satisfaction is guaranteed by mapping out a product’s use and creating meaningful experiences.
Make UX the motto of your company.
Any design-focused company prioritizes strategy, research, prototyping, feedback, and aesthetics but needs to improve its experiences. Apple, Nike, Google, and IBM provide excellent product experiences. They do that. How? The key to product success is a company-wide focus on user experience. UX culture requires no certification or degree. It makes everyone consider the user. Best of all, you can contribute to UX without leaving your job.
Software developers can optimize loading time, use subtle animations, and show loaders and response indicators. Business analysts can ensure that evaluation metrics prioritize users over revenue models. UX designers have all these responsibilities, but great experiences are created when the organization supports UX.
Involve designers throughout.
Designers are involved from project conception to delivery. The designer leaves, and the business makes experience and innovation decisions.
Research over opinions.
UX designers see underperforming products because they were designed without the user in mind. These products come from executives who think they know their users are making crucial decisions. The product is designed for executives, not customers.
Research, data, and facts must guide UX decisions. Never an opinion. Usability testing is the first step to improving UX and boosting business. This process reveals the most common issues, helping the designer visualize journey pain points.
“Triumph” has that extra “oomph,” to quote a cliché. Stakeholders must uncover the foundation and actively participate in UX decisions.
