Think UX is a soft part of the design process? Think again!
There weren’t many positives to take away from the last 18 months and the pandemic, but it certainly shone a light on the way we view and use digital. In fact, as far as user experience (UX) is concerned, lockdown has been something of a shot in the arm.
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Customers are now online more than ever, looking for the same customer experience (CX) they know and expect of their chosen brands. That means UX needs to step up and deliver. In a study from Forrester Research, it was found that a well-designed interface improved conversion rates by up to 200% — metrics that can’t be ignored. So, how do you enhance your UX to get customers loving your brand with every click?
How to create a better user experience
People love brands that love them back. That doesn’t mean pandering to them or being patronising. The perfect user experience considers what people will naturally know and expect for confident and fulfilling interactions.
If your brand fails to connect, customers leave with little reason to come back. Paul Strike, Former VP, Head of Design & User Experience at Prudential, notes that 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand after just one bad experience. Make the same mistake two or three times and research shows that 92% of customers will be gone forever. Bad UX turns customers away.
So how can you make sure it’s your brand that delivers the perfect experience? The answer: UX research.
Researching your users
The perfect experience doesn’t happen overnight. It requires continual study into how users respond to your app, site, and communications — at any stage of the journey. You can make it happen through a number of user research techniques. For example, something moderately technical like A/B testing – building two versions of a site or webpage to see which comes out on top. Or something simple such as card sorting. Card sorting happens in the user testing/user group research phase: give your user group a selection of cards with all your proposed categories for a site menu and have them place them in an order that makes the most sense to them — voila, a pure and simple window into human behaviour. The best bit is that card sorting can be done online.
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Better UX for better business
While UX is very much about the customer and how they interact with your brand, a solid UX plan starts from the very core of your company. Remember, the point of UX is to build experiences that are easy, clear and, above all, satisfying for your customers.
Your approach to explaining UX shouldn’t be any different. Key stakeholders and colleagues alike should be fully briefed on the importance of UX. Success metrics are so important to making the case for UX investment.
Kimberly Clark turned to UserZoom’s QXscore to develop a single metric that showed successful task rates at a glance and allowed for clear communication to stakeholders. Today, it’s easy for Kimberly Clark to quickly show the value of UX, backed up by data that makes every stakeholder sit up and pay attention. With key players on board, you can smooth out any roadblocks on your journey to driving sales.
Test, test, test again
It’s never too early to get the user involved — whether it’s your first round of development or your tenth, the only feedback that matters when it comes to user experience is, you guessed it, the user. So, conduct your research and your testing and use your findings to shape your roadmap, or else you’re creating something for users without even knowing what they want.
H&M discovered this for themselves when they decided to craft a new experience for their customers. Lack of data was quickly identified as an issue, as they simply did not know where customers dropped off and left carts abandoned. Armed with this user-centric insight, they created a user interface that increased conversions by 4% and time to check out reduced by 84% — the power of data strikes again! The ability to test at every stage let the team understand precisely where their interface needed to be improved, reducing development time to create an intuitive experience.
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