User Experience: Much sought-after X factor

INCREASED ownership of personal mobile devices and unfettered Internet access has given rise to a new breed of consumer - arguably some of the most informed yet impatient in history. The contest for attention has never been fiercer. Businesses seeking to meaningfully engage audiences and elevate themselves from the constant chatter of 24/7 news feeds and notification cycles have increasingly found themselves engaging and exploring the applications of User Experience (UX) design to enhance business growth.

WHY DOES UX MATTER?

In the digital economy, the entire relationship between a business and its audience often happens solely online. It has become increasingly important for businesses to adapt their model to augment the usability, ease and pleasure of digital interactions with the singular aim of deriving repeat business from their users.

UX refers to a person's experience with a digital product or service. Think about how Spotify builds its playlists, and the ongoing effort behind the scenes to sustain, enhance and improve a person's experience to keep them using the service. You've got UX and its sister skill set, User Interface (UI) design working in tandem to thank for that. That's what this niche segment of design is capable of bringing to the table.

The success of all good UX-led digital products such as Spotify, Dropbox and Slack stem from UX research, and it starts by asking the right questions such as: "How can we help people reach their goals? We've offered something that makes them happy, but how can we delight them again? What can we do to get people to bring their friends back for more?"

Insights ratified by user research and observations help to "design" better ways of helping users achieve their goals in the easiest and most pleasurable way possible. Delighted users become happy creatures of habit, and the entire user journey of what is termed "habit loop" is predicated on building coherent UIs that make a user's journey seamlessly repeatable, as often as possible.

The adage "the experience of the brand is the brand" epitomises why unicorn "Software as a Service" companies are doing so well today. Nothing grows awareness quite like positive customer advocacy and user satisfaction. In today's socially connected world, you would have no qualms recommending positive experiences that feel (and look) good to your friends.

BUILDING A GREAT USER EXPERIENCE

UX designers must remain cognisant that the goal isn't to reinvent the wheel, but to harness the advantages of technology to create efficiencies in the system, replacing legacy systems with enhanced methods and processes.

Some hard-won bits of wisdom Fundnel has learnt from experience include:

Form follows function

Businesses should focus on discovering and fulfilling the requirements of their target audience. Successfully assisting users in achieving their goals is more important than fancy flourishes that do nothing to get them there.

Amplify simplicity

Have you ever read any End User Licence Agreement in its entirety? A big part of a UX designer's job is to streamline information overload. It's less about redacting and more about presenting key pieces of information first, thereafter following up with links to additional details. This measured approach will win you more brownie points than you can expect with users.

Minimum viable product

"Test once, test often" - all UX innovation includes prototyping insights, hypotheticals up in wireframes, or hi-fidelity visuals as part of the testing and verification process. It sounds like a time-intensive process, but a well-tested prototype, or minimum viable product, has proven to be a time- and cost-effective way of learning what works and what's broken before significant resources are committed. Untested and unvalidated products can cost companies dearly in the long run.

Craft-driven, carefully improved

In today's innovation driven economy, a well-crafted product experience conveys quality that is seen, felt, shared, and paid for with confidence in the business. Investment in UX/UI pays outsized financial and intangible dividends in the long run for any business looking to continue participating in the emerging digital open access economy we live in.

UX IN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY

The saying "Finance isn't difficult, it's just been badly explained" categorically sums up the world of finance, an industry firmly in the early throes of disruption and which doubles as an excellent case study for the importance and impact of good UX design. Plagued by legacy systems and complex structures designed to opaquely promote and sell a myriad services, the financial industry has come across as corporate, cold and intimidating in today's transparency-driven economy. Overuse of complicated terms wins them no points either.

The fintech revolution has been under way for a while now and the charge is being led by small, nimble groups who are underwriting the challenges of creating new and better products and service offerings for consumers, capturing considerable market share from the incumbents. Presented with two options that hold the same cost and delivery of outcome, any user would naturally gravitate towards the option that does a better job of engaging them.

Value propositions that economise a user's limited daily bandwidth include stock trading service Robinhood and investment platforms such as Acorn that squirrel away your spare change for investment purposes, both of which eschew task-heavy approaches in favour of minimalist, automation-led user experiences that delight.

POWERING YOUR GROWTH WITH UX DESIGN

Ultimately, users who make the choice of "hiring you and your product" to fulfil their current needs are also giving you the trust and opportunity to fulfil their unspoken needs in the future. Great products are those that do one thing well first, before tackling other future tasks available to them, improving and evolving alongside their users, and acquiring new ones along the way.

Craft (and care) for making improvements clearly matters, and though the tools of the trade might have changed, the premise remains the same - build your business around the needs of your customers, constantly improve on the customer experience by anticipating and fulfilling their needs in ways they expect, and delight them in ways they didn't. These are the pillars that will keep your growth trajectory on the only course that matters - upwards.