Crafting a UX That Creates Value

UX design is integral to the average company because it’s an element that every customer is guaranteed to interact with at some point. An unavoidable part of the process should be well-designed, refined, and tight as a drum. It also helps you, as the company, to figure out the needs of your target audience, and how best to satisfy them. A company with excellent UX design stands out in the market and builds trust between your brand and the customers who use it. In the modern business world, companies must have adapted their UX interfaces for the social media age. This is a combination of skills that involve project management, social media management, research, and analysis. Good UX is dynamic and receives regular updates. Finally, the process of designing good UX is very collaborative.

When customers interface with any given UX, you can safely make one basic assumption: They have a goal in mind which needs to be accomplished. The job of your UX is to help them easily and intuitively accomplish their goal. If done correctly, they won’t even think about the UX. Even if it never occurs to the user, and they don’t know they’re taking part, UX interactions are a great way to keep an ongoing dialogue with customers. It’s a way to demonstrate that you care about their needs and concerns and that you listen to and incorporate feedback. Building trust, after all, is a critical component in gaining a broad, loyal customer base. Following this, you have increased revenue, increased customer retention, the ability to stand out from competitors, it goes on.

In the modern sense, UX most commonly refers to online platforms like websites and mobile apps. However, it’s an intentionally broad word that refers to many aspects of the customer experience. When thinking of your UX, you’ll want it to cover the entirety of a user’s interaction with your company and its products/services. The customer experience begins before and ends after the interaction with the company.

There are four basic principles of UX design, outlined below:

  • Empathize – Understand your users and their pain points. This allows for proactive problem-solving.
  • Audience-First Approach – Meeting all user needs and expectations should always be the priority.
  • Utility – All platform aspects should be intuitive and have an obvious function.
  • Accessibility – Designers must be aware of and account for everyone in their customer base. Don’t lose potential customers for avoidable reasons!

Finally, every business should have a team dedicated to UX design. Depending on the industry, it is common to outsource this to an outside agency. This is just as effective as an in-house team and comes with unique advantages: A distance from regular operations gives a fresh perspective on issues, an outside company is more willing or able to admit flaws and accept feedback, etc.

The importance of UX design cannot be overstated. It dictates the terms of the relationship between the business and the consumer. Users, ideally, want to find a product that is perfect for their needs while saving them time and money. When enabled, they will pay back your business with higher retention rates, more referrals, increased conversion rates, heaps of valuable and actionable customer feedback, and reduced debugging costs.