COVID-19 has had quite an impact on our lives not only have we had to learn to live in a completely new manner, but the digital world has accelerated.
We all had to adapt to new forms of working, communication and travel. We’ve seen a multitude of new services & products being released to help us cope. Many companies have had to move from offline services to online platforms. This transition had the effect that many wanted to make a good first impression on their online platforms, while still having that same in-shop experience. This is where User Experience (UX) comes into play.
What the fluff is UX?
User Experience, more commonly known as UX, encompasses all aspects of a user’s interaction with a company, its products and its services. It aims at fulfilling the user’s needs by providing positive experiences that keep users loyal to the brand or product: UX embodies a truly customer-centric approach.
In simpler terms, it’s that excited / disappointed feeling you have after using a product / service or app.
How does it impact me - benefits
1. It increases the customer conversion journey.
With such a competitive online space where you as a user can see a million different shops selling the same thing all at once. What makes you stand out? Why should they buy from you? What makes your shop experience different to theirs? Why should they go through with their purchase? Baymard showed that 69.2% of customers abandon a cart. Through the years of their research, they found out that the user flow is the main cause for these abandoned carts.
By having a user-centered design you can optimize the flow to suit your user goal’s and needs. Thus creating an experience orientated to them and reducing the amount of abandoned cart’s.
2. Reduces the cost in the long run - ROI
Paying attention to UX design in the initial stages of product development is critical. Customers will not invest their time or money into a service that they do not find easily accessible, practical, usable or solve their problem. Rebuilding the product after launch will cost time, money and further reinvestment that could have been avoided. Furthermore having the initial investment yields a very high return on investment. In 2016 a report titled “The Six Steps For Justifying Better UX” showed that every $1 invested returned $100. That’s an ROI of a whopping 9,900 per cent.
User experience contributes to many success stories. Jeff Bezos invested 100 times more in user experience rather than advertising during the inception of Amazon. Joe Gebbia of Airbnb gives credit to UX for taking the company to $10 billion.” Other major companies like Walmart redesigned their Website with a far stronger focus on UX. By redoing how the user shops and a far deeper level of personalization. The results ended up with them growing their eCommerce sales by 43%.
3. It increases brand loyalty
Today a lot of how attracting new customers has changed. Trying to be the outright king with the best specs or features is not what will keep your customers. People want transparency, they want to feel connected to their products on a more personal level. UX extracts this meaningful emotion out, as the aim is to build a product around the user needs and frustrations. By having an outstanding UX, you can ensure that your product or services will be further ahead of your competition. Just due to the gratification of using your services that have been constructed towards the user's experience. Through this process, you can create long-lasting communities within your Brand. We often see this with new startups. They have these cool new apps on the play store/app store. We download them excited to try it out but then we need to do all this setup and tedious work before we even get to try it out. This puts a lot of users off and a large percentage close the app and never return. By having a fruitful UX you can avoid this and build a community.
4. Improve SEO rankings
Believe it or not, UX can greatly improve how your website ranks on Google. Google works hard on creating the best search engine tailored to the individual user. That is why they are adding new policies on how they rank your websites. User Experience is going to be an essential player. They have started to analyze how long a user spends on a website.
How quickly they can navigate and the overall success of the user journeys. Put it into simpler terms; the better the ease of use, the higher your page will rank. Gone are the days where you only had to focus on keywords, backlinks and the copy on your website for optimal SEO.
5. Lower's support costs
Having a product that puts the user’s goals and needs first results in users being able to achieve their goal on the provided services. Thereby creating less strain on the support staff as the user can solve their problem/goal on their own.
How we as V5 digital provide UX
User Experience is going to be a major player in the future and a key brand differentiator. Thinking about the future and potential UX can have for your company growth. We need to start shifting our thought trains to be more user-orientated and involve UX in the development process. We as V5 Digital can be your strategic partner in designing superior UX for your digital products and services. Don’t hesitate to contact V5 Digital for a free, no obligation consultation.
