We have built a better understanding of the word “Design” over the past years… Sort of. Thanks to digital products for bringing most of us (almost) on the same page. Before digital products, design was not that common, more or less it was limited to physical products (industrial design). The design was breathing among us but not many of us truly understood or valued the purpose behind it and good design was also not accessible in terms of affordability to everyone.
Whereas now because of digital design, a well-designed user experience is just there for everyone, even if you are using a 5-year-old device, and the “UI/UX design” term is quite common (people sometimes confuse it with graphic design but they understand).
What made us understand “design” better
We became close to the design mindset because of user-centered digital design. Especially since the companies started to serve their customer's needs.
For a long period of time digital design has been perceived just as a good combination of colors, typography, or different layouts. Being different (Visually) from one another was the only goal for many digital businesses regardless of the benefit to the end users. It took a lot of time for digital businesses to understand the true value and see the design from the right perspective (It’s still not that common yet but we are getting there).
In the early days of the internet, the goal was just to show the information on a computer screen, transitions happened over the years, from desktop to mobile-first and now apps are becoming the first priority.
Design now and then
If you think of commonly used products from industrial design (before the digital era) you will remember the products in form of objects which were limited and capable of very specific tasks, and once it’s done they needed another creation process to be better at its job. No incremental improvements.
An interesting example is to think of a watch that does nothing but just shows you the time, looks good on your wrist, or max different colors of straps that match your dress. Whereas now, the word “Watch” is literally redefined with digital design, you don’t just watch time now, you literally Watch your fitness, your heartbeat, your sleeping patterns, and your food order delivery and with the new updates, your watch will be keeping a Watch on you in case you fall it will call on your emergency numbers.
Another example of our new lifestyle is Home Delivery. You don’t have to depend on anyone to eat if you can’t cook. You can eat any cuisine you want at any time of the day (the challenge is how to deliver as fast as possible at your door). In short, there is almost no service that you can not avail of online now.
And of-course, there are endless examples of how the digital world has changed the way we live now.
How it has been so effective?
As I mentioned above at the beginning of the internet web pages were just loaded with information without thinking about the end-users.
There were only a few companies like google and amazon knew the importance of user-centric designs. Larry and Sergey’s goal for Chrome was “We should make the web as fast as flipping through a magazine”. Jeff Bezos believed (in the early years of amazon) in focusing obsessively on the customer experience, selection, ease of use plus great customer service.
By seeing the success of these user-centered companies we started to learn and understand the importance of user-centric design. Not many companies are following this path but the good news is everyone is trying to listen to their users now.
So take a pause and think, is every digital experience around you tailored to your needs?
Are we living in the best time of User-centered design?
In this rapidly evolving digital world, design has strongly become part of our life. We crave and remember good experiences. There is a lot of design thinking comes into place to understand what is really important for your users and how to design it in the most effective and memorable experience. knowingly or unknowingly we have started living by design.
It’s an experience economy era. Companies now sustain by giving great experiences to their customers. The definition of Good Design now is personalization but we are still not quite there yet.
Personalized experiences need to become very common for us (almost in every digital service) to say that we are living in the best time of User-centered design.
How should we keep getting better
I really like how Figma is trying to generalize the mindset of collaboration “Nothing great is made alone” and it all starts with listening to your customers and understanding the “why” behind their needs, asks, or frustrations. Keep in mind your customers don’t always know what they are looking for, it’s our job (as designers) to figure out the best possible experience for them.
Be mindful of your research
The best and the worst thing about the research is there is no right or wrong answer. One wrong analysis can lead you in the wrong direction. You should always challenge your research methodologies, if you have doubts about the analysis must verify the results using other methodologies before you lead the whole team in the wrong direction.
Many organizations especially the ones that are just starting to listen to their customers often confuse being Customer-Centric with just doing some interviews with customers and some usability tests but being Customer-Centric is more of a mindset than just being aware of what your customers are telling you. It’s a way how your organization, cross departments, squads, and your trio function from top to bottom.
Team level collaborations
Synchronization of the product, design&research is one of the very first steps toward a customer-centric approach. Where the product understands the design importance of and design helps the product achieve what they are aiming for in the best possible experience.
It’s very common, often product teams in many organizations only focus on the delivery of the features. The race to deliver the features as fast as they can, blinds them to see the benefits of the research and good design.
At HungerStation the UX researchers/designers are empowered to do what is right for the customers. No feature or a small improvement we release goes to customers without in-depth research and testing. Even the features that already exist in other applications and are used by millions of users, we don’t just blindly adapt them, we make sure what improvements we can bring in the adaptation which is relevant to our customers.
Squad level collaboration
The health of the collaboration between your product trio really matters to designing a seamless user experience. Product Managers, User experience designers, and Engineers should contribute from their end to build the right experience/feature. What I mean by that is listening to your customers is easy, go on a call, sit with them and talk but what really matters is structuring those customer insights and digging into them, each member of the trio comes with a specific perspective and skillset. Listen to each other and help them to achieve what they are trying to achieve. Healthy transparent collaboration is the key to your success.
What can you start doing now?
- Your job as a user experience designer will be to fulfill the business requirements in a way that serves the customer’s needs in the best possible experience or sometimes you will have to educate the business on the customer needs.
- Winning the team’s trust and shadowing them under your vision will make the customer voice stronger. You must build trust with your team and start with your product manager, it will take time but once you have their trust they will be willing to see your perspective (I mean the DESIGN perspective), after all, we all want the best experience for our product.
- Ask as many questions as you have to ask (from PM/Analyst/EM) fill yourself with the requirements and don’t get too attached to them because once you will start seeing the customer insights you may have to challenge the requirements so it is very important to not get biased with the requirements.
- For any feature, you design, try to show your Product Managers/Owners where we are heading with this approach, and how the design is going to evolve in the next 2–3 quarters. May be designed for the long term and Break into phases(be aware, customers should not feel an incomplete experience). Your PMs/EMs will also have clear visibility.
- Don’t think (even) for a second that you are the only one who cares about the users. In this era, everyone wants to care about the users. The only advantage (as a researcher/designer) you have is that you have the capability to not be biased with your wants. You have methods to know the customer's insights and your job is to involve your other team members in your methodology so you and your team come on the same page.
- Communication really matters when it comes to aligning your team and the stakeholders with your vision. Try to articulate your design rationale to the other teams for the benefit of the product experience so everyone can relate to it.
