Why A Great User Experience Should Be Part Of Your Brand Strategy

In the old days, the product & user experience would be driven by the engineers/programmers. It was up to them to turn a requirement into a somewhat usable feature in a product. The result was a sub-par experience for the user and extensive user manuals explaining complex, unnecessary flows. Plop in a tech support department and that was it.

But all of that has changed over the last decade, and now design-driven companies are starting to become the norm.

It’s not just about aesthetics though, it’s a user-oriented approach designed to delight the user from early engagement to following up on satisfaction. The user experience should be exactly that, an experience.

You should care about the experience

Chance are your new product or idea will not be reinventing the wheel, but rather improving on something existing. Your product and customer experience will make all the difference in the world. Check out Hubspot’s great stats on how a good experience is better for business. Also keep in mind happy users will both come back and recommend your product.

People will remember how your product and team made them feel.

What can you do?

Sit down and use your website/app/product as if you were a customer. I’d also encourage you to do some user testing, you’d be surprised on what you find. Ask the important questions:

– Is it easy to understand? — Does it solve a problem? — What do we do better than the competition? — What do THEY do better?

– Is it easy to use?

Always under-do in terms of features but go overboard in providing something memorable & delightful. Always stay in touch and follow up on your customers, a quick email or note goes a long way.

The experience as a brand strategy

Design driven companies and startups have taken Silicon Valley by storm in the past few of years. From a very early stage these companies think of design and experience as the founding blocks of the company. They build products for people and teams that back them up.

Brands and company values are now being defined as design and people focused. Think about your brand, how do you define it? Is it all about your company or is it about your customers?

Originally published at ideaware.co on April 29, 2015.