UX Gon’ Give it to ya: Why UX is Important

Our digital fixation is everywhere. We use screens to buy groceries, plan trips, manage our money (and even catch Pokémon) — the list is endless!

Screens are such a big part of our lives that we often don’t notice how much we rely on them, and their ability to connect us with the information or products we need almost instantly. We only notice when we have a bad experience, where it becomes impossible to do what we’re trying to do. This is when frustration takes over and we give up, or move on to someone else delivering the same service. This is also when we see why good UX is so important.

You’ve probably heard of UX design, but if you haven’t, in its simplest form it is design with the user in mind. With a user-centric approach, it aims to guide the user toward a solution (like a product, answer or location) as quickly and easily as possible.

UX design orchestrates the journey your user takes and is the most important step of planning any sort of digital product. Google, Apple, Kmart, Woolworths and the BBC all have a dedicated UX team because it returns significant value. But it’s not just for big fish — many small to medium businesses go through agencies for user-centred design and development because they want to reap the rewards while being conservative with their resources.

If Google isn’t enough to convince you, here are a few more things UX design can do for you.

Make or break a new (or old) business

In this time of screen domination, a poorly laid out homepage, confusing navigation or misplaced button could mean the difference between you or your competitor getting a sale. For a new business, these hurdles can mean a quick death, as users will leave frustrated and may never visit or use your service again.

This reality not only applies to new businesses of course, as plenty of big businesses are losing their grip on a once monopolised market because they aren’t paying attention to what the user really needs or wants. After all, the internet is a saturated democracy — if you don’t have what the people want or treat them like their experience is valued, they’ll happily go to a competitor.

Even in a small unsaturated market, if you’re not at the top of the game, someone else could sprout up with a slightly better product or slightly better user experience, and you’ll be bleeding customers before you know it.

Save time and money

One of the key principles of UX design is starting small. Here at Ply, we like to get our scribble on — whether it’s a whiteboard or a notebook — because this is the quickest way to get an idea out into the world. We sketch everything, invite our team to critique and suggest solutions, and improve our products before we even put mouse to pixel. We don’t move onto mid or hi-fi wireframes until we know we’re onto something good.

We will test internally or externally at each stage to ensure real user feedback is shaping the product and not just our own assumptions. This is how you ensure your product will be of genuine value to users, and you won’t leave them tearing their hair out over a bad experience or deliver the wrong solution to them entirely.

A low-fi wireframe used during the early planning stages for rapid-fire feedback. This low-fi and frequent testing approach helps businesses save a lot of time and money because they get to test ideas quickly, with minimum investment. By following this process there’s no development time wasted on useless functionality or confusing user interfaces (UIs) — the product you release to market will be truly what your users need.

Encourage user action

Whether your business goal is to sell something, educate or create, good UX design is instrumental in encouraging your users to take action. For instance, if your user has saved items to a wishlist, they may want to know about your returns policy before making a purchase. UX design would then place this relevant information at the right step in the path to encourage the user to purchase. When it comes to designing the delivery of this information, colour, text size and weight all work together to indicate hierarchy and prioritise primary or secondary actions like in the example below.

The placement, colour or size of a button can increase action or remove hurdles from a confusing process. In the example above, there are numerous design styles used to create a hierarchy that improves readability and prioritises different actions. For example, a solid button style is used to highlight the most important button while an outlined button style is used as the secondary style. There are also numerous other buttons of different sizes and colours used to incite different actions such as the search, menu, view etc.

Create loyal customers

A nice, easy-to-use digital product is a great thing to have, but preventing and managing issues can be the difference between earning a user’s trust or ruining your relationship. A UX strategy plans for all possibilities and aims to make any experience a positive one (even if it’s addressing an issue). Your customer needs to make a return? Make this process as easy as possible. Your customer needs help troubleshooting their software? Create a chatbot that’s available 24/7 to solve their issues. So many problems can be solved by thinking like your customer and incorporating technology into your UX strategy. However, sometimes it’s also about knowing when technology is not enough, and when a real person needs to step in, but hopefully, with the time you will save in the long run, the more available you will be to the customers who really need you.

We know what you’re thinking, ‘But I know my customers, so I don’t need UX design’

Wrong, my friend. People do surprising, wacky and honestly disappointing things when it comes to interacting online. Very few times will people engage how you expect them to, or appreciate a feature as much as the founder or internal team will. Users are brutally honest, which is why it is always better to engage and test with them in real life, and not just make assumptions.

Designing for the screen is also unlike anything else you’ve experienced. As the business owner, you may know the steps your users need to take, but when it comes to influencing them through this pathway, you need to have a have a carefully crafted digital experience to guide them. The reality is that there are so many devices to design for, visual possibilities and environmental impacts that affect the user experience. It pays to back yourself with an experienced UX team who can navigate the nuances of all these things. After all, you’re the expert in what your business does, so it makes sense to bring in the UX experts to give your digital product the value it deserves.

Need help with UX? Get in touch.