Why Should UX Designers Develop Business Skills?
Late in 2013, I have got a business proposal from one of my friend and it was the first time I have decided to experience the world outside the “employee world”.
Did it work? doesn’t matter :D . But as a UX designer it changed they way I think. All the struggles I went through also taught me that a UX designer should develop business skills. Here, I’m sharing some of the experiences I had.
The right perspective to UX
If you were asked the question — what’s UX? “Well, in a nutshell, crafting useful interfaces by understanding your target audience”. But the question is why should you do this, to help users?
The high level picture you will experience is that the UX designing process is a bridge that connects the business with its end users that explores the opportunities of business growth.
If UX designing is a method of convincing users about your products or service then working for a business is like being a Wiki of UX design thought process.
Recently I had been to a an online catalog project of a fast growing B2B bath solution brand. We have spent time on chit chats, discussed about the current market, observed communication patterns with the customers, they have taught me about their products and they have took me through other brand websites.
All these times I was analyzing their real challenges, how this catalog help them and exploring right solutions for them by developing empathy towards their business scenarios and the customers expectations. When the time has reached it became very easy for me to land on a right experience by enhancing the speed of my design process in a day and the developing has started on the same day itself . This is how it did go..
It was a “Oh man, my problem has been solved” moment, no revisions and iterations were not required and it was very convincing to the customers.
( I am not saying that you wont receive any revisions and iterations from customers :D but it will get reduced significantly )
What was the secret? Simple, with a business eye I was able to empathize the right perspective of their business behavior and the expectations of the customers and this UI was nothing more than a reflection of that.
Unlocks the door of deep empathy
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience, and work back toward the technology and not the way around”
— Steve Jobs
In a business environment you will be constantly striving to have a stable ground which will give you an opportunity to deal with different kinds of people and cultures extensively in real time — an interesting stage of your first time business. This practice will make you better in human psychology, you can spot the type of a person and the thinking pattern. It helps you to be stronger in understanding and deciding a right experiences for your target audience with less time.
A couple of examples:
Interaction Design
When you deal with different types of people you will also learn to interact with them the way they like. It is the same, in Interaction Designing, when you design an interaction it helps you to decide the right behavior that matches the expectations of the user persona.
Information Architecture
When you are communicating your business to your audience you are also developing story telling skill. You will learn to change the pattern and the language of the story depending on the kind of the person you are talking to. It is the same, you will start to see Information Architecture as story telling and it enhances your skill to decide the right pattern that matches the priorities of the user persona.
You will start to love Data, Aha!
“How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things, but how well we are understood.”
— Andrew Grove, former CEO at Intel Corp
There are two steps we consider for a long lasting business model.
1. Market study: Step to understand possibilities of different business models in your target audience by studying their behavior, expectations, challenges and influences of competitors.
2. Customer Surveys: Step to understand and analyze customer responses.
These two steps will gather data that reduces the distance between the business and the target audience.
Sometimes user don’t know what they want and what they are asking may not be the right solution for them. Sometimes you think that “Man, I have pushed a right thing to the market. But why am I not seeing the result?” And there are many such ambiguities you will face.
What is the solution? Collect and analyse the data.
When you experience its benefits as a UX designer you becomes very scared of design decisions based on assumptions.
There you starts to love and live in data.
You will strive to develop ground for qualitative and quantitative researches. You will start to observe people on what they like, what not and what can influence them. You will start seeking for more usability and usage analytics tools. You will start learning data analytics tools like Tableau to explore more user insights by prioritizing business benefits.
You becomes a person of values
When you step into marketing and sales, one key thing you will experience that a criteria for a business or an idea to become successful is when it has (unique) values or emotion or sometimes both to sell.
When you experience it’s impact you will start to apply the same principle in your design process, you will develop a strong eye to examine each and every detail aspects of your UI to find what value it adds to the user and how that helps the business growth until there is nothing left to remove.
Lets see an example, a user scenario I have noticed recently on RedBus:
One of the value RedBus offers is woman safe journey. This is how it works…
When a female traveler reserves a seat then the adjacent seat can be booked by only a female traveler (the red outlined seat). But, what if a male and a female travelers reserve seats together? This is how it looks like…
^ is it logical? yes, technically it is.
But these are my observations when I look through my “business lenses”.
- This seat layout would surprise a female traveler who expects a woman safe journey as she sees an indication of a female traveler with a male traveler — there’s a conflict in the promise. She might have to give a second or a third thought to get a right picture here.
- Indication of a female(red seat) traveler is exposing identity of a traveler, it it could lead to an uncomfortable experience with RedBus (Note that redbus do not have “ladies only") and is not a relevant information.
A possible right solution: Have the female indication only when there is female seat reservation with an adjacent unreserved seat.
You will become “the bridge” — Congratulations
The key ability you will gain is that you will be able to understand and empathize the business you are working for and with your UX design expertise you will be able connect the business objectives with the target audience through UI in the right way.
In another words “The CEO becomes his own UX designer”
When you work for a business you will experience the pain and benefits of dealing with human beings. It helps you to break the wall between you and the end user by destroying design bias and learning to start design right from user habits. You will become more and more comfortable with criticism and certain business decisions — that you thought weren’t making much sense — made by the business team. You will start to reshape your questions in such a way it make sense and benefits for the business.
and there are a lot..
The more you experience the business world the more you explore the real role of a UX designer.
Thanks for reading :)
