Top Articles: Experiencing User Experience
Week 6, 2018
In the digital age, user experience design has become a key component of a platform’s success or failure. One important way that a brand can build and emphasize its unique identity is through its UX. UX has the potential be a consumer draw and retainer and a point of differentiation from competitors. And this concept has become just as important for offline brands. This is because UX is still an experience — it is based on emotional reactions to the interactions with your product.
Here are the top articles to read this week:
The Most Successful Brands Focus on Users — Not Buyers
By Mark Bonchek and Vivek Bapat from Harvard Business Review
“Where traditional brands focus on positioning their brands in the minds of their customers, digital brands focus on positioning their brands in the lives of their customers.” There is a huge difference from treating your consumers as customers versus users. Essentially, it comes down to the experience that the consumer has. Research shows that usage brands tend to have better customer retention and loyalty than traditional brands. This loyalty translates into a community experience, which perpetuates the retention. Focusing on how consumers can use or experience a product yields greater long-term results than focusing on how consumers will buy a product.
Podcast Listeners Really Are the Holy Grail Advertisers Hoped They’d Be
By Miranda Katz from Wired
The Apple Podcast Analytics results are in — podcasts are one of the most engaging user experiences. The data shows that podcast listeners are hyper-engaged and super loyal to their favorite shows. They tend not to skip ads and almost always complete more than 90% of the content they start. The fact that advertisements are given the same amount of attention as the main content is virtually unheard of. The intimate nature the medium means that the experience feels personalized and like the host is offering a personal recommendation as a friend. To top it all off, there is no significant difference in these numbers across different shows or even different networks.Other media should take a page out of the podcast user experience handbook.
Personalization Is a Priority for Retailers, but Can Online Vendors Deliver?
By Dan Tynan from Adweek
Another way to look at experience is personalization. Regardless of what you call it, the goal is to be relevant and engaging. Context is key when it comes to providing an experience because true personalization can enhance customer relationships and thus boost sales. In fact, many customers actually want and look forward to in-context ads. Getting that one-to-one experience that many customers crave requires merging the large amounts of data of digital platforms with the intimacy of a brick-and-mortar store.
Facebook Really Wants You to Come Back
By Sarah Frier from Bloomberg
A user experience that keeps a consumer engaged and using the product is key. But there is a tipping point. For the first time, Facebook has lost users in the US and Canada. Obviously, they don’t want to lose any more, so they are upping their engagement tactics. Their method is to provide as many opportunities as possible for people to post and to remind people of the platform’s existence when they’re not online. In theory, this could create an engaging experience by making it super easy for users to use the platform. In reality, it’s too much and users are pushing back. There is a fine line between engaging and annoying.
Presentation: Ten Year Futures
The VC Benedict Evans has made a set of predictions for the next 10 years. He is very knowledgeable about this stuff and his video is worth a watch. Particularly when he talks about the future of AI and user experience.
Curated by Hadley Stork
