Know Your User

While planning for any product, the most important aspect to keep in mind are the users of the product. All the days of planning and hard work involved behind any product are only meant to satisfy its users. While there are numerous direct and indirect factors that contribute to the quality of experience a user gains from a product, the visual aspect of a product, especially that pertaining to websites and mobile apps is something that can be dictated by the product owners.

To create the kind of user experience one intends to for their product’s users, understanding how someone would interact with the product (mobile app/website/software) is the base of operations to generate more ideas. Here we will talk about how digital media users interact with online media and their usage patterns.

Users are impatient

A person will not spend more than a few seconds on your app or website if you do not design it to capture their attention. The users having spent countless seconds on poorly designed pages are in a rush to go through the product. According to Nielsen Norman Group, a user is more likely to leave any webpage in the first 10 seconds of his visit.

Users’ attention is divided
Only quality content will not attract a user’s attention and make them stay. Presenting that content in an eye catching yet information centric manner is an important aspect that decides the length of a user’s stay on your product.

Users hate loads of information

Specially on a webpage, a user will never bother to go through all the things. They are happy with whatever works for them and they are interested in no more. Giving a lot of information or features up front will only confuse the user and make him run away from your product like he has been doing with most of those he finds on the internet.

Users do not like exploring

Not many people go ahead and scan all the features and content of a product from head to toe. That is why there is a chance that they may miss a few important points that your product has to offer. It is extremely important to make the user aware of the awesome features of your product without drowning him in a pool of information (as aforementioned).

Users are less likely to read

Human brain responds much better to visuals rather than texts. People remember more of what they see, than that of what they read. Most users have a very short span of attention and the best way to grab that is by using informative visuals that users can make sense of.

You may not know your users’ usage pattern

Most of the times, users do not interact with a website or app the way it was meant to be. Humans have a habit of assessing any situation from a sef-centric point of view. Since it is impossible to pinpoint the needs of a user at once, many websites and products experience a diverse usage pattern.

Users act upon their intuitions

There is no dearth of websites, software and apps on the internet today and most users have probably already seen a product like yours. They expect certain behaviours and flow in the product and we should not defer from the standards in order to provide a sense of novelty.

Users are smart and experienced

Many times product owners discourage innovation and creativity in order to make the user feel at home. This may result in an obsolete or a fairly average product. There should be a good balance between innovation and standards to instill just the right amount of curiosity in the users.

Users love to be in control

Especially when we are talking about a software as service kind of a product, every user uses it in a way that is unique. When it comes to static websites, exclusively landing pages, a user should feel satisfied with every bit of information there is to attain, as if it were there to answer the question that just popped in the user’s head.

According to Forbes, return on investment on user experience and user interface is a sky rocketing 9900%. With so much competition in the market for any product, UI/UX has become one of the most important aspect for audience retention and the success of the product. Good design builds trust; trust retains users, which in turn generates more business.