What UX is and why your company cannot live without it?
Most of IT companies don’t see UX (User Experience) should be at the heart of everything they do which leads to their inability to present and sell UX as the starting point of any project.
UX in most case is sold as an “extra” service while they should be seen as the starting point of any IT business strategy.
The misconception here is that most people think of UX as just usability.
Usability though is simply how easy to use and simple the website functionalities are to the end user. For usability we have plenty of best practices already in place and even standardized. Bear in mind that usability is only part of UX!
UX is a continuous work that starts by what customers want to accomplish with their site, and not how they want the site to be, unless they are the ultimate end user of the site in all aspects (who purchase is also the ultimate end use) which nowadays is really a rare case.
Despite the fact that for many people UX might seem an “extra”, I assure you the investment in UX in reality pays-off every cent and much, much more.
Let’s face it!
Most of IT company's customers don’t even know what UX is and for that reason they don't realize how desperately they need to implement all the UX concepts!
They don’t know UX is a continuous work and without it they are in fact gambling on their own business future as they might reach their business goals with their digital strategy, just get by or even fail.
I have been researching for the university JAMK (Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences in Finland) about mobile development for some time. All the problems I have seen when designing for mobile is exactly that mobile sites are not planned from the start to end with the end user in mind. No research has been done and nobody knows:
1. Who really is going to use the site?
Here I do not mean the idea our customers have about who is their target customer, because who really use their site might also be other people and business they don’t even know because no research has been done.
2. How smartphone savvy the end user is?
3. What the key features that should be available that end users don’t want be without or want to have available to Mobile, and for Tablet, and for Desktop?
This is one of the most neglected aspects of building a site in any form factor. If no research is done to know what the real end user values in the different form factors, how can we really build sites and software that work for our customers (the IT company's customer) ?
4. How comfortable the end user would be using the design developed for them? (here comes the usability factor)
And so many more questions….
Most of our customers (IT company's customers) also don’t realize they might know their customers very well face to face, when dealing by phone, in their stores or when dealing through dealers and so on. However, rare is the case when the questions above are answered before our customers come to us to develop their site and software! The only question that is often, but not always, answered is the question 4 about usability that is really only part of the UX.
From everything I have seen, studied and experienced also in my previous sales and marketing jobs in Finland, in Spain and Brazil, I can assure you that most of companies don’t always know WHO their site end users are; HOW their end users use their website in the real world; and WHY they need desperately UX without knowing it.
Renata Baldissara-Kunnela works at Innofactor as UX expert and Tester
To know more about me please visit my About me page: http://about.me/Renata_bk
UX in most case is sold as an “extra” service while they should be seen as the starting point of any IT business strategy.
UX is everything - it starts with the customers, go deeper to their customers and it should end with them in mind!
What UX really is?
UX is a business and digital field in itself.The misconception here is that most people think of UX as just usability.
Usability though is simply how easy to use and simple the website functionalities are to the end user. For usability we have plenty of best practices already in place and even standardized. Bear in mind that usability is only part of UX!
UX is a continuous work that starts by what customers want to accomplish with their site, and not how they want the site to be, unless they are the ultimate end user of the site in all aspects (who purchase is also the ultimate end use) which nowadays is really a rare case.
Despite the fact that for many people UX might seem an “extra”, I assure you the investment in UX in reality pays-off every cent and much, much more.
Let’s face it!
Most of IT company's customers don’t even know what UX is and for that reason they don't realize how desperately they need to implement all the UX concepts!
They don’t know UX is a continuous work and without it they are in fact gambling on their own business future as they might reach their business goals with their digital strategy, just get by or even fail.
Do you know when our customers (IT company's customers) really know they need UX (from start to end) and even are willing to invest whatever it takes to have continuous UX research on their end users?
When they find out their competitor is rocking their business sales up with tremendous popularity (that means good customer satisfaction) because they have invested in UX in a continuous basis. The problem in this scenario is that when (not if) that happens and the company asks for a complete UX treatment in a continuous basis, it means they have fell behind of being on the top of their industry and get back to the top will be very difficult.I have been researching for the university JAMK (Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences in Finland) about mobile development for some time. All the problems I have seen when designing for mobile is exactly that mobile sites are not planned from the start to end with the end user in mind. No research has been done and nobody knows:
1. Who really is going to use the site?
Here I do not mean the idea our customers have about who is their target customer, because who really use their site might also be other people and business they don’t even know because no research has been done.
2. How smartphone savvy the end user is?
3. What the key features that should be available that end users don’t want be without or want to have available to Mobile, and for Tablet, and for Desktop?
This is one of the most neglected aspects of building a site in any form factor. If no research is done to know what the real end user values in the different form factors, how can we really build sites and software that work for our customers (the IT company's customer) ?
4. How comfortable the end user would be using the design developed for them? (here comes the usability factor)
And so many more questions….
Most of our customers (IT company's customers) also don’t realize they might know their customers very well face to face, when dealing by phone, in their stores or when dealing through dealers and so on. However, rare is the case when the questions above are answered before our customers come to us to develop their site and software! The only question that is often, but not always, answered is the question 4 about usability that is really only part of the UX.
From everything I have seen, studied and experienced also in my previous sales and marketing jobs in Finland, in Spain and Brazil, I can assure you that most of companies don’t always know WHO their site end users are; HOW their end users use their website in the real world; and WHY they need desperately UX without knowing it.
Renata Baldissara-Kunnela works at Innofactor as UX expert and Tester
To know more about me please visit my About me page: http://about.me/Renata_bk
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