The user interface is a key element of any digital system, particularly intelligent systems that run on mobile devices or over the web. The market has responded to the growing importance of UX with a flood of widgets, toolbars, stylesheets, javascripts, plug-ins, and more.
The result has been an avalanche of apps and websites with more flash, more glitter, and less usability.
The designers at Quirk, a Singapore-based CX consultancy, advise clients to focus on five basic questions:
- Who is the user? Older or younger? How much education does the typical user have? Married or single? The answers to these questions have big implications for UX design and effective CX.
- What does the user want to accomplish? This consideration is overlooked surprisingly often. It’s clear what you want to accomplish during a potential customer’s visit to your website. But it may not be the same thing the customer wants.
- What is the real reason the customer is engaged with you? Keep track of the search terms that lead visitors to your website. Make sure your most popular products and services are front and center – not necessarily the newest products or the ones you are most eager to sell.
- What capabilities, skills, and technologies limit the customer’s exploration of your website or app? Creating a beautiful HD video to introduce your product may do you little good if your customer base lacks broadband and high-definition screens. You can accomplish a lot while still making your information accessible to customers with lowest-common-denominator technology. If you aim at users with high-end systems only, you’re limiting your potential market.
- What features could improve UX and overall customer experience? Take a step back and evaluate your site from the customer’s perspective. Or better yet, run a focus group. You may be surprised what you learn.
It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of whizzy UX gadgets and high-end technology, but at the end of the day your goal isn’t to have a beautiful app or website, but to have an app or website that allows the most customers to engage with your company and do business with you. Sometimes less is indeed more.
Is your CX all it should be? Get the verdict from our panel of expert judges at the UK Financial Services Experience Awards 2016.