Who wants to use an app that is hard to understand, difficult to use, and aesthetically unpleasing? The answer is no one!
Do you, as the owner of a software business, hesitate to invest in UX design? Hesitate no more! Research by McKinsey proves that great UX design provides impeccable user experience, customer satisfaction, and ultimately, business growth.
When it comes to bringing in revenue and growing your business, UX has a significant part to play. It not only adds to the functionality of the software and products you develop for your customers, but it also enables you to filter and select the right functionality and helps boost usability by applying knowledge of various domains like human-factors, psychology, systems, sociology, etc., resulting in smooth and intuitive user journeys.
The impact of a great user experience goes beyond the short term benefits and can be extremely beneficial in the long run as well. There are a number of ways it can positively influence your business. Let’s have a quick look at some of the factors that are the direct result of good UX design, and will boost your business.
Save money in the long run by investing in UX at the right time
In a study by MITX in 2009, it is estimated that user experience design contributes to saving 50% of wasted development time. So what’s the right time to invest in the UX? The short answer is, it’s before you begin developing your product. Doing so would make your development efforts more efficient, targeted, and structured.
If you ignore the UX in the initial stages or will keep it at the backburner while you perfect the product core, it would cost you time and money in the long run. You will have to keep revisiting the design to accommodate the users’ needs, preferences, and perfect the user flows and navigation. This would consume a lot of development time and finances, which is easily avoidable if enough time is spent on finalizing the UX design in the pre-development phase.
According to WebFx, investing $1 in your site’s UX will give you an ROI of $100 in the long run. This means, today, we can’t prioritize aesthetics over functionality or vice versa, so your product needs to be beautiful and functional simultaneously.
Boost sales & revenue with effective UX design
Focusing more on UX will help increase user engagement, and hence, boost conversion rate as well. This means, more and more users would turn into customers, resulting in rising sales as well as revenue.
Research conducted by Toptal shows that 90% of the users will continue shopping because of great UX. It’s highly likely that your users will opt for your competition if they have a bad experience with your product or service. This could be anything from complex navigation, difficulty in conducting a search, not knowing where you are at a moment, to generic (not customized) content, repetitive pop-ups/interruptions or distractions, and so much more.
Therefore, it’s always a good idea to optimize your product or app for mobile and web by prioritizing UX design.
FACT
According to IEEE study, 5-15% of all development projects that are started will be abandoned before or shortly after delivery due to poor usability. This amounts to $150 Billion lost. This loss can be avoided with a user-centered design approach.
Stand out from the crowd on the basis of user experience
User experience is a deciding factor when it comes to differentiating from your competitors within the same niche or industry. Enterprises, SMEs and Startups around the world are embracing good UX design and banking over the benefits that come along with it.
Invision Design’s research shows that 94% of the first impressions of a website or app interface are related to design. This is why industry leaders like Google, Amazon, Airbnb and others have shifted their focus towards delivering a user experience.
In 2020, customer experience has become the front and center of software applications, whereas pricing and the product have taken a backseat. Let’s list down some ways in which a good UX can help your brand stand out:
- Good UX means customers will be less likely to switch brands.
- A great initial impression means visitors are more likely to return to your website.
- Higher brand credibility stems from good design.
- Average time spent on pages would go up.
- Personalized content & experience would help boost conversions.
Improve customer retention with enhanced UX
UX design is all about the users. So it’s essential that the designers think like users and incorporate features that can help make the user flows more intuitive. It’s always a brilliant idea to map out the customer journey before beginning the UX design and product development.
Users should always have a way to orient themselves during navigation of the website or product. This adds to a good user experience. If these things are taken into consideration, customer retention is more likely to increase. Some factors that boost consumer loyalty and help a brand retain them are:
- Personalized experience on a brand’s website or product.
- Web pages and images that load in the shortest possible time.
- Detailed contact information is available to the users.
- Availability of informative content and resources relevant to your product and services.
- Great customer service, timely responses, and a quick and simple way to connect.
TIPS
You can improve the user experience of your product by doing the following:
- Conduct thorough research about what your users want and what their pain points are. Ask questions from the user’s point of view and evaluate your design: “Would I be satisfied with this product if someone else created it?”
- Keep the sign in, sign up, or any forms in your website or app as easy as possible. Enable features of signing up with Google, Facebook, etc.
- Never let customers think too much, get lost, or confused while using your product.
- Never underestimate the power of good aesthetics. Always research, take inspiration, study color psychology, and patterns when it comes to design
Stay relevant with continuous UX iterations
The Tech industry is evolving rapidly. Brands need to constantly update their outlook as well as product offerings in order to stay relevant to what’s next. This means continuous iterations are essential in order to future-proof your product’s design and core functionalities. No design is ever perfectly complete – if it stays stagnant for too long, it grows out of date, which results in a big drop in customer engagement, and hence, your revenue and profit. WebFx says that 75% of your product’s credibility comes from design. This means, if your design is not up to date and in line with the user experience trends, it can affect your product’s authenticity and customers are less likely to buy from you.
FACTS
- Conversion rate can increase by 400% with strategic, thoroughly researched, and intentional user experience and design
- Mobile optimization is becoming increasingly important. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, it will give users a bad overall experience of your brand
- Even an investment of $1 in design can bring about a profile of $2-100 in a business
Wrap up
Closing the argument, it suffices to say that good UX design impacts your business greatly, especially in times when customers are at the crux of product experiences. If users have a positive experience with your software or application, it essentially means your product is successful. In keeping with this, if they have a not-so-impressive first impression, they are likely to never return to your product and even more likely to choose your competition over you. If one interaction defines the purchasing decision of customers, it’s easy to imagine the magnanimity of the importance UX design holds in software development.
At VentureDive Design, we keep user experience design at the heart of everything we develop and deliver to our customers. Our brilliant team of designers are always hard at work, ensuring that our clients face little to no difficulty in navigating applications, all the while delivering experiences that augment their journeys, and leave a lasting good impression.
This way, the users don’t just convert to become our customers; rather, they know they are investing in a life-long partnership, where we are their friends who will enable them to offer immaculate product experiences to their customers, and help their business grow.
