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Happy users, happy you

User experience has moved to the forefront of most technology design. Yet it remains an often-overlooked discipline. Rebecca Dean, Vitamin T’s in-house UX specialist, reveals some shocking stats that show what happens when UX is ignored.

We rely on technology so much nowadays that when something doesn’t work or we don’t feel comfortable using it, it becomes immediately frustrating.

Software and systems are expected to function intuitively, without the need for an instruction manual or walkthrough. It’s thanks to user experience that these things can be expected.

Consumers have the likes of Apple and Facebook to thank for raising the bar on usability, to the point where we have long abandoned the need for instruction manuals. Children as young as one and grandparents into their nineties can use iPads intuitively. That is the triumph of Apple’s user-centred design. But it means all product and web designers now have to raise their game to reach the same standard.

Products that require any level of interaction will be left behind if they don’t take into account the importance of user experience, as more intuitive products gain popularity. Yet the painful lessons of ignoring UX input in to a project are all too obvious.

Websites that have neglected UX suffer from frustrated users and poor conversion rates – 97% of websites fail at UX. With the right UX team, the development process can be more proactive and more profitable.

Customer retention is a big deal — yet the majority of users fail to convert because they think you don’t care about their experience. More than two thirds of users give up because they think you don’t care about them

Programmers spend half their time fixing avoidable issues - and that means 50% more time added to the development cycle. Testing with just five users can find 85% of your site’s problems.

A UX strategist can coordinate inexpensive testing processes to avoid inflated costs — costs that can be 100 times more than fixing errors during development. Website errors can be expensive. Being proactive isn’t.

Every $1 invested in UX returns up to $100. In the US one e-commerce site increased its annual revenue by $300 million with a simple, UX-driven change. A good UX designer can ensure that a site draws return customers and increases conversion rates.

As these examples illustrate, user experience is such a multi-faceted term that there is no set definition. Depending on your individual business requirements, you could need someone to sit within your design team to help direct the visual creative from a usability perspective, or you might need someone to work more with your project management team, incorporating UX at a strategic level during initial requirement meetings and carrying that right through to delivery.

If you, like many tech-savvy businesses, are wanting to improve your website’s conversion rate but are not sure what exactly you need, at Vitamin T, we always ask questions to help us define exactly what their recruitment needs are. If you need help defining your UX project, we’d be happy to help.

www.vitamintalent.com

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