Twenty years ago, businesses were solely focused on creating products with flawless coding.
Then, user experience entered the scene.
As a result, companies began to switch their focus to better understanding their customers and building a comprehensive experience for users. Businesses that mastered UX design positively differentiated themselves as customers found greater ease in using their products. In 2017, Forrester even reported that these companies earned $100 for every dollar they invested in UX design.
Great companies make UX design decisions based on data.
As UX design further developed, users began expecting nothing less than a seamless experience. In fact, 88% of online customers who have a negative experience will not return, and 46.7% will share their negative experience with a friend.
Fortunately, there are fundamental UX design principles that business owners and designers can implement to immediately enhance the experiences of their customers. Understanding your target audience through utilizing empathy and analyzing data will allow you to more fully bring your products to life using UX design.
Understanding Your Target Audience
UX designers have discovered that without knowing your audience, business goals are nearly impossible to achieve. It is their mastery in this area that has caused the industry to boom. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted that in 2020-30, UX design jobs will grow by 13%.
Goran Paun has been a pioneer in the UX Design industry since he created his company, ArtVersion, in 1999. His experience with clients, including Fortune 500 companies, has shown him the importance of identifying a consumer’s demographic to achieve business strategies.
“Determining which conversion and user experience strategies will work for a specific business can be daunting, but analysis is your ally,” Paun writes. “Often, companies will look to their competitors for ideas, implementing UX methods that may not be ideal for their own target market. The pathway to an effective user experience for your business begins by taking a comprehensive look at your business strategy.”
One very powerful way to understand your audience is through empathy.
Start With Empathy
Intechnic is one of the world’s leading UX agencies. Intechnic’s Founder and CEO, Andrew Kucheriavy, recently stated that “empathy in UX is the Holy Grail.”
Understanding the feelings, thoughts and experiences of your product’s users is a crucial step to building a product they will love. However, this requires a UX designer to put away any preconceived notions and find ways to connect fully with their specific audience.
Sang Valte, who has over 15 years of design experience, sits on the Design Standards Board of General Assembly. He stated, “[UX Design is] something that anybody can do, but not everybody can master. When our biases get in the way and we forget to keep asking fresh questions, we are making designs for one person—ourselves.”
Data Matters
As empathetic as your designers may be, they are only human and they will make errors. This is why great companies also make UX design decisions based on data. Having data to back up design decisions will assist in keeping a designer’s ego in check.
César D’Onofrio is the CEO of Making Sense, a software development company that guides digital transformation projects. D’Onofrio found success early in his career when he began blending his engineering skills with design. His company now creates teams of UX designers and technologists who work together to ensure that a user’s experience is considered from the beginning to the end of a project.
“UX design is baked into everything we do, from analysis through coding,” D’Onofrio said. “That analysis includes comprehensive A/B testing. This is completed by creating interfaces that are tested on small groups of users that mirror our target audience. The usability of the interfaces provides us with data that allows us to make final design decisions based on specific evidence.”
This kind of data, coupled with empathy and a full understanding of your target audience, will ensure that your product design decisions produce real-life results.
