How do you deliver a standout user experience? I covered this topic at Planit’s recent “Adopting a Customer-First Strategy” event in Sydney, where I outlined the areas that have been repeatedly observed as success factors in UX design.
I fielded several questions following the presentation, which I will share here, together with my answers:
Is user research only for big companies and/or projects?
While research has often been viewed as expensive, we’re finding that organisations increasingly understand that they cannot afford to create products and services that don’t meet users’ needs and solve business problems. The most fundamental reason for conducting research is that it’s the only way to get an understanding of the people who will use your product or service.
How do you assess the experience of a digital product or service?
User experience principles and goals are defined during the research process and referred to throughout the project. User testing is then conducted to validate the design hypothesis and to guide iteration of the proposed design solution.
What if stakeholders won’t be swayed by the insights from user research?
Ultimately, the business owns the product and/or service, and will make their own decisions about how the product takes shape. However, the design process itself provides early evidence of stakeholder and/or user viewpoints and requirements, and empowers the ‘right’ design decisions to take place at each stage of product development.
How do you measure success and value of UX?
It depends on the client and their project. In terms of the work we did with the New South Wales (NSW) Electoral Commission, overall success was measured by a smooth state election in 2019.
This was enabled, in part, by digital transformation, which assisted participants and organisers to prepare earlier for the election by providing access to the right information at the right time. Additionally, over 200,000 NSW citizens successfully used the iVote online voting facility.
In this case, what was the success factor?
Robust research. In addition to research and analytics that helped us to understand the information needs of voters in NSW, we also carried out qualitative interviews with voters and polling place intercept surveys to understand people in the moment of voting.
There are two sides to any election, so we looked at both the political participants and voters. We also spoke to the candidate helpdesk and call centre, who are in the frontline of helping voters through the process, for their insights into voter needs.
Understanding your audiences
These are but some considerations to keep in mind when delivering best-in-class experiences through your digital channels. To get more specific and tailored feedback for your product or service, you’ll need to conduct research to understand the needs, motivations and preferences of your audiences.
At Folk, we help our clients create successful digital products or services by better understanding their users, their needs and context of use. We work with Planit to help organisations transform their applications to deliver the quality customers demand.