April 28 | 2021

5 Reasons to adopt ‘Design-Thinking’ process

Now, more than ever, companies are deploying more resources into UX (user experience) and UI (user interface) design to improve customer satisfaction, reduce system redundancies, and increase the efficiency of their service or product.

If you recall a time that you got frustrated with an online service or a digital product, know that it was most likely due to a lack of user experience.

UX designers act as system designers looking for inefficiencies or pain points that users go through while interacting and engaging with your product or service. As a result, you will find that users will often abandon a full cart during a complicated checkout system or click off your site if they are unable to navigate it appropriately. We know that low customer satisfaction or the complete loss of user interest in your product is one sure-fire way to negatively influence your sales and revenue. Taking advantage of UX/UI designers who are trained to step into the shoes of your everyday user, empathically identify areas of opportunities for improvement, and design solutions with the user and your business in mind is the best decision your company can make. Let’s dive deeper into the 5 reasons why every enterprise needs to invest in UX/UI design.

1. Increase conversion rates

UK Design Council tracked share prices from 1993 to 2004 and discovered that companies practicing user experience design were outperforming others by over 200%. That is because enterprises investing into UX/UI were able to identify points of frustration for their users in their current system and conduct research by way of personas, wireframing, and usability testing to identify the needs of their users. What ends up happening is creating a list of opportunities where human-centred design can resolve points of frustration. This would then enable companies to brainstorm solutions that would ultimately help the product or service to be more user-friendly and intuitive. This can translate into something as improving site navigation to decrease bounce rates or streamlining the checkout process to help customers purchase products more efficiently in order to increase conversion rates.

2. Avoid expensive redesigns

By investing in user-centred design in projects earlier on, companies can validate any assumptions about their product or service and avoid any future costly redesigns. Companies often rush to development, leaving developers to spend an estimated 50% of their time on foreseeable reworks. Reworking each glitch after initiating the coding stage can cost companies 100x more than if the issue was caught and resolved during the wireframing phase of the UX process. That’s why if companies invest time and money into wireframing and user testing their prototypes which is significantly cheaper and faster to identify any issues before jumping to development, that’s dollars saved.

3. Satisfied users are your brands flag-bearers

We are all familiar with the feeling of scrolling down a product page reading reviews before deciding to proceed with our purchase. Sometimes, one or two bad reviews are enough to veer customers completely off purchasing. That is because online reviews can either make or break a sale. Studies show that almost 90% of potential buyers rely on online reviews as much as they trust word-of-mouth recommendations. Harvard Business Review stated that 20% of satisfied clients told at least 10 people about their product or service experience. That means that good user experience does help a brand’s image and digital strategy, and ultimately increasing their reach to other potential customers as well. Also, positive user satisfaction leads to increased user engagement which can mean returning loyal customers, that’s more revenue made.

4. Save on customer support fees

By investing in UX, you will also be saving money on customer support because if users are unable to find important information on your site, such as to change their account settings, or have trouble with finalizing a purchase, they will flock to your customer help services. As your support tickets are overflooding, you will be forced to invest more time, money, and manpower to deal with it. Conducting user testing before making your site live will create the space to test out content and its’ configuration. Seeking the aid of digital marketing agencies to build out a content strategy as a part of your UX process will alleviate one of the toughest parts of a site or product launch for your team. This also translates to investing in a thoughtfully curated FAQ page,a help section, or a chat-bot helper to address customer service issues that do come up.

5. Increase innovation

Another way user experience and interface design are worthy of your company’s dollars is that it encourages your team to think outside the box. Sometimes companies are looking to launch a new product line or rethink their current product design. UX researchers are employed to research problem spaces and offer pain points that users face within the current marketplace or identify a need that is not being met. This allows for more creative exploration in spaces or groups of people that were previously overlooked in order to offer them new product ideas. As more people live and breathe online, users demand for visuals that load faster, look sharper, and are more responsive across all their devices. As such, brands are forced to keep up with the times. That’s why UX/UI designers leverage user interface patterns that create aesthetically pleasing and differentiating digital experiences. Aesthetic innovation is key for standing out in a crowd of competitors where companies often rely on their marketing and branding to entice customers to buy from them.

Some companies can easily fall into the ‘save a penny, lose a dollar’ trap where they might see UX/UI as non-essential, but now you can see why UX/UI can save you long-term costs, increase user acquisition, and thus, increase your bottom line.

As a company, if you are unsure where to start, digital marketing agencies like Candid Media can help build out a content and digital strategy with users in mind to help brands achieve their business goals.