UX stands for User Experience design – it is the process of digitally or physically designing products that are user-friendly. UX designs are usually easy to use and delightful to interact with. They are sensitive of human feelings, emotions, perceptions and preferences during and after using an application. An app’s usability and accessibility enhances satisfactory user experience. To create an efficient UX design, you need to conduct thorough research on the needs of your target audience. Some of the renowned forms of UX design are as follows:
- Jakob Nielsen — Usability Heuristics.
- Susan Weinschenk’s — Psychological Usability Heuristics.
- Bruce Tognazzini’s — First Principles of Interaction Design.
- Guy Kawasaki’s — DICEE.
Designers mainly adopt this strategy of designing their apps/programs in order to provide value to their customers, and to enhance the clients’ experience with their product(s). There are several other benefits, six of which we will comprehensively discuss in this article.
- Increased Customer Satisfaction
A great design enables your customers to access engaging content with easy navigation. Thus, customers find themselves content with the design and functioning of your app. These customers will become loyal to your brand and will keep returning, hence increasing the ROI of your business. In addition to that, satisfied customers always play a huge role in marketing your product through word-of-mouth, by recommending your app to other potential customers, which brings us to the next benefit of UX design.
2. Increased Accretion of New Customers
Successful and user-oriented app design leads to competitive advantage in the app-developers’ market. Customers’ requirements keep changing but there is one thing that remains constant – their quest for an app that is convenient, easy and delightful to use. Making use of UX design, designers can attract new consumers who use their services through their UX-designed apps.
3. Improvement in Estimation
When you invest time and capital in understanding your target market users’ needs and requirements in a better way, and look for ways to address them, your basis for the estimation of your product design and specifications will also enhance. Your requirements become clear; you know your next move and you can also foresee the future of your product or service three to five years later. This improved planning and estimation also helps in cost reduction, which is our next factor.
4. Reduction in Development and Maintenance Costs
An app that is designed with careful estimations using UX design will have greater chances of succeeding in the app market compared to an app that is poorly designed. For the latter, there will be an increased need for documentation, training, and monetary development capital, which will translate into higher costs later on. In contrast, an app that is easy to use and convenient puts lesser burden on employees and the app-development company’s resources.
5. Reduction in Development Time
Time is one of the most important assets for any app-developer, or any other business-person for that matter, and no one would like to spare any of it when there is an option to be more productive in lesser time. That is where UX design comes in. About 50% of app development time is spent in making amendments in apps in order to fix mistakes that could be avoided using UX design, like incorrect assumptions about how users will behave, a new feature that no one wants to use, or an inaccessible design choice. Making sure that the design is done right the first time around, with the help of UX design, will reduce development time for app-developers.
6. Help in Development of Brand Image
Branding is one of the most important marketing aspects that contribute in moving your business further, and in engaging with the right target audience. When people associate your firm with a logo or a colour, they think of your brand every time they see it. Similarly, when there is consistency of basic elements that remain same throughout your apps, with the aid of UX, your brand image strengthens as users associate that particular design with your brand, thereby boosting customer loyalty as well.
Overall, app developers must invest in UX design in the initial stages of app-development in order to eradicate the possible need to make costly amendments later on, and to avoid mistakes. This will be very fruitful for the business in the long term, as it will strengthen the brand along with attracting new customers.
