Why is UX a new concept for some companies?

On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website's information is hard to read or doesn't answer questions, they leave. There are plenty of other websites out there so leaving is the first step when users encounter a difficulty.

Technology and business needs are a constant evolving machine. To fully understand how to use user experience design is to identify your current approach and how you can change it, understand the barriers for UX, understand its capabilities, the key benefits, how to implement its use, and examine statistics.

Growing pains are inevitable, staffing changes are typical, business needs are plentiful, continued education for advancing skill levels are essential, but the impact however can be minimized. Let’s examine a typical business approach for a new business need.

Typical Design Approach for a company with less UX maturity: The business has a need, they have an idea on what the product should look like, the content is either handed off or created, and they want you to build something beautiful, and launch it.

Analysis: The business has a unique perspective but it is missing expertise in designing for the target audience, understanding user needs, and missing the mark of forward design thinking. The product will have a short shelf life, and unable to reach multi-platforms, unable to reach multi users and their needs. It will ultimately expire.

A different approach (Forward Design Approach): The business has a need, the problem is defined, conduct upfront user experience methods, apply user centric methods, optimize the best content, utilize an expert designer, produce a product designed for the user that also reaches the business needs, retest the user to prove the design thinking and perfect the learning experience to solve the initial problem.

Analysis: You have reached a superior user centric design understanding and have an awareness of your target user. By designing this way the product can be redesigned with minimal effort and utilized for many years moving forward. You value metrics to measure its importance and functionality. Also the quality has importance across many other business avenues and can be used in other areas of the business. Your product can evolve.

Real World Example:

One option for Medical Institution business approach: Too many kids needed sedation to get an MRI scan. This is an added cost, it delays scheduling, it delays getting the scan done, and it delays a proper medical diagnosis in order to find the best treatment. Their proposed solution was to hire more staff to assist the children with completing a MRI scan, staff a Child Psychologist to help with the emotional needs, and create a new budget to pay for these specialized doctors and staff to help the children.

This is how Forward Design Thinking approach actually fixed the issue: Doug Dietz, a designer at GE was contacted about the issue. He realized that their machines were not providing a positive patient experience when he witnessed the tearful reaction of a young girl as she and her family approached the MRI scan room. The girl was so terrified, in fact, that she required anesthesia to undergo the MRI. Dietz took an empathetic, human-centered design approach to solving this patient experience challenge, eventually prototyping a series of kid-friendly adventures that used the MRI scanner as a prop in a story, decked out with various decals and decorations. The stories about pirate ships and space ships also integrated the MRI technician, who facilitated the scripted adventure. What were the results of this imaginative solution? Delighted kids and families, and improved experience at hospitals as fewer children required sedation to undergo an MRI.

http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com/from-terrifying-to-terrific-creative-journey-of-the-adventure-series/

So why is UX a new concept for some businesses? User experience design emerged in the 90’s as a branch of human-computer interaction (HCI), revolving around the practice of usability. It was in 2007 that Apple released the first iPod that the term and widespread use of creating end-to-end user-centered design philosophy. Since then UX has grown at astounding rates. Right afterwards there were reported massive increases in UX Design jobs (2200% increase per LinkedIn) and job growth because all major corporations started demanding better user experiences in all customer related platforms. Soon all companies followed suit and started expecting user centered design to initiate from inception of a new business product through to the end of production. [1]

For some business avenues however they have seen slower growth. This is due to barriers, management, initiation restraints, and design evolution development.

Typical UX Maturity within less design forward companies:

• Stage 1: A company can remain hostile toward usability for decades. Only when a design disaster hits will it be motivated to move ahead.

• Stages 2-4: Companies often spend 2 to 3 years in each of these stages. Once it enters stage 2 (user experience recognized, but derived from the design team's own opinions), a company typically takes about seven years to reach stage 5 (forming a UX group with a UX manager).

• Stages 5-7: Progress in maturity is considerably slower at the higher levels. A company will often spend 6 to 7 years each in stages 5 and 6, thus requiring about 13 years to move from stage 5 to stage 7.

• Stage 8: Few companies have reached this highest level of usability maturity, so it's premature to estimate how long it takes to move from stage 7 to stage 8. In most cases, it's 20 years.

Start-ups are lucky and can begin the maturity process at stage 3 or stage 4, depending on the founder's previous UX experience. Some companies also include a UX specialist among their first ten hires. Even so, the companies must progress through the upper levels in sequence, just like any more established company. [2]

So we discussed new ways to approach a business need and identified the design maturity levels, now let’s pinpoint some barriers for user centered design. The following list was compiled from the most commonly identified reasons for UX barriers across multi business lines:

• Organizations rely on the design team's personal judgment of what will be easy for customers to use. Most design decisions will continue to rely on this judgment until a user centric approach begins.

• Non design experts hold more weight in design decisions than experts.

• No official recognition of user experience as a discipline.

• Companies are not relying on results (Analytics)

• Customer/user satisfaction is not an important metric

• Product quality is not a target

• User behavior is unimportant

• No systematic processes is in place to use UX

• Companies mainly views UX as a magic potion that's sprinkled sparsely over a user interface to shine it up.

• Managers fail to leverage existing UX staff for more strategic purposes.

• Design teams are not conducting early user research before they do any design.

• There is a failure to redesign a product

• When new versions of a product are created there is a lack of gradually refining within a series of designs — from prototypes to the final implementation — and testing them at each step (UX). These essential steps are missed all together.

• Ignorance to what UX Design is and what it can do.

• Design evolution (i.e change) is hard for certain groups

We have identified the slow design phenomenon that some business have, and we have identified why there are barriers for UX Design to be implemented for some business lines, but now let’s examine what UX can do:

• Create vast user-experience improvements in a company that hasn't done any usability studies before.

• UX will help you understand your target user and their behaviors

• Utilizing UX methods can create better designs targeted to a specific audience.

• Solves user problems that were not identified previously

• Users will return to your product, absorb all the content, and enjoy it.

• UX creates measurable and overall better solutions

• Your designs will be reusable and possibly utilized across other product platforms.

• Provide in-depth research, brainstorm, and execute the business need

• Gain Qualitative(observed data not in the form of numbers, i.e behaviors, feelings, etc) and Quantitative (measured) Data

• UX can make your product more profitable, usable, and popular.

• UX can identify opportunities for solutions

• UX will change the psychology of your design.

• UX will ultimately make you more aware if what you were missing before.

• Gain a higher level of forward design thinking

• Proof of high ROI – return on investment i.e capital and profits (see stats section)

• Extremely high KPI return rate – Key Performance Indicators i.e success of reaching target goals(see stats section)

If your institution happens to fall under the slower UX maturity phenomenon and there is a struggle to implementing design forward thinking here are a few ways to get started:

• Start before/after comparisons to document the UX advances in certain products. Prove the design thinking.

• Ask open-ended questions.

• Make design decisions based off of user needs

• Shift focus to be about the user and not only centered around Stakeholders

• Have management open communication lines to avoid information obstruction.

• Incorporate as many UX methodologies into a project as possible.

• Designers should document and report on conversations with users.

• Appropriate staff should document and report all user testing

• Rely on user feedback and align it to the business need

• All projects should rely on user centric methodologies at the beginning and end of a project.

• Utilize Analytics tools apply the quantitative data to make design decisions based on user data.

• Take all user feedback, testing, and management suggestions after launch and redesign to optimize the user experience.

Even though large companies (major global corporations) and smaller companies (start-up business) currently use UX Designers to help their business become successful, it is still important for business to see the hard evidence to prove the need/costs for forward design thinking.

UX Statistics:

• Slow-loading websites cost retailers £1.73 billion ($2.6 billion) in lost sales each year[3]

• Companies without UX Design employees pay outside agencies to do user testing and it costs them around $171 per user[4]. Average testing per product is 20-100 users and typically more than one time (that’s $34,000 for one product)

• The average business metrics improvement after a usability redesign is now 83% [5]. ROI remains high because usability is still cheap and relative to gains.

• Redesigning for usability, the average improvement in key performance indicators (KPI) was 135% (2016).

• 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience. [6]

• 94% of a website user’s first impressions are design related. [7]

• 79% of online shoppers who experience a dissatisfying visit are less likely to buy from that site again. [8]

• Every dollar spent on UX brings in between $2 and $100 dollars in return. [9]

• 75% of users base your entire company’s credibility on your website’s design. [10]

• You can increase sales on your site as much as 225% by providing sufficient product information to your customers at the right time[11]. Analytics are key tools.

• Testing with just 5 users can find 85% of your sites problems. Testing with 15 will discover 100% of the usability problems. [12]

There is no question that UX Design can improve customer/user satisfaction across all product lines. The biggest impact of high user satisfaction of course is higher revenue for a businesses, which ultimately drives the need for more user centric design. Business obstacles that prevent UX from being utilized can be broken down, communication can widen, progress can transcend, and the ability to do so is there. Technology and business needs are a constant evolving machine; UX is merely an essential tool to keep the machine at optimal functionality.

(please forgive the formatting of the citations.... this platform does not allow APA style citations)

[1] Greever, Tom.

[2] Nielsen, Jakob.

[3] Econsultancy, David Moth

[4] Nielsen, Jakob.

[5] Ibid

[6] Gomez

[7] Veopix Design Follow

[8] Akamai

[9] Eckert, Peter.

[10] Veopix

[11] Nielsen, Jakob.

[12] Ibid

Bibliography:

Akamai. “Akamai Reveals 2 Seconds as the New Threshold of Acceptability for eCommerce Web Page Response Times.” 2 Seconds is Threshold for eCommerce Performance , www.akamai.com/us/en/about/news/press/2009-press/akamai-reveals-2-seconds-as-the-new-threshold-of-acceptability-for-ecommerce-web-page-response-times.jsp. Accessed 28 Sept. 2017.

Eckert, Peter. “Dollars And Sense: The Business Case For Investing In UI Design.” Co.Design, Co.Design, 13 Sept. 2017, www.fastcodesign.com/1669283/dollars-and-sense-the-business-case-for-investing-in-ui-design. Accessed 28 Sept. 2017.

Econsultancy, David Moth @. “Slow-Loading websites cost retailers £1.73bn in lost sales each year.” Econsultancy, 4 May 2012, econsultancy.com/blog/9790-slow-loading-websites-cost-retailers-1-73bn-in-lost-sales-each-year. Accessed 25 Sept. 2017.

Greever, Tom. Articulating Design Decisions communicate with stakeholders, keep your sanity, and deliver the best user experience. Vol. 1, Sebastopol, CA, OReilly Media, 2015.

Nielsen, Jakob. “Nielsen Norman Group.” Usability ROI Declining, But Still Strong, www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-roi-declining-but-still-strong/. Accessed 28 Sept. 2017.

“Nielsen Norman Group.” Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users,

www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/. Accessed 25 Sept. 2017.

Veopix Design Follow. “Less is more - "Your brand is your experience.".” Impressions are design related, 7 Oct. 2013, www.slideshare.net/Veopix/less-is-more-veopix-pres?qid=cd904a4f-5350-452a-86b1-76a773f3aa70&v=default&b=&from_search=4. Accessed 28 Sept. 2017.

“Why Web Performance Matters.” Gomez 17 Aug. 2009. Gomez, the Web Performance division of Compuware