Hands-On UX Design for Developers
上QQ阅读APP看书,第一时间看更新

Why is UX so important?

UX can be in a wide range of features; even smaller parts of the application could prevent you from losing your audience.
Let's say that two companies have a very similar product but one of the products offers a better UX, which means that this product will attract a greater number of users and will provide a better return-on-investment to the company. You can find this similarity in various products nowadays, such as web applications, video games, mobile apps, and, of course, even on physical products.

Specifically, the UX Professionals Association mentions the following six key benefits that business can derive from UX design:

  • It increases productivity
  • It increases sales and revenue
  • It reduces the cost of support and training
  • It reduces the cost of development and development time
  • It reduces the cost of maintenance
  • It increases customer satisfaction

UX design, as its name suggests, is about designing the ideal experience of using a service or product. As such, it can involve all types of products and services, for instance, about the design involved in a museum exhibition. However, mainly the term UX design is used in relation to websites, web applications, and other software applications.

Since late 2000, technologies have become increasingly complex, and the functionalities of applications and websites have become far broader and more intricate. Early websites were simple static pages that served information to feed curious searchers; however, a few decades later, websites became more interactive, offered a richer feel for the users globally, and more information as well. If we also count responsive websites, real-time applications, and mobile apps, we can see how easily users get the information that they need nowadays compared to earlier times.

But there is one interesting thing: if we boost UX and UI too fast, the users will not get used it, so everything should take place in a natural, discrete, ordered way.

As I mentioned earlier, the biggest mistake new start-ups or companies make is that they don't start their UX planning at the beginning of a project. Usually, you will hear comments such as, "We need to launch the product or services first, and we'll think about its look and feel later."

Well, I can say that this is totally insane. 

It is like an architect saying, let's start the house, finish it, then later we'll think about its look; crazy, right?

Why? It sounds absurd for hundreds of reasons, as follows:

  • You will not know whether there is a need for your product or service in the first place
  • You will not have a single clue about whether you have done it right
  • It will cost you a lot of money
  • It will cost you time

That is why UX should be involved right from the beginning, that is, from the first phase of your product or service design, in order to avoid making these mistakes and to have a better return-on-investment (ROI).

A good UX design starts at the very beginning of your product, well-planned UX will help the development to move faster. Everything should be produced by general product guidelines.

Usually, my biggest challenge is when I am being asked by clients to improve their UX just before they go live. That is really difficult, since most of the time it is really late and almost impossible to change anything.
Since their app is almost ready, its architecture is done and the budget has diminished, and, even worse, you don't have the option to make any changes without affecting their product because most of its parts were not created with the users in mind; the team just wanted it to work on the functionality side.

When users can't understand how to use a product, they will require instructions and training to use it. Such a product will be problematic for someone who has to use it on a daily basis. Due to this, they will look for alternative options.

Besides the user's involvement from the beginning of the product design/development, it's important to understand that all other teams in the company need to be involved on the UX design process, should have a good relationship among each other, and should help other teams for a better final result.

For example, the marketing team can get user feedback on issues they are having when using the product and send it to the UX team.

Hopefully, by now, your knowledge of UX design has increased, and you have a clear understanding of what it stands for, how it is used, and when you need to use it. 
Now, it is time to move on to explain what a full stack designer is.

However, before we go there, just keep this in mind:
BETTER USER EXPERIENCE (UX) DESIGN = HAPPY TEAM = HAPPY USERS = MORE USERS = MORE REVENUE.