What I wish I knew about User Experience.
User experience or ‘UX’ is the active effort to positively influence the emotions or attitudes of someone when they use your business’ website or mobile app.
A good or bad user experience starts the second the user begins to interact with your website or smartphone app, UX is everything that happens from that moment, what they see, hear, experience and their reaction towards this.
Market Research vs. UX Research
Many people get mixed up between market research and UX research, but they’re not the same. Just by conducting your market research you’re still not getting a full understanding of who your customer really is.
Here’s some helpful market research vs. UX research comparisons to consider:
What people say vs. What people do
What people will buy vs. How people will use a product
Broad insight vs. Focused insight
The 5 key factors to achieving positive UX
Many factors can contribute to a positive user experience, here are some that I think are key to achieving this:
• Usefulness
• Accessibility
• Valuable information
• Credibility
• Usability
Usefulness – I think this one will go without saying, but the customer needs to find your content useful otherwise there is no reason for them to use your business.
Accessibility – Your website needs to be available to everyone and easy to access. For example, images on your website should have what are called 'alt' tags, describing the contents of the picture, making them accessible to the visually impaired.
Valuable information – You need to stand out. What information do you have that others may not? This is important when trying to step up above competitor business’.
Credibility – This one is crucial, customers will use and continue to use a business that they trust. Using reviews and testimonials on your site is a good way of winning hearts and minds. Another part of this is the cosmetic appearance of your website. If it looks professional, your potential customers will think its professional.
Usability – Websites that are hard to navigate often have a high bounce rate (people that visit your homepage then leave again). If your website is easy to use and people can get the information they want without trying incredibly hard, then they are more likely to come back as it was simple.
If your site can offer a good UX, which appeals to your target market, then you are far more likely to increase sales and have recurring customers.
