User Experience: What Is UX And Why Does It Matter? | mOOnshot digital marketing agency

Most of us are addicted to our smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices so it should come as no surprise that mobile web usage is fast becoming the preferred mode of Internet browsing.
Keeping pace with this fast-growing mobile phenomenon and its implications is now a prerequisite for brands of all sizes. Consumers have higher-than-ever expectations. Let’s admit it, we are all pretty impatient people when it comes to finding information on the web. We want to find what we want when we want it, and in as few clicks as possible. We want pages to load fast and we expect full-featured rich experiences across all devices.

User experience (UX) is about all these expectations, emotions, intuitions and connections a user feels when interacting with digital interfaces. User experience is your online customer service, it’s taking the time to get to the heart of what users are looking for (and what they didn’t even know they wanted) to provide a pleasant, convenient and efficient online experience. At its core, UX is simple, really: put the customer first. It’s about designing digital services, not just websites anymore.

A modern and effective method when optimising web experiences in this multi-screen environment is to use responsive web design. Responsive web design responds to the context in which the web pages are loaded (primarily screen size) and change their user interface accordingly.

So, why does user experience really matter?

Customer Satisfaction
The user experience for your website will play a critical role in attracting and maintaining your customer base. Your customers are your users. Users will be satisfied if their expectations are fulfilled, by getting a positive experience on your website. Most visitors decide within a matter of seconds whether to stay on your site or look for something better. If it is easy, pleasant and natural for users to achieve a given task, it is likely that your website will be used more often. Customer satisfaction is very much needed to keep your business healthy and growing.

Customer Loyalty
Satisfied customers provide the foundation for your customer loyalty. A great user experience has the power to bring a customer back to your website. Happy visitors are more likely to purchase more from you and more often. And more loyal customers mean less consumer education and marketing costs, especially if they are acting as your brand advocates. Having this kind of customers should be your ultimate goal and great UX helps achieve just that.

Efficiency
With faster and easier-to-navigate site, it will be easier for users to find what they are looking for (or even greater: buy more products) from a single visit to your site.

ROI and Conversion Rates
All the effort and investment you put into your website will be rewarding once you achieve great user experience. Great user experience can result in increased conversion rate and/or sales.

Brand Touchpoints
Your business presence and its fit with your customer desires will increase your brand strength, which will make your business stand out from the competition.

7 Facets of the User Experience

We like to use this UX Honeycomb from Peter Morville as a reference of all the things we need to take into consideration when creating great user experience.

1. Useful
Define innovative content and solutions that are useful for users. For something to be useful, it needs to have a practical purpose.

2. Usable
Good usability means that the product meets the needs and goals of the users so that they can complete the task at hand quickly and easily. Ease of use (interface-centered methods and human-computer interaction) is vital, but only having user-friendly interface is not sufficient.

3. Desirable
Create emotion in your design with the power and value of image, identity, brand, and other elements.

4. Findable
Strive to design navigable websites and locatable objects, so users can find what they need.

5. Accessible
Consider building your website in a way that people with disabilities can still access the information.

6. Credible
Design elements should influence and build users trust.

7. Valuable
At the core of UX is ensuring that users find value in what you are providing to them. Ultimately, your site must improve customer satisfaction.

Put Some UX in Your New Website

If you are thinking about redesigning your website, or launching a great new responsive site, start with a little UX. Not too sure how to achieve a great user experience? mOOnshot digital can help you create a highly optimised responsive website, using user experience and SEO best practices to make your website work wonders. Drop us a line at hello@moonshotdigital.com.