This is a follow-up to my previous post on the value of having a user experience designer on every project from the perspective of our own process at Bitovi.
Diving in – Your app has been well-designed and user-tested by a skilled UXer and released to the public. At this point, the designer's job appears mostly done, but the benefits of having a UX practitioner on your team extends beyond the initial release. The design affects the life and cost of your product long-term.
Reduced Training
Many companies employ full-time trainers who teach staff how to use their software. Why? Because the applications are so complex and difficult to use that you could not use them effectively without training. That's a real cost that can be avoided. What if your app were so user-friendly that it didn't require any training? What if it reduced training by 50%? Or even 20%? How much money would that save your company?
Consider the amount of money spent on training or the time employees spend frustrated in dealing with a difficult app. Add up those costs and you create a real case for investing in good UX up-front. This is the sort of thing we help our clients with every day. A well-designed application will increase employee efficiency, require fewer training resources, and improve overall staff morale.
Decreased Support Costs
A well-designed application can save you money and time with your customers, too. Most large products offer ongoing support to clients, access to a help desk, or even one-to-one personal calls with salespeople. Often, users struggle with simple issues that can easily be resolved with better UX design. If your application was designed to fix the most common support calls, how much money would that save? You wouldn't need as many help desk staff, salespeople could be freed up to focus on new business, and users wouldn't waste their time asking for help. Again, when you start to add up the numbers, the savings a good design affords can be staggering.
Loyal Customer Base
Everyone has had the experience of using an app with confusing messaging, unexpected behavior, or frustrating interactions. The fact is, a poorly designed app erodes customer loyalty. Conversely, a well-designed user experience can create the kind of devotion that keeps users coming back for more, reducing attrition and increasing engagement. A skilled UX designer is well-versed in using things like empathy, emotion, and aesthetics to create an experience that delights users. Taking the time to purposefully create that experience up-front pays off in the long run.
Accomplished Goals
Finally, investing in user experience design can help you solve the business goals that you set out to accomplish in the beginning. A lot of apps are designed by teams asking each other things like, "Should we put this button here?" or "Do you like this?" - but acquiring a user-centered approach allows the designer to fully embrace the business goals that the application aims to solve. Whatever it is: retention, conversion, engagement: a good UX designer can help you solve those problems and watch the metrics improve. Without a design specifically targeted towards meeting your goals, you won't know whether the app will be successful or not.
Get a UX Designer
When you fail to do the UX design up-front, you end up with an application that's more difficult to use. That means more training time, higher support costs, frustrated users, and missed business goals. Our process at Bitovi helps guard against these mistakes to make sure that the app is done the right way the first time.
Need a UX designer? We can help.
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