Good UX is not about how the interface works, but how the business works. We tell you how to design a user experience to increase conversion rates, user loyalty, and user retention.
Misconception 1: A bad interface equals no UX
Usually when you mention UX, what comes to mind is a clear, beautiful, and easy-to-use design system creating services that makes users’ lives easier and helps them solve problems with a web product. In fact – it’s just a small part of what’s behind the concept of UX.
What’s wrong?
The term “UX” (User Experience) refers to any experience a user has when interacting with an IT product. The experience can be either good or bad. And that experience is not always related to the design of the interface itself. It’s a default mistake to think that “UX” equals “good usability.”
Competent UI design can be a competitive advantage, but it’s not enough to make a user a loyal customer. There needs to be more tangible value that users go to the site or app for.
Misconception 2: The designer is responsible for the quality of the UX
It’s a fairly common story in design studio practice when a company only asks for design, expecting it to solve conversion issues.
For example, the request says, “We would like to order a redesign of the mobile app to improve the UX and increase user retention. Right now the problem is that users download the app, log in once, and never come back.”
What’s the misconception
The fallacy is the assumption that designers alone are responsible for how well thought out, designed, developed, and tested a product’s interface is.
UX depends on so many factors:
- Clear structure and navigation;
- Attractive and clean design;
- Intelligent transitions and animations;
- The performance and loading speed of the service or application;
- The performance and speed of the user’s device;
- The user’s internet speed;
- Whether the product solves the user’s problem;
- Does the product solve the problem better/faster;
- Whether the user understands exactly what the app does;
- The user’s social, cultural, and demographic context;
- Where the user is while interacting with the app.
The designer’s area of immediate responsibility is the first three items on the list. The item related to performance and technology is the responsibility of the developers.
The other factors are dealt with by UX-analysts and product managers before the interface development: research the target audience, the user paths, and their perception patterns, describe user scenarios. Without analytics, there’s a good chance of developing a web product that will be reluctant to use.
A good UX of an app or web service is the result of teamwork and meticulously conducted analytics.
Misconception 3: There are design and design rules, if you break them, you’ll get a bad UX
There are indeed key perception laws in design, which are confirmed by research and passed on from one generation of designers to another. Such rules are the foundation. But to create a good UX, you need to look beyond the rules and keep in mind the specific objectives for a particular audience and a particular product.
What’s the misconception?
Imagine if builders always created buildings only according to certain patterns: an apartment building, a factory, and a shopping mall. In reality, the construction always takes into account whether the building will be made of brick, or it will be built of glass and steel, whether it should be built on the coast of Spain or in Siberia, whether it is a house for one family or whether many individual families will live in it.
There are no universal laws that work for any interface, whether it’s a mobile game, an eCommerce platform, or an online portal.
Conclusion
UX is actually a service that a business provides to its customers through a website or app. And by doing so, it increases conversion rates, loyalty, and its revenue.