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The nitty and the gritty of UX/UI



What is User Experience (UX)


A customer’s interaction with a product, service, or company will reflect on their perception and ultimately their ongoing loyalty to a product or service. In other words, their perception will determine whether they will become a repeat customer. User Experience design is a discipline which is focused on all elements of that interaction – interface actions, layout, pathways, brand consistency, sound, and usability. UX could be equated to customer service – creating something that is easy, convenient and a joy to use.


We’re all familiar with the term, ‘location, location, location’. When it comes to UX the rule to follow is ‘simplicity, simplicity, simplicity’. This is applicable when designing a website or an app. Your customer must be able to access information in the simplest manner possible; any hindrance to this pathway is akin to someone stumbling in the dark looking for a light switch. An unfocused, over-complicated user experience is a barrier for the user, ultimately resulting in the loss of opportunity. Companies that have implemented great UX have become successful and profitable. Two current examples of success through simple UX are Apple and Google.


User Experience is regularly under-resourced or not budgeted for in new website or app designs. In fact, in the design of many everyday things, UX is under-utilised and takes second place. This is often attributed to time constraints and/or budget cuts.


Whether it’s the redesign of a website for lead generation or the rethinking of a consumable product to create efficiency through a less wasteful design, there’s always room for improving the user experience.


Take the classic New Zealand consumable – Watties Tomato sauce. How many times would you have to shake the container to get the contents out? How many times has a container been disposed of with sauce content remaining within? An understanding of the User Experience resulted in a simple, clever design change: having the container sit on its opening end, allowing the contents to always be at the exit for ease of release.


The difference between UX and User Interface (UI)

Generally, the user experience and User Interface (UI) go hand in hand. To achieve a successful result, whether a product, service or website design, both UX and UI should be of high standard and complement each other. You can think of the UX as an action based on sociology and UI as a visual guide drawing on emotions.


Digitally speaking, a User Interface is graphically focused, with attention to click-able buttons, menu layout and clear form design. UI is the look and feel, it is responsive and interactive. Customers may find a website with a fantastic User Interface but may be disappointed with the lack of meaningful content, delayed content loading, have difficulty navigating relevant pages or struggle with poor usability. This will lead to a negative user experience which will translate to a high overall bounce rate.

 

Why UX is critical in the digital world

If your business is trying to attract customers through your website or app, it is critical you can provide an experience that’s worth your customers’ while. Here are some stats that hopefully will convince you.

  1. 85% of issues related to UX can be detected by performing a usability test on a group of 5 users. (MeasuringU)

  2. Developers spend 50% of their time fixing issues which could have been avoided. (Vitamin T)

  3. Fixing a problem in development costs 10 times as much as fixing it in design, and 100 times as much if you’re trying to fix the problem in a product that’s already been released. (UX Planet)

  4. Only 55% of companies are currently conducting any user experience testing. (Skyhook)

  5. Of the IAB survey respondents, 54% cited ad clutter as the biggest obstacle to good user experience. (ClickZ)

  6. 63% of people would consider messaging a chatbot to communicate with a business or a brand. (Mindshare)

  7. Over 70% of small business websites do not use call to action buttons. (Uxeria)

  8. 46% of online shoppers list not being able to tell what a company does as the reason for leaving a website. (KoMarketing)

  9. 70% of users look at lists with bullets while only 55% look at lists without bullets. (Red Website Design)

  10. After landing on a homepage, 86% of users want to see information about products and services, 62% are interested in contact information, and 52% are looking for the “about us” section. (KoMarketing)

  11. Intentional and strategic user experience has the potential to raise conversion rates by as much as 400%. (Forbes)

  12. Visual data is processed 60,000 times faster by the brain than text. (Mainstreethost)

 

Mobile user experience stats

  1. If a website isn’t mobile-friendly, 50% of users will use it less even if they like the business. (Think With Google)

  2. 52% of users claim that a poor mobile experience makes them less likely to engage with a company. (Think With Google)

  3. 2 out of 3 minutes spent online are via mobile. (Red Website Design)

  4. 74% of people are likely to return to a website if it is optimised for mobile. (Red Website Design)

  5. 20.2% of those surveyed cite security concerns as the main reason they don’t buy from mobile eCommerce sites (WebAlive)

  6. eCommerce conversion rates for computers are 3.94% while mobile conversion rates are 1.84%. (Smart Insights)

 

Loading time UX statistics

  1. 53% of mobile visits are abandoned if a page takes more than three seconds to load. (Toptal)

  2. 52% of online shoppers claim that quick page loading influences their loyalty to a site. (CDNify)

  3. A survey of online user experience priorities among ad buyers showed that, out of the 283 questioned, 79% said that they place the highest level of importance on overall site/app experience as well as page load time. (ClickZ)

  4. Sites that load in 5 seconds observed a 25% higher ad view-ability compared to sites which load in 19 seconds. (Hobo-web)

 

Company user experience statistics

  1. A major eCommerce company increased sales by $300 million after changing their button text from “register” to “continue”. (UIE)

  2. Airbnb attributes UX for taking them from being a near-failure to being valued at $10 million. (First Round Review)

  3. ESPN’s revenue increased by 35% after a homepage redesign. (Inside Design)

  4. Time.com’s bounce rate dropped 15% after they adopted continuous scroll. (The SEM Post)

  5. A 500ms increase in loading time can cause traffic on a Facebook page to drop by 13%. (CDNify)

  6. Slow-loading websites cost retailers an estimated $2 billion in lost sales each year. (Toptal)

  7. 73% of companies not conducting user experience testing will be doing so in the next 12 months. (ExperienceDynamics)

  8. Every $1 invested in UX results in a return between $2 and $100. (The American Genius)

  9. 70% of online businesses fail due to bad usability. (Uxeria)

  10. Amazon discovered that a 100ms decrease in page loading speed could cost them 1% in sales. (Gigaspaces)

  11. Evernote increased user retention by 15% after launching intuitive, helpful features. (UserTesting)

  12. Walmart Canada increased their on-site revenue by 13% after tailoring their customer experience. (UserTesting)

 

How to create a great UX

Most UX guidelines, rules and suggestions that you’ll find online are all based on general research. But every site is unique, and some guidelines may not be suitable for your site or app. For starters, you should begin with the latest best practices in UX design, this will put you in the ballpark of good UX design. Of course, the best way to create an excellent user experience is to test your website or app with customers and guide your design by their feedback.


If you need assistance in UX or UI, don’t hesitant to contact Platform29.

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