As more and more customers transact business online and through applications, their expectations for a better user experience are heightened. If your users work with comparable applications with better user experiences, they may consider abandoning your service and moving to a competitor.
Not only that. An older, fragmented user experience with different applications, devices and release teams can prove costly and frustrating for your business. Given this, we’ve pulled together a list of 13 signs that it might be time to modernize or unify your UX; and the benefits of updating your UX. Here they are:
1. Customer Growth has Flatlined
It’s important to listen carefully to your customers. But sometimes, outside of surveys, actions speak louder than words. If your customer growth has stalled or flatlined, a UX revamp could help energize it.
2. Product and Growth Metrics are Slumping
Always keep track of product metrics relevant to your business. This could include daily active users, retention, and, of course revenue. When these metrics are slumping, it could be time for a refresh. Or maybe your applications functionality isn’t in sync across web and mobile applications—so customers wait, or they delay buying new releases. Careful observation of these metrics can help you determine where you’d get the most bang for your buck in a UX refresh.
3. Hacks and Workarounds Abound
If you notice that your user community is creating hacks or other ways to use your platform, this could mean the user base is unhappy with the feature set. For example, let’s say you have a financial application but users are using Excel instead of your platform to analyze data. This can often be a key indicator that it is time for a software update or refresh.
4. It’s Been a few Years Since the Last Update
Because of agile software development, clients are used to getting software updates. This doesn’t mean you need to release a completely new product or feature, but it is a good opportunity to freshen up the UI with a redesign.
5. Users Are Asking for Features You Can’t Deliver Now
If your architecture or code has reached its limits, you may see an increase in requests for features and capabilities that aren’t possible. When this happens, you may want to make a one-time change instead of incremental fixes that don’t solve the problem at hand.
6. Applications Are Separate, but Not Equal
If you have separate, uncoordinated web and mobile products you’ll not only make the customer experience more cumbersome, but development work will be costly. For example, if each application has their own design and development teams, the development and user experience will be fragmented, and release cycles may be longer and more expensive.
7. You’ve Lost Users and They’ve Found Competitors.
When you experience delays in functionality across required devices, you could lose users. Your formerly weaker competitors, who don’t have these issues, may gain ground on you.
8. Your Customers and Frontline Staff Tell You There Are Issues
It’s hard to hear negative feedback, especially about the products we release. But regular surveying of your users can help keep your product current and make sure the user experience is fluid and functional. On the other hand, if too many years go by without any action toward key feedback, you could be giving up ground to your competition.
9. Your Release Management Across Multiple Devices is CUMBERSOME
Is the proliferation of devices, resolutions and operating systems impossible to keep up with? Do you find that you cannot launch new features on all devices at once? This can lead to frustration with your development team and your users who may be missing features they need on the device they use. Unifying this experience can help to improve release schedules and usage.
10. Your New Release Has New Problems
It happens. You launch a new product, and user testing reveals problems that need to be solved. If you have a thorough approach to UX, hopefully those are mitigated. But this is also the opportunity to gather usage data, identify the problem and make the necessary fixes iteratively.
11. The User Experience Is Fragmented
Is your interface inconsistent across devices in both functionality and appearance? If so, users are most likely struggling with multiple versions of what they expected to be one product. Unifying this experience can make it easier for the customer to use the product and for your development team to support the product.
12. A Security or Privacy Upgrade Is Needed
If you’re in a highly regulated industry it goes without saying that your end user and admin experience are likely under constant review. If not, you may want to think of systematic reviews and updates to ensure that the latest and best user and security and privacy functions exist.
13. You See Potential in an Improved User Experience
Be honest. You and your team know an improved UI would have huge potential. You don’t want to change for change sake, but you know there are ways of fixing the interface to improve the customer experience. And you want to be proactive.
The Benefits of a Modernized, Unified UX
It’s pretty clear that in today’s world, UX can’t be ignored, otherwise potential users will surely flock to your competitors in hopes of a better experience. But if you need a financial justification, turn to the Forrester Research study that found that a well-designed user interface could increase conversion by up to 200%, and a better UX design could yield conversion rates up to 400%.
Or, consider the costs. According to Robert Pressman’s book, Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, “For every dollar spent to resolve a problem during product design, $10 would be spent on the same problem during development, and multiply to $100 or more if the problem had to be solved after the product’s release.” This is to say that every dollar invested in UX returns $10 to $100, and correcting the problem from the start is most cost effective.
So what are the benefits beyond money?
For your company:
- Reduced UI development costs
- Faster time to market
- Simultaneous release of new features across all devices
- Stronger competitor position
- Consistent responsive experience across all devices
- Faster design of new features
- Incremental revenue due to improved adoption from full availability of features
- Better looking bottom line due to reduced design, development and support costs
For your users
- Increased efficiency due to consistency across all devices
- Access to new features across all devices
Getting Started
If you or your company show even one of these signs, it could be time for an updated, modern, unified UX. Contact us. We’ll show you an approach you can take for unifying or modernizing your UX that is efficient and cost-effective.