Customer Experience Insights

What is User Experience (UX), and what is it for?

Written by Sofía Madriz | Jul 27, 2022

User Experience is the different perceptions and responses a person has when using a product, system, or service. There are many people in the world. For one person, the experience of using objects can be very different from the perceptions and responses of another person, another country with a different culture, or the neighbor in front of our house.

The UX, as it is commonly known, is studied or evaluated primarily on digital platforms such as websites, blogs, and applications. This is responsible for reviewing these different perceptions towards the media and thus improving them so that users have better experiences when using the product.

This blog will cover the following topics:

  • What is the user experience for?
  • Four cases in which one can make a UX assessment.
  • Examples of cases where can analyze the UX.

 

Therefore, the User Experience focuses on people's interaction when using products. It takes into account people's emotions, as well as the usability of the product, that is, the ease with which tasks are done, the speed to perform them, the functionality of the product, and the number of steps needed to complete the tasks, Etc.

What is the user experience for?

Currently, there is much competition between products in the world, so people live comparing some products with others and often pay for convenience or even out of habit. But what happens if a person makes a new product and does not know what will be the reaction of people, not know how to introduce it to the market, what could be done if the product does not sell or what could be done to make a product stand out from another. All these questions can have a way to get the answer: User Experience.

User experience evaluates people's different perceptions when using a product and finds a way in general that can serve the most people to have an excellent experience. When using the product, this is a memorable, accessible, intuitive, fast, and straightforward experience so that they want to repeat it and get to keep using the product or buy the same product again and again.

There are four cases in which can make a UX assessment:

  • In the case of a new product:
The UX is in charge of evaluating it throughout its creation and making several tests before it goes to market. Since it is considered, changes are made, it is estimated again, and so on until it meets the requirements set at the beginning by the UX team, designers in general, and the company that owns the product. When it goes to market, most likely, and thanks to the tests performed, it will be a successful product that will choose over others that make the competition. In addition, users will recommend it.

  • When a product is already on the market and is not selling.
In the case of a product that is not selling, it is evaluated, and what can be done to improve the product experience goes changes in one aspect as in the other. It should also be assessed if the company or its target audience should redesign the concept.

  • When launching a new version of a product.

A launch of a new version of a product involves using the features and qualities of a previous product. Still, in this case, the UX is used to make improvements, considering the functionality, usability, and experiences that a person would have. The previous and future features are evaluated through different tests until the final product results.

  • In the case of improving sales within a company.

Often, a company has good sales only for seasons, for example, mother's day, Christmas, etc. For a company to have constant sales, it is necessary to analyze the UX of the product and the sales process, that is, the contact with the customer. This is why an essential part of the sales cycle can be related to the UX, as you can see in my article: What happens with the User Experience in retail stores?

The purpose of the user experience is to improve in all areas the perceptions and responses that people may have when using a product and thus make them come back because they want to acquire that experience again. This is the method by which many companies choose to follow and continues to evolve constantly, in addition to taking into account the different ways of accessing the platforms that people have, i.e., covers all types of people, of course, depending on the target market of the product or company.

Examples of cases where can analyze the UX:

Safety footwear: A company that sells safety footwear. The first contact with the customer is through its website, where the customer must fill out a form so that the sales agent receives an email. In this case, the customer must wait for an agent to get in touch; it can take hours or even days for that to happen. What if the customer has lost interest in the shoe within two hours of being contacted? This leads to one less sale for the seller and in itself for the company. This is an example of a case containing contact through a digital platform, but we would have to analyze the percentage results in sales so that the UX would be linked to the company's sales cycle.

Game app:

  • Let's look at a color-matching app in which, if you win, you total points for the game's story.
  • Open the next level.
  • Get coins to buy different bonus items to pass the classes.

Often it starts very easy, but when a person reaches high levels, such as number 100, the app tends to make the stories more and more complex, making the user spend more coins and sometimes make in-app purchases to pass those levels. But what about users who earn bonuses and still do not pass the challenging levels, if they last more than a week in a single class, or if they buy and still do not win? This would likely end up losing users more frequently, so it is essential to consider what a hard and a manageable level means and how often the application's algorithm can act so that people have manageable levels instead of getting stuck and stopping playing. This is a superficial analysis of UX within an app to look at the marketing side to keep users playing and interested in the game.

The UX has become an essential tool in products to evaluate the accessibility of different platforms and even to see how fast, easy, agile, and entertaining it can be to perform a task within these. To determine what needs improvement so that users have an excellent experience and want to continue using that platform and even continue buying the product.

To evaluate how efficient the UX is in your digital product, we give you a checklist with which you will get an idea of whether or not you need a different approach to your development.