Our UXpert Patti Hunt who has 15+ years of experience in roles spanning various disciplines of human-centered design including UX, service and strategic design.
She is also the co-founder of On-Off Design & Technology which specializes in great user experiences, on and offline. You can follow them on Twitter @onoffhk
Sometimes I’m asked how the value and impact of UX can be measured and what the return on investment will be. This kind of information is often needed to help convince a boss, co-workers or teams that investing in UX is worthwhile from a financial perspective. There are many ways to demonstrate the value and impact of UX, here’s some to get you started.
Design as strategy
Start by putting UX into context. UX falls under a more general “Design” strategy. Design-led organisations are ones that have a clearly stated vision and mandate to be customer and human centric. Design is part of their strategy to remain competitive, disruptive and innovative.
According to a recent study by the Design Management Institute, Design-led companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 228% over the past 10 years
Start conversations about the user experience
Nothing is more compelling than the voice of the customer. It’s quick and easy to start showing people what the customer experience of a product and service is really like. Get real customers to speak on camera about their experiences and ask if you can quote them, compile customer complaints from social media, record customer actions on your website using tools such as Inspectlet or Optimizely. Anecdotal evidence is a great conversation starter.
“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton
Know that products and services are easily commoditized
“As product features become commoditized, the major differentator is the user experience. Customers will pay more for delightful experiences. ” – Leo Frishberg, UX Product Design Manager at Intel Corporation
It’s very difficult to sustainably retain a competitive advantage if that advantage is tied to a product or service. It’s much more difficult to copy experiences. Take the case of the fake apple stores in China – they may look like apple stores, but they can’t replicate the end-to-end apple experience.
How have you shown the value of UX? Share your tips in the comments below or send questions to [email protected].
Patti Hunt on Startbase.HK: Patti Hunt
On-off Design & Technology on Startbase.HK: On-Off Design & Technology
