UX DESIGN AS SUCCESS TUNING
In highly competitive markets with a wide range of products and services, UX standards and
customer expectations for user-friendliness continue to rise. Offering a good UX is evolving from a
nice-to-have to a must-have in order to keep up with the competition. Refined UX design is becoming
a basic prerequisite for the success of products and services and thus for the success of a company –
good design is good for business.
Yet UX laggards are still reluctant to increase their investment in UX activities, while UX leaders are
growing their revenues and returns almost twice as fast as their industry peers (McKinsey, 2018).
“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design,” Jaguar’s former
CEO Dr Ralf Speth knew, too.
However, companies in the early stages of UX maturity still seem to lack an understanding of how an
increase in UX investment goes hand in hand with better business performance.
So how exactly do investments in UX improve business performance?
On one hand, UX activities increase the efficiency of software development. If user research
measures such as personas or user interviews are included at an early stage, the right product
requirements can be established at the very beginning of a project. Unnecessary costs that arise from
time-consuming and cost-intensive changes to existing software can then be avoided right from the
start.
Furthermore, instead of lengthy discussions about hypothetical user requirements, incorporating real
user input can facilitate and accelerate internal decision-making. When you know the exact user
requirements instead of guessing them, you know which development steps to prioritize and which
not. The earlier UX activities are applied in product development, the higher the potential to achieve
a great return of investment.
HOW EXACTLY DO THE INVESTMENTS IN UX CAUSE AN INCREASE OF THE COMPANY’S PERFORMANCE?
The increase in productivity through systematically applied UX activities leads to a reduction in timeto-market, while at the same time increasing user satisfaction.
Studies show that companies with high UX maturity are ultimately rewarded with higher adoption
and conversion rates and thus also with higher revenues.
In addition to increasing sales, an investment in UX can also reduce cost issues that arise from poor
user experiences.
For example, the number of support and service requests is usually lower for products and services
that can be used intuitively. The need for training and education can also be reduced.
UX DESIGN AS BUSINESS STRATEGY
However, in order to be able to exploit the full business potential of UX activities, it no longer suffices
to regard UX design as ‘something that happens on a screen’. This still seems to be the case though
for 41% of companies investing in UX, as a large-scale study by the American IT services provider
InVision from 2020 revealed.
According to the study, UX designers are still primarily hired as screen designers who mainly create
deliverables such as wireframes, layouts and prototypes. Designers communicate with low level
executives and larger budgets for UX that enable greater results are yet to materialise.
The companies that derive the greatest added value from UX, on the other hand, have managed to
establish systematised processes for user research and UX methods throughout the company. They
use defined UX metrics to check and manage their UX quality and continuously incorporate findings
from their user research into the company’s alignment. In companies with higher UX maturity,
experience design is used as a business strategy and not just as a screen design component.
Are you wondering at which UX maturity stage your company is at and how you can optimise your
use of UX methods? Or are you starting a new project and want to be supported by a UX expert?
Then contact Acopa now. We will be happy to assist you.
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