UX (User Experience) – Its Definition

The term UX is not new: it was invented in the 1990s by Dr. Don Norman, professor of cognitive science and co-founder of the famous Nielson Norman Group. User Experience (UX) describes the experience and overall satisfaction of a user when using a product.

In the field of UX, the definition we give to the “product” is quite broad. It can be a mobile application like Instagram, an e-commerce like Amazon, a showcase site like that of the city of Grenoble. By web product, we are essentially referring to a website, a mobile application or a web service. It is therefore a digital or digital product and not necessarily a product “sold” by a company, in the traditional sense. This digital product is used by a person we call the user. If the web product is an e-commerce, user can be a prospect or a customer but for other types of site, for example a free blog of news, the user is simply a visitor.

UX is a sum of emotions 

Each interaction of the user with a product or a digital service creates in him a positive or negative emotion. UX is defined as the sum of all the emotions felt by the user at each interaction. These emotions will encourage him to continue or not to use the product and by extension to continue to interact with the organization.

When someone asks you if you like a website, it actually asks you if you like the experience this site offers. Each user will express their feelings in different ways: “I loved this feature”, “I do not understand anything on this page”, “This font is illegible”, “I can not understand this site”, etc. Products such as websites or mobile apps help or serve us; make us feel nil or intelligent; simplify or complicate life satisfy us or disappoint us. It is therefore important to understand what helps to shape a good user experience, not only for the benefit of the users but also in the interest of the organization that operates this product to achieve its own goals.

Working to improve a product’s UX largely consists of understanding and converting each of these emotions into improvement actions.

WHY UX IS IMPORTANT?

All organizations operate in a more or less competitive environment and seek to differentiate themselves. A company can differentiate itself by the characteristics of its products, their price, the associated services, the implication in the defense of a cause (social, environmental), etc. If they are numerous, there is today a factor of differentiation not to be neglected: the UX!

At the time of the digital transformation that we know, one of the most important components of the customer experience (CX) is the UX. Building a memorable web experience is an essential exercise in our digital world.

Take the example of a physical store. To offer a captivating customer experience, the management of this store will have to continuously train its salespeople so that they can welcome customers, give relevant advice, reduce waiting time over the phone, improve after-sales service, offer relevant guarantees, make beautiful windows that encourage the prospect to enter the store, etc.

In an ever more connected world, a growing number of people, before entering a store, conduct an internet search to find out more about the company, brand and/or product they are interested in. Thus, the first impression that will have a prospect of your organization will be the one left by your website. The Petite Bateau brand encrypted this phenomenon in a study conducted with Google and concluded that 44% of their offline sales (in store) were preceded by an online search. So UX is often the first place in building the customer experience that your organization offers.

Forrester Research, an organization that studies and researches the impact of technology in the business world, and Watermark Consulting, a customer experience research organization, has built a portfolio of actions to track the impact of CX on the stock market performance. The performance of this portfolio is communicated through an index: the CXi (Customer Experience Index). Over a six-year period (2007-2012) CXi leaders recorded cumulative gains of 43%, while the S & P 500 Index posted only 14.5% growth. Companies identified as “laggards” in CX’s way experienced a 33.9% drop in their stock market performance over the same period.

In 2006, Teehan + Lax, a web agency specializing in UX (since bought by Facebook) joined the action to speak to prove the financial impact of the UX. The agency invested $50,000 in a stock portfolio of ten companies focused on UX. These companies experienced a 39.1% growth in the performance of their shares in one year, while the Nasdaq experienced a 28.7% increase and the S & P 500 an increase of 10.3%.

Although it is not so simple to measure the direct impact of a CX or UX action on the commercial and financial performance of an organization, these studies show us that organizations that have not hesitated to invest without half -measures in their CX and UX have been rewarded one way or another: customer loyalty, increased turnover, increased market share, lower customer price sensitivity, beneficial mouth effect -in-ear, reduction of the cost of acquisition of customers, etc., so many concrete benefits that can and must be measured following the implementation of a CX and UX action plan.

Have you thought about how you can deliver compelling experiences to your users? Are you aware of the commercial and financial impact of this differentiator?

To create a compelling experience for your users, contact us.

TIPS FOR RECRUITING THE BEST UX DESIGNER

It’s a fact: Internet competition is just a click away, and UX (user experience for those who do not follow it) has never been so important. The proof? 88% of Internet users prefer not to return to a site if the proposed UX was disappointing! From then on, as you will have understood, it becomes vital to recruit an excellent UX Designer. His mission? Retain customers through an incomparable user experience! But how to choose? What are the most interesting skills? In short, who should be your Super UX Designer?

UX Designer and values to validate

A company that works is a company that is based on a well thought out business model, set up and accepted by the whole team. And this business model, it is based on values, which will be his own and give “benchmarks” to employees. Examples? It can be benevolence, transparency of rigor, team spirit … In short, everything that makes your state of mind a strength for the company, and a guarantee of its success!

In fact, your potential UX Designer may have all the skills of the world, it will not have a place in the team if his personal values do not match those of your company. Conversely, if everything is in adequacy, the newcomer will integrate more easily, and will be better accepted … and more quickly operational! In addition, it will make him want to stay long in the company (good news when you think about the time it takes to recruit)!

So how do you check that the human values of the candidates are the right ones? Thanks to some unavoidable questions:

• What is your biggest professional pride? : Ask him to detail what he liked in the experience he evokes, you can define his personal goals and motivators. It will only remain to see if it corresponds with what you expect from a potential collaborator!
• What is your biggest professional failure? : There, we check if the candidate is able to recognize his mistakes, analyze them and change his behavior. A precious quality for any professional!

And the skills in all this?

We come here! To validate professional skills, there are two possibilities:

• You already employ someone who has the skills you are looking for in the candidate , in which case he or she must participate in the recruitment process;
• No one in-house has these skills. In the second case, do not panic, here is the procedure to follow!

First, a little reminder to keep in mind. UX is the overall user experience – all the interactions with the product. So it goes from the use of an interface to the emotional impact of the proposed service! Your UX Designer should be:

• Empathic, to be able to put yourself in the user’s shoes and design an experience that meets his needs
• Creative, to design a quality UX … without forgetting to be critical. Yes, everything can always be improved!
• Curious, to explore the latest trends and not be afraid to incorporate them into what he proposes

Of course, to these imperatives are added certain technical skills: your UX Designer should be familiar with UX methodologies (persona, experience map, use scenarios …), know how to perform audits and user tests, understand the importance of the human factor and cognitive psychology … It will also be up to you to check your career path. And we are not just talking about his training, even though it may be important! Most importantly, what are the different experiences of the candidate: did they give him the necessary skills for the position? What is its potential added value?? If he is self-taught (which is often the case) will he be able to hold on?

How to check all this? By giving him a test, simply. Propose him to analyze a site or an application, or to look into a client case to explain what he would propose (workshop, exercise, audit, deliverable …). Last, discuss with him the software he masters. We think in particular of:

• Axure or UXpin for prototyping;
• The Adobe or Sketch suite , for layout and graphic design;
• JIRA or Trello for project management.

Remember that UX is not the UI: ideally, you will need to recruit two complementary profiles. Finally, do not hesitate to give responsibilities to your new recruit, to get him out of the role of a performer, and make him want to stay!