Have you ever wondered what is the reason for the constant need to optimize UX processes? Where did this race begin? Why are companies spending higher and higher budgets on UX activities, research, research, and the entire envelope to improve the user experience? What has changed in the world around us in recent years? The answer, in our opinion, is quite simple. UX process optimization offers great opportunities to improve our marketing activities.
The amount of information that reaches us caused the evolvement of coping mechanisms.
Information glut
Redundancy, information overload, whatever we call it, in the end, it doesn’t even matter. The amount of information that reaches us caused the evolvement of coping mechanisms. Sitting in front of your laptop or using your smartphone, we don’t read anymore. We’re scanning, desperately looking for the most important information amongst the jungle of advertisements and other distracting elements. We’re trying to find what is important. Some think that humanity fell ill with some kind of concentration deficit. It’s not difficult to notice that it’s true, but if we look at this phenomenon closely, it didn’t happen without a reason. It’s enough to visit the first-found news website to realize it. A multitude of clickbait thumbnails and titles, woven into the advertising content of sponsored articles, and pop-up notifications. The most interesting thing in the whole process is that all these changes have historically been motivated by the UX approach, i.e. optimization, the aim of which was to meet the expectations of visitors. More than once, in the trade press, at the requests of various websites, I assessed the changes that were introduced in terms of UX. I also found myself with a reaction: Huh! This navigation element is not very popular with the recipient, so they hid it here, and instead highlighted another title from the main information, it must make sense. There are certainly reasons for this, for example in the form of conducted research. After some time, I conclude that yes, there is research, but it concerns the advertising potential of their platform.
Trends, trends…
We talk about them every year when summarizing and forecasting what will happen next. Every year we expect a revolution, changes that will be significant, and after its end, we find out that we could only dream about them. Yes, there are great projects, there are quite a few of them, but in the area of websites with the largest number of recipients, there is still a lot of work to be done. Let’s stop at Facebook for a moment (I know, not an innovative example).
„We support people in building a community and connecting the world.”
This is the company’s mission announced in 2017. Confronting it with the form of the portal at present, what changes have been and are being introduced, what path it has followed since its inception, I personally find it difficult to agree with it. Facebook is no longer a portal where I can follow interesting moments in the lives of my friends, I will tell you more, finding these moments in the maze of information, advertisements, sponsored posts is now almost impossible for me. Of course, you can make it easier, try to introduce order by changing the settings, creating user groups. It doesn’t change the fact that the welcoming feed looks like someone put into the pot sponsored posts, publications of followed brands, and a few messages such as a report from aunt Judy’s wedding and threw an unlocked grenade into it.
Does this mean that we are going in the wrong direction?
Fortunately, no. I wouldn’t overreact because we live in a time when people responsible for designing experiences have realized that we have long passed the moment when you can add new elements. Removing elements is also a development, especially in the context of the challenge of keeping the recipient’s attention for a long time, we cannot attack him from each side with another visually significant message. This is indicated by the latest trends in design, especially in the mobile ecosystem. Of course, trends are trends, but designers often bounce off the wall when they collide with the client. I will not count the situations in which we received information that showed that the project is very nice, modern, and generally liked by everyone, but the titles, subtitles, photos, … generally everything should be distinguished a bit more. This was where the trouble arose. However, it turned out to be a problem that can be solved. The UX Research Workshop will allow us to avoid such problems.
How The Humans was born?
The idea behind our company is the humanization of technology. Introducing all extremely interesting and useful theories, methods, analyses, and research rooted in psychology, sociology, or even philosophy to the world of marketing and technology. After all, the recipient is a human being, he is ruled by emotions and mechanisms that have been recognized by specialists in these fields for ages. So why are we trying to invent the wheel again? We have mentioned the minimalist trend, which is Ockham’s razor theory, which has found its application, for example, in economics. There are many more such examples of the use of already known solutions in the mentioned sciences. Additionally, there is a technology that comes to our aid. It allows you to significantly increase the scope of the information collected about how the persona representing the target group reacts to our product. Whatever it is, physical or digital, we are able to determine which of its elements arouse interest, which is ignored, but also whether the emotions associated with it are as we would expect.
After all, the recipient is a human being, he is ruled by emotions and mechanisms that have been recognized by specialists in these fields for ages.
This way, we naturally come to one of the methods on which I would like to pause for a moment. Let’s talk about eye-tracking, a method of obtaining information directly from the client, in the simplest theory, often overlooked in practice. What is the potential of seeing with your own eyes how the customer perceives our product? Let’s go beyond digital, outside to breathe some fresh air. I invite you to the station. Specifically, to the Łódź Fabryczna station, newly renovated, with a great, spacious parking lot. What if I told you that 8 out of 10 people asked were not able to enter this parking lot for the first time? Sure, the second or third time is better, but the first user experience is terrible. Chaos, badly placed markings or no markings at all. Think how easy it would be to optimize the experience of those who usually go there at the last minute, nervous. There, they encounter a problem that they did not take into account in their plan, i.e. simply parking the car. Eye-tracking research has allowed us to go beyond the Internet for some time thanks to mobile versions of glasses. By examining in this way the potentially best locations for ordinary directional plates, it is possible to introduce a clear and legible system of markings there, which will simply eliminate this problem with a high degree of probability. One study and production of several plates will make the customers of the station feel much more comfortable.
Think how easy it would be to optimize the experience of those who usually go there at the last minute, nervous.
But let’s come back from our trip to the digital world, where we can also find many intuitive applications of this method. The obvious value is that we see in no uncertain terms whether they find the elements that were most important to the designer, whether and how they scan the website or app with their eyes, which attracts their attention for longer and what he does not notice. Is the designed user path optimal? Or maybe the user got stuck at some point. We will learn this from analytical data, we don’t need to have eye-tracking equipment for this, but no analyst will tell us where the user was looking for a solution to the encountered difficulty. We are talking about studying the reactions that often happen without the customer’s awareness, which won’t be described to us after the feedback. This is because he himself didn’t consciously register the fact that in the meantime he glanced at a button other than the one the designer would like. Eye-tracking research makes an invaluable contribution to the design process, allowing the reconstruction of the perception paths along with the points on which the observer’s attention was focused. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. By using available methods, conducting interviews in accordance with a properly developed sociological path, or simply talking to people, we come to their real needs. This is how the UX optimization of the processes begins. We can give the solutions we create a chance to answer them. This is an extremely important issue, especially in times when a nice design is no longer an advantage and has become a standard. Our solutions bring added value in the form of functionality tailored to the needs of the target group and thus give a competitive advantage to our clients.
To sum up
The field of research that can be used in UX procedures gives us a huge room for operation. A room in which it may be easy to get lost at first. The role of companies such as ours is to painlessly guide the client through this process, obtain information that potentially seems inaccessible for him, determine the conclusions of this information and recommendations for implementation. Based on many years of experience, research methods developed by us, and the knowledge of specialists in the field of sociology and psychology, we discover undeveloped areas for our clients and determine the possibilities of developing their product. People are open to changes. Instead of just following trends, let’s give ourselves a chance to create them. Of course, where there is space for it, let’s go a step further, find out what customers expect, let’s prepare something especially for them. They will repay us, I’m sure of that. UX process optimization is a tool with which we will improve the quality of our services and sales channels.
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