Do you understand the issues users have with your product?
How to audit your UI in 60 minutes.
Neglecting a user-centered approach has led developers to be liable for inefficient UI designs. And these same developers are often, to their own future regret, lacking any experience with user-centered development to improve the system.
These issues create a barrier for clients trying to acquire your product and in most cases, leading them to abandon the purchase, or in a worst case scenario, the brand itself. These known issues that are not fixed or referred to solve, are called your UX debt.
“Those internal things that you choose not to do now, but which will impede future development if left undone in software projects.” — Ward Cunningham
Like tech debt, UX debt accumulates over time and, if left unaddressed, leads to amplified user problems and costly cleanup efforts. UX debt is often incurred when designers and researchers are working under tight timelines or impractical project constraints.
Other factors that contribute to UX debt include:
- Skipping user testing
- Disregarding brand standards and style guides
- Design by committee
- Misinterpreting the product vision
- Acquiring or merging with other products
- Poor communication or documentation
- Insufficient QA testing
- Legacy code or delayed refactoring
Enhance customer relationship and convert your user interface into revenue.
Design is always a big pain for any modern business. Good UI is obviously important, but it never gets enough love and attention. Usability increases customer satisfaction, productivity, customer trust and loyalty and inevitably resulting in tangible cost savings and profitability. And last but not least, because user-interface (UI) development is part of a product’s development cost anyway, it pays to do it right.
The math is simple: Empowered users become satisfied customers, and satisfied customers turn businesses into successful stories. Especially in the startup (tech) sector when constraints are high and available resources can be very limited.
As a designer I take two key aspects in consideration when working with a client, always provide more clarity in the issues and challenges, but also in the success definition for the business when the job is done.
And what I had learnt from Design Thinking, is that the best way to frame the right problem is through asking better questions.
To strategise and development of products and services there are several methodologies and frameworks many proven right for different contexts but they are not particularly neat to scope a project.
A design consultant can have a couple of methods and frameworks to use according to the case, but during a scope phase the process can be more challenging. Recently I watched another great video from Chris Do on negotiation, where he rocks again and points out that the scope interview can be reduced essentially to 3 questions:
- Why do you need it now?
- Why just don’t do anything at all?
- Why did you choose me?
In fact it reminds me of a case where I use the marketing funnel to add value in a project and up-sell a 10 hour project into a 4 month journey to design a new internal CMS and Publishing tool for the lead wedding marketplace in the U.S. market. (The case study is on the oven!)
Do it Yourself an UX/UI Audit
If you run a SaaS business, you will be familiar with the marketing basics. In plain English: you are helping a certain audience to solve a certain pain.
Your customers pay you, log into your app, and perform certain tasks. If they’re confused and never accomplish the task, they won’t come back. If they fail to achieve their big goal through these tasks, they won’t come back. That’s Software Business 101: if you have poor UI, you will lose money.
The perfect UI should simply get out of their way while they successfully perform their tasks and accomplish goals.
Thinking about that I’ve worked on a 60 minute free email course to guide through an UI Audit of your SaaS business. With this course, you can start improving your product today by applying basic principles yourself — and not wait for that big looming “redesign” moment.
The course is divided in 3 modules:
MODULE 1
Define Your Strategy
In this 20-minute module we will work on your strategy. You’ll link your value proposition with the key UX components: goals, tasks, and objects.
MODULE 2
Audit Key Screens
In this 20-minute module we’ll list the key screens and run a usability checklist on each of them. We’ll learn about the 4 key components of an ideal screen and define your biggest UX challenges.
MODULE 3
Plan for Improvements
In this 20-minute module we’ll put together a multi-level plan for your UI/UX improvements.
My goal is to help business owners and project managers to understand the new digital market and how they can use the technology available to bring better products and services who meet the needs of their customers and bring profits to their business.
The course is written for SaaS founders, but it’s also great for UI/UX designers and product managers who want to become indispensable for their business.
Enroll the course following this link and you will receive a series of 3 emails including the 20 min lessons in your inbox to start improving your website or app right away.
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