User Experience (UX) Design in Software Product Development

Business in the modern world is about selling experience to your end-users. In the realm of B2B offerings, when designing a new product, keeping in mind the importance of UX (user experience) really do serve as a north star. To provide a superior user-experience, it is important to truly care about your customers. And the best way to go about delivering the best UX is to follow a proper UX design process.

In the wide landscape of user experience, the visible components are just the tip of the iceberg completely obscuring the real stuff that truly matters. The five major ingredients for a flawless end-user experience is: psychology, usability, design, copy-writing, and analysis.

The Process for well-built UX

The science behind UX typically revolves around research, testing, and analysis. The process to achieve greater success in UX, like any other scientific study is:

1. 1. Requirement Gathering

   At this stage, the customer shares the requirements and business objectives with the BA and UX experts. Output of this step is documented and clear business and functional requirements.

2. 2. Research/Feasibility Analysis

   Following the requirement gathering phase, experts undertake a feasibility analysis against the client requirements, simultaneously gathering market and competition data for the product and predict the future viability and success. The end result of this stage is a developed information architecture with primary front-end idea of the software.

3. 3. Prototype Development

   Now, the experts use the approved information to create basic wireframes of the product to give a first practical experience of how the final product would look like. The output is a visual representation of features and functionalities of the software product.

4. 4. Quality Testing & Improvement

   UX testing starts, improving the prototypes to be used as minimum viable products based on the user feedback. Polished design meeting customer needs and industry standards. Software prototype testing is an integral part of UX development. It can be done by various methods ranging from a corridor testing where you select random people to use the app and give feedback, to hiring agencies and experts to review your prototype.

The agile approach to software development asserts the iterative and recurring nature of UX development process. Fixing issues may sometimes give way to newer bugs in the UX of the software, and to avoid these subsequent occurrences it is advised to undergo the complete process after implementing new features.

How well-thought-out UX helps build exceptional customer value

Better UX for increased conversion and revenue

Your commitment to a hassle-free and engaging end-user experience can result in drastic spike in the conversion rate and revenue. The exact ROI is hard to quantify since each SaaS product has different metrics. By simply removing unnecessary obstacles in the UX cycle (like making registration optional and minimalizing the customer journey) companies have made huge difference in the business.

Better UX ensures lower development and ownership costs

A well-laid UX process can help you save money and time in the longer run. Like stated earlier, something that can be identified and fixed at design stage will demand bare effort and cost, whereas, it will have grave implications on time, cost, and effort if tried to be fixed after the release.

Better UX spikes user retention and brand loyalty

While UX cannot be completely blamed for pushing users away, it is definitely one thing that you must fix for higher customer retention. Recent study states that 23 percent of users uninstall an app after only one use. Be it an E-commerce website or an ERP software – if it is frustrating or does not perform well, most of the users will abandon it and pick another one with better user experience.

Better UX catapults product efficiency with less support

It is a fundamental fact to understand that simple and easy-to-use applications require less people training, minimize the risk of error, simultaneously improve the efficiency of your business operations.

Global tech giants have addressed the issue of operational efficiency by providing a clear and user-oriented design to their enterprise applications.

Conclusion

UX improvement is a continuous journey. In fast paced and ever-evolving tech market and user-expectations, product modernization with UI/UX rejuvenation is valuable.

While the user expectations and needs evolve fast, setting the bar high for new products, a good UX strategy remains an important aspect of any digital, modern-day business.

That said, proper UX design has a major impact on the business ROI and plays a significant role in the software product development process in general, contributing to the creation of a more consistent, relevant and overall higher quality software product.