User experience is the key for a successful business, but trying to improve the user experience can be a confusing process.
There are many different ways to judge the user experience, including digital experience, user experience and customer experience. Each feeds into the other to create an overall experience for your customers.
By better understanding the elements of digital user experience, you can better identify and approach the key areas of product design.
What is digital user experience?
Digital user experiences (digital UX) is the experience a customer has with a specific digital touchpoint.
This could be a mobile app, website, digital kiosks – the list goes on. Basically, any situation where you use a screen to interact with a brand or product.
Why is digital user experience important?
In this digital age, offering a fantastic digital experience is crucial. Many customers are switching to a purely digital experience for many of their daily activities. In the same way that you would like to improve an in-store experience, it’s important to make your digital user experience the best it can possibly be.
What makes a good digital user experience?
A good digital UX will not only serve to impress new customers, it provides a way of building customer loyalty. If you’re offering a better digital user experience than your competitors, there’s no reason for your customer to turn to those competitors.
A recent study found that 65% of customers said that their experience on a website or app would be an important factor when recommending a brand to someone. This means that if your digital UX isn’t up to form, you could be losing customers.
Finally, providing a great digital UX can result in lower customer support costs. Customers can easily navigate and do what they need to do, without confusion or the need for human intervention by your support team.
The 4 elements of great digital user experiences
To say there are just 4 elements required to offer great digital user experiences is a slight over-simplification. These four steps alone will get you on the right track, but creating a great digital UX takes time and flexibility, as customer needs change over time.
Integration
A great digital user experience is a holistic experience. Each touchpoint, digital and non-digital, should be connected in a way that feels organic. The aim here is to provide a seamless journey for the user.
Innovation
Innovation is the difference between what we use today and what we could be using tomorrow. Customer needs and technology are both changing at a rapid pace, which means that the digital user experience will change just as frequently. This means innovation needs to be a central part of everything you do while building a digital UX.
As nice as it would be to create one platform and walk away, a great digital user experience requires flexibility and a hands on attitude. Pay attention to emerging trends and try to get ahead of the curve by using customer data to power innovation.
Interaction
The very core of all products is how the user actually uses it. Interaction for a user is simply second nature. When it works as it should, the user will pay little attention to how those interactions are occurring. When it doesn’t, you’ll have problems.
For example, websites and mobile apps require active interaction (clicking, scrolling, etc.) by the user in order for them to work. If a user has problems doing any of these incredibly basic actions, they’re unlikely to continue using your product. Often, these customers will simply abandon your brand without informing you why.
This is why building sustainable and accessible digital products is so important, and one of our core beliefs at Thunk.
Intuition
Data can only improve the digital user experience so much. Analytics make it seem like your users are running through the experience in one fell swoop, but in reality, users are often multi-tasking. This means you need to think outside of the box a little bit in order to provide a great digital UX.
The more time your users spend trying to figure out how to use your website, the less time they’ll spend engaging with the experience. This means to provide a great digital user experience, you need to make sure your platform is intuitive.
The best thing to keep in your mind is “keep it simple”.
As long as the experience is simple and works as you would expect it to, you’ll find your users are much happier.
Remember, a happy customer is a loyal customer!
At Thunk, we thrive on creating amazing digital experiences for your customers. We want you to succeed, and with a little help from us, we know you can do it. Contact us today to find out how.