Tim O' Sullivan

61 Merrion Square South, <br />
Dublin 2, D02 EW25, Ireland

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<p class="graf graf--p">The role of the marketer is becoming increasingly challenging. Customers no longer take notice of push advertising and will only engage with a company when, where and how it suits them. People aren’t just buying products or services, they are buying an experience. Unless you have a store presence, these ‘experiences’ are more often than not, online.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">As a marketer you are, no doubt aware that the website is still the most important marketing channel for the majority of businesses today and the competition for the customers&#8217; ever-decreasing attention span is cut throat. So the online experience for your customer must be top notch.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">What is User Experience Design?</strong></h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">The goal of <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.usertesting.com/blog/what-is-ux-design-15-user-experience-experts-weigh-in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://www.usertesting.com/blog/what-is-ux-design-15-user-experience-experts-weigh-in/">User experience design</a> (UX) in business is to “improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through the utility, ease of use and pleasure provided in the interaction with a product.” To put it another way, if your website doesn’t provide an easy and pleasurable experience for your customers or potential customers then they’ll be gone in two clicks. Don’t make it so easy for your competitors.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">The ROI of UX</strong></h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">Some interesting stats: <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.forrester.com/report/The+Six+Steps+For+Justifying+Better+UX/-/E-RES117708" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://www.forrester.com/report/The+Six+Steps+For+Justifying+Better+UX/-/E-RES117708">Forester</a> Research (paid report) shows that, on average, every dollar invested in UX brings 100 dollars in return. That’s an ROI of a whopping 9,900 percent. The <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.dmi.org/blogpost/1093220/182956/design-driven-companies-outperform-s-p-by-228-over-ten-years--the-dmi-design-value-index" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://www.dmi.org/blogpost/1093220/182956/design-driven-companies-outperform-s-p-by-228-over-ten-years--the-dmi-design-value-index">Design Management Institute</a> has found that design-centric companies (such as Apple, Coca-Cola, and IBM) outperformed the S&amp;P index (which indicates the industry’s average performance) by 228% over a 10-year period from 2003 to 2013.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">OK, so your business is not going to be the next Apple but there is clear statistical evidence to prove that a well-executed website will yield a very positive return on investment.</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="graf graf--h3 graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>“UX design is an investment, not an overhead.”</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p class="graf graf--p">So maybe you know your website is totally outdated and hampering business. You have some ideas that could fix it, but how should you approach getting the website a UX overhaul. Who do you need to convince?</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">The people in your organisation who are concerned with sales and with making financial decisions are a good audience for your UX idea. Before you start the conversation and possibly suffering the indignity of having your bright idea of investing in UX being shot down in a meeting, follow these tips.</p>
<h4 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">1. Web analytics</strong></h4>
<p class="graf graf--p">You can back up your argument with stats from your <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_analytics">web analytics</a>. Especially look at what’s happening when people reach a critical point — perhaps a conversion — and see if people are dropping off. This drop off suggests the user has encountered a problem and are not carrying through. It’s the job of the user experience designer to find out what the problem is.</p>
<h4 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">2. Research</strong></h4>
<p class="graf graf--p">There is a wealth of untapped information in every organisation about their websites’ users, i.e. the customers. People such as front-line sales or customer service staff probably have a litany of comments from customers about the problems with your company’s website. Truth be known, everyone in the company probably has an opinion of things that are wrong with it.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Tap into this and record all these issues in your research. Essentially, anything that makes the <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_journey" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_journey">user journey</a> (eg. from homepage to checkout page) a bad experience.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">If you can get to talk to your customers first hand then that&#8217;s even better. This is your strongest weapon against any dissenters. Whatever people think about what you have to say, this isn’t just your opinion, this is what the customer is saying.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Anything that makes this customer journey difficult, frustrating or simply doesn’t work, is costing you money and losing revenue opportunities.</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="graf graf--h3" style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>&#8220;Design isn’t finished until somebody is using it.&#8221;</strong><br />
<strong><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;">— Brenda Laurel, PhD, Independent Scholar</span></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<h4 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">3. Testing the users</strong></h4>
<p class="graf graf--p">Taking this one step further would be employing what is known as <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_testing" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_testing">usability testing</a> to drive your point home. This involves putting real users in front of your website and ask them to complete a couple of simple tasks like e.g, ‘buy a shovel’. This will require them to make the journey from home page, locating the product page, finding the earth-moving category, picking out a shovel and completing the transaction at checkout. Ask your testers to talk you through their journey as they do it live. You want them to tell you what they’re thinking, what are they looking for, what they expect to see, what they’re trying to find but can’t. It’s a good idea to write a usability test script so that all your testers are answering the same questions making it easier for your statistical analysis.</p>
<h4 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">4. Competition</strong></h4>
<p class="graf graf--p">Look at what your competitors are doing. Analyse how they present themselves and their products online. Take the customer journey yourself and see how it compares to yours. Is it easier, clearer to follow? Slick design, great images and an altogether better look &amp; feel can indicate that a competitor has engaged UX design in developing their website. Remember, people are basically just like Magpies. We like bright shiny new things and will make a judgment about a company within seconds of visiting their website. Your competitor could be attracting better clients because of their cool new website that is just a pleasure to visit. It delights the user.</p>
<h4 class="graf graf--p"><strong>5. Getting management support</strong></h4>
<p class="graf graf--p">According to Jared Spool, one of the foremost thinkers in UX today says, “you need to find out what your bosses are already convinced of. If they are good at what they do, they likely have something they want to improve. It’s likely to be related to improving revenue, reducing cost, growing customer numbers….or increasing shareholder value.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Good UX can help with all those things.”</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Once you know what that is, frame your work within that context.</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="graf graf--h3 graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>“For every dollar invested in UX yields a return of $2 to $100.&#8221;</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<h3 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">What next?</strong></h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">So you’ve identified the problems with your website and you’ve validated these insights with research and data. What next?</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Present your findings to key stakeholders outlining your research findings and how the analytics is showing resultant loss of opportunities. Give examples of where the issues and the pain points on the customer’s journey lie. You will need to be able to demonstrate how solving <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_usability" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_usability">usability</a> problems will lead to measurable improvements in return on investment. There are numerous other benefits to improving your websites’ usability. Think of the possibility of reducing support calls, converting, retaining customers and improving the response to customer inquiries.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--p">Show don’t tell.</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">All your arguments need to be backed up with data. Data from your analytics, user feedback from testing, stats from online sources, comparable case studies. There’s a wealth of information out there you can use to back up your argument. You may find yourself in a room with people who think they know what’s best for the website or brand because they are more senior. Remember, data should overrule opinions no matter who has them.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--h3">Scare them, Inspire them, Start small.</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">In his book, <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://www.amazon.com/User-Experience-Revolution-Smashing-eBooks-ebook/dp/B06XZZQ38R" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://www.amazon.com/User-Experience-Revolution-Smashing-eBooks-ebook/dp/B06XZZQ38R">User Experience Revolution</a>, Paul Boag outlined steps to help to get management buy-in.</p>
<h4 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--li-strong">1. Scare your management</strong></h4>
<p class="graf graf--p">Nothing motivates people more the threat of something being taken away. The most obvious being loss of business to competition. Don’t just scare them, offer a solution otherwise they’ll feel overwhelmed.</p>
<h4 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">2. Inspire Management </strong></h4>
<p class="graf graf--p">Give them some idea of what the future looks like. inspire them to what is possible. It could be a series of workshops before a big flash event. A big relaunch.</p>
<h4 class="graf graf--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">3. Give management a simple next step</strong></h4>
<p class="graf graf--p">The greatest of journey’s starts with a single step. The harder the journey, the greater resistance you’ll get. Ask them to take a small step towards the bigger project and they will be far more likely to say yes.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--p">Thumbs Up from The Board</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">So everybody liked your presentation and you’ve been given the green light, what are your options?</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">You may be given the option to fix the issues in-house or to engage a UX design agency to do it for you. Coming from an agency I’m always going to recommend the agency route but budget, resource and time constraints don’t always make that a viable option. But look, the ultimate aim is to delight customers. You won’t find too many bosses not wanting to make their customers happy. They may be willing to loosen the purse strings if you’ve adequately demonstrated that UX design is an investment, not an overhead.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--p">Outsource to a UX Designer/Agency</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">Engaging with a specialist UX agency or UX designer is one route. Keeping it in-house is another. The work you’ve already done on research will inform the UX designer/agency but it is always a good idea to have them independently conduct <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_testing" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_testing">usability testing</a> with real users which will involve having users follow customer journey whilst recording the issues and pain points encountered.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--h4">The UX Process</h3>
<figure class="graf graf--figure"><img decoding="async" class="graf-image aligncenter" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*nLMKSk-ZTZa6rhAqAP13eg.png" data-image-id="1*nLMKSk-ZTZa6rhAqAP13eg.png" data-width="792" data-height="306" /></figure>
<p class="graf graf--p"><a href="https://friday.ie/blog/importance-of-ux-research/">Armed with the research</a>, the UX agency will usually follow a process similar to the illustration above.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--p">Go It Alone</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">If you have a list of basic, easy to fix UX problems that need to be solved, you could have some in-house techie or employ a freelance guy to do it on the cheap. This is not an option I’d recommend as it may not yield the results you’d promised management. Or the young techie in the beanie who skateboards to work has just wrecked your website and compromised customer’s data security. Not a good look for you.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">If you have no budget to engage a UX designer/agency, there are always some low hanging fruit in terms of quick fixes you can focus your attention on. These are the quick fixes that are straightforward enough to implement and should provide some results.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--p">Fix The Copy</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">For example, many companies design for themselves rather than their users. Often words that make sense to the company don’t make sense to their customers and these can end up causing confusion. If you happen to sell spades, call a spade a spade and not an excavation solution even if, as a marketer, you think the latter description makes you product sound more sophisticated.</p>
<h3 class="graf graf--p">The agency route</h3>
<p class="graf graf--p">If the entire website needs to be dragged out into the backyard and set alight with a match then find a UX agency who will take a far deeper, more strategic approach to designing your new website. As with most good UX agencies, We at <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://friday.ie/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-href="https://www.api.friday.ie/">Friday</a> follow a process and collaborate closely with our clients with the goal of providing a best-in-class web experience for their customers.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">The investment in UX design can dramatically improve the image of a company and yield a major return.</p>
<p>If you plan to invest in your website, <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">Talk to us</a></p>
<p class="graf graf--p">You may even sell more spades.</p>


How To Convince Your Boss To Invest in User Experience (UX) Design

<p>Every year, companies are leaving millions of Euros on the table by not creating well thought out information architecture. Money is lost because customers are not able to navigate around their websites and leave unsatisfied and go elsewhere to find the services they need elsewhere.</p>
<h3><strong>What is Website Navigation?</strong></h3>
<p>Moving from page to page through a website, you are using the website navigation. It’s not something people think too much about but getting the navigation wrong is like expecting someone to find their Hotel in a new city without a map.</p>
<p>Users can easily get lost trying to find what they are looking for. Frustration sets in and in two clicks they’re gone to your competitor&#8217;s website. There are graveyards full of abandoned shopping carts.</p>
<p>Website Information Architecture is important in helping you design a site such that the user can achieve their goals and get where they are going with as little effort as possible.</p>
<h3><strong>So what is Information Architecture?</strong></h3>
<p><a href="https://www.iainstitute.org/what-is-ia" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Information architecture </a>(IA) is the creation of a structure for a website, application, or another project, that allows us to understand where we are as users, and where the information or content we want is in relation to our position.</p>
<p>Much like the architectural plans of a building, IA describes the skeleton of the project. Content, Visual elements, functionality, interaction and navigation are built according to IA principles. IA principles are the guides to good IA such as the principle of front doors.</p>
<p>This principle states that one must assume at least half of the website’s visitors will come through some page other than the home page. Learn more about IA principles <a href="https://www.designprinciplesftw.com/collections/eight-principles-of-information-architecture" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">here</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>“Every year, companies are leaving millions of Euros on the table by not creating well thought out information architecture.”</p></blockquote>
<p>From the point of view of the team or teams designing and building of a website, the IA provides the important role of keeping everyone on the same page during development.</p>
<p>Much like you find on a building site where all the contractors be they builders, plumbers or electricians, everyone needs a blueprint to follow. The AI informs the client, the project manager, the UI designer, the developer and the content creator what information goes where.</p>
<h3>IA as part of the Design Process</h3>
<p>Here at <a href="https://friday.ie/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Friday</a>, IA fits into our process as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>Client brief</li>
<li>Discovery / research</li>
<li>Information Architecture</li>
<li>Wireframes</li>
<li>Prototyping</li>
<li>Design</li>
<li>Build</li>
</ol>
<p>It’s important to note that throughout the process the IA is a fluid document and may change to make improvements to the overall user experience. When changes are made, it is vital to make amendments to the original IA document so that designers, content creators and developers are kept abreast of any changes.</p>
<blockquote><p>“Getting navigation wrong is like expecting a person to find their Hotel in a new city without a map”</p></blockquote>
<p>The structure depends on a number of factors. First of all, the specific needs of the target audience are paramount as user satisfaction is the priority of IA. If you are considering a redesign then a look at traffic stats will give you an indication of how people are using the site and what path they take to get to where they are going.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_map" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Heat mapping</a> can also help by offering you a visual image of where users are moving around the site.</p>
<p>You have to think about the user journey and consider how you can simplify it. Consolidating pages such as products and services might shorten the user&#8217;s journey. Also, consider how you label menus and buttons.</p>
<p>Your users shouldn’t have to think about what’s behind the next click, it should be intuitive.</p>
<h3>Are IA and UX the same thing?</h3>
<p>AI would be best described as a particular part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">User Experience</a> (UX) process. IA is the description the content structure of the design which will then produce a wired skeletal frame or blueprint (known as wireframes) of the project.</p>
<p>These are the basic building materials on which a UX designer builds the project.</p>
<p>Good IA makes a product easy to use providing its combined with good design thinking. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_thinking" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Design thinking</a> is a method for the practical, creative resolution of problems using the strategies designers use during the process of designing.</p>
<p>The two together will give the product a strong user experience.</p>
<p>IA is the content and information plans on which UX is built. UX design takes the plans to another level, providing a useful, relevant, meaningful and enjoyable experience. Achieving these goals and meeting business goals is the difference between apps and websites that succeed and those that fail.</p>
<p>And remember, if you fail, try two more times to show failure is statistically significant.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re looking to invest in web design, <a href="https://friday.ie/contact/">talk to us.</a></p>


Author: Tim O' Sullivan

How To Convince Your Boss To Invest in User Experience (UX) Design

No Information Architecture? You’re Wasting Money.