Whether you’re a marketing guru or business owner, there’s a chance you’ve come across the term user experience (UX). UX is among the trendiest topics in digital marketing. According to Nielson Norman Group research, spending 10% of your development budget delivers up to an 83% conversion lift. That’s because UX helps determine whether a customer will love or dislike the interaction with your website.
If well implemented, UX enhances customer acquisition, boosts customer retention, and increases your business productivity. Unfortunately, you can’t create an excellent user experience without understanding your target audience, their needs, preferences, aspirations, and thought processes. And this is where UX research comes in.
UX research outlines the guidelines to help businesses make the right UX decision. This blog outlines everything you need to know about UX research, what it is, its impact on web design, how it compares to User Interface (UI), and why it matters to your business.
What is UX research, and how does it impact web design?
User Experience (UX) research involves finding insights to guide successful visual designs. It involves collecting user research to minimize costs involved in the development cycle and creating a product that meets users’ needs and preferences. Well-conducted UX research leads to a design that enhances user experience, better information architecture, and improves customers satisfaction. Generally, UX research is guided by two principles.
They include:
- Develop and design things right: Guides designers in making the right UX decision
- Develop and design the right things: Avoids wasting time and money in developing the wrong solutions
UX research plays a crucial role in your web design by allowing web developers and the design team to keep up with the emerging trends and provide the best customer experience possible. Also, it helps you avoid costly mistakes in the website design by researching well before you start to build.
Is there a difference between UX and UI (user interface) design?
Perhaps one of the most debated topics in the design world is the difference between User Interface (UI) and User Experience design. And although several analogies have tried to explain how these two design concepts differ, only a few have pinned down a definitive answer.
UX design is concerned with the overall feel of the experience. It’s the experience a user has with your product, service, or brand in general. UI, on the other hand, focuses on the appearance and functionality of a product’s interface. It’s concerned with the colors, menu bars, typography, etc.
A perfect example to explain the difference between the two is: If you’re designing a house, the foundation will represent User Experience. In contrast, furniture and paint would represent the User Interface.
How does UX research contribute to the web design strategy?
Simply put, user experience research is vital in the web design strategy because it focuses on fulfilling users’ needs. It involves researching the users’ needs, preferences, and aspirations to help build a peak-performing website. It aims at providing users with a positive experience that keeps them loyal to the brand or product.
UX research provides you with the data needed to back up your strategy and design decisions. You identify early adopters willing to use or interact with your site.
Types of UX research methods?
UX research allows you to offer users the best solutions possible because you discover what they need. But how exactly do you know your customers’ needs and preferences?
UX researchers often use several methods to discover their customers’ needs, aspirations, preferences, and more, including qualitative, quantitative, and observational research methods.
Here is the definition for each of the types of research with an example:
- Qualitative method
It involves using such methods as interviews, surveys, user testing, focus group, website chat, and slide-up page surveys to collect data about your target audience. For instance, you can interview several users and ask open-ended questions to gain personal insights into their shopping habits. - Quantitative method
Entails using more structured methods to collect measurable data about your target audience. It can include website analytics, website funnel reporting, structured surveys, website cohort reporting, etc. For instance, you could send survey questions to collect measurable data from users (e.g., how much washing powder do you use per month?) - Observational method
As the name implies, the observation method involves observing users’ behavior in the environment in which they live. In UX research, the observational method can involve checking the number of website clicks you’ve received, examining scroll heatmaps, and looking at users’ recordings. For instance, you can observe the number of clicks on a certain product to understand customers’ buying behavior.
How does Usability Testing contribute to the user experience?
In User Experience research, usability testing encompasses evaluating a product or a service by testing it on users. Even the best UX designers will not create a perfect user experience without input from the users. After all, it’s the users that will be using the site!
Usability testing contributes to the user experience by:
- Helping identify the problems in the design of a commodity
- Uncovering opportunities for improvements
- It acts as an example of a qualitative research method to identify users’ needs, preferences, and behaviors.
How does UX research help the customer?
When you conduct user experience research, you become better positioned to deliver the best solutions possible. You discover how to enhance your product design, when and how customers prefer to use a product and know the pain points your products or services will solve. The bottom line is that your customers end up enjoying your products.
Here are the benefits customers enjoy from UX research:
- Find what they want
- Task the necessary action easily
- Save time and add value.
- How does it help your business grow?
Generally, it’s estimated that the average ROI for UX amounts to $100 for every $1 spent. That’s a whopping 9,900% ROI.
It’s no wonder Jeff Bezos invested more in UX than advertising during the start of Amazon. Also, Mike Gebbia of Airbnb is worth more than $10 billion thanks to user experience.
Below are some of the benefits you enjoy by implementing UX:
- Reduces the cost of customer acquisition
- Increases customer retention rate
- Lowers support costs
- Boosts conversion rates
- Increases market share.
- Improves user productivity
There you have it! A detailed description of the User Experience Research and its relevance to businesses. Also, this guide helps you create a winning site. Like this blog? Subscribe to get new content delivered to your inbox.
