UX Design for Entrepreneurs
What is UX Design Thinking?
If the term “UX Design” (User Experience design) is new to you…conjuring images of Millennials working for a big tech company doing something on the computer you don’t understand…here’s a brief summary so you’ll be tossing out acronyms with confidence at your next party.
Not to be confused with UI (user interface) which deals primarily with the interaction between users and computer systems/apps (e.g., buttons, icons, information architecture), the goal of UX design is to “improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through the utility, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction with a product.” (Oxford Journal, Interacting With Computers) “Pleasure” is a little bit of a squishy and unquantifiable term, but there it is. UX involves the customer’s emotional experience.
And well considered UX design contributes to the overall experience that a customer has with a brand, product or, just as often as digitally these days, a brick-and-mortar business. So it better be good.
S’mores for the UX win
If there is a blizzard outside and your hotel steps up with an indoor S’mores experience to meet the emotional needs of the guests, that’s one part of a positive user experience locked in.
Helpful concierge, large rooms, and good lighting are all examples of touch points in the user experience that, when thoughtfully designed, serve to make a loyal customer base.
UX Thinking Applied to the Real World
This last week was Spring break for my daughter’s school and so our little brood was thrilled that the Tahoe trip we planned pre-pandemic was at long last happening.
Part of the deal we scored two years ago was locking in a fancier hotel than we would normally have stayed at by agreeing to a “personal preview presentation of the Vacation Club”. (It was, as you’ve no doubt deduced, a classic time share pitch.)
Why endure such a thing? Well, trading 2 hours of our lives for 4 days of all the benefits the hotel had to offer was a no brainer.
The hotel offered a human-centered approach to its business, understanding the social, emotional, and physical needs of its customers. In our case, that meant infrastructure and activities that supported families with lots of gear (bigger rooms, wide hallways, large lobby), mostly stranded indoors and in need of nourishment (on site restaurant, in-room fridges and microwaves) and entertainment (ping pong, game room, kids club, S’mores night). Did I mention S’mores night?! Mmmmm…
The hotel had its UX thinking on point!
Our soup-to-nuts experience with the property was easy and pleasant. Maybe even addictive, as I can’t see going back to any other kind of winter hotel experience after this.
The Digital Roots of UX
UX design always happens. Whether it’s intentional or not, someone makes decisions about how a product/business/brand interacts with humans. It was in 1993 that cognitive psychologist Don Norman coined the term “user experience” for his team at Apple. (Watch this very brief explanation by Don himself on the origin and meaning of the term “UX”). But Bell Labs was doing UX work as far back as 1945 when it hired psychologist John E. Karlin to help design the touchtone keypad for its telephone system. Karlin’s work was aimed at making that interactive experience easier for customers.
These days, there are professional associations one could join, certificates to obtain from businesses offering training, and extension courses from renowned universities to take.
A quick search for UX jobs will render thousands of opportunities, with titles such as:
User researcher
User experience architect/engineer
Interaction designer
Interface designer
Usability practitioner
Information architect
Graphic/visual designer
The titles are a confusing word soup, primarily because there is no agreed, specific definition of what a UX Designer does, and because the application of their generally agreed skills set is reach far beyond the tech world these days.
Expanding the Reach of UX
Business is always striving to make the daily tasks of our lives more efficient and enjoyable. To do this, many industries are tapping the skills of UX designers to help curate better experiences with their products or business.
I touched on my own user experience with the hotel before, and the hospitality industry will only continue to grow in its need for advanced UX design. Customers at every point of their travel experience are quick to judge and even faster to share via social media if they are wronged. Hotels, theme parks, restaurants, and others must continue to invest in their point-to-point customer experience.
Banks can do a better job serving their clients and being more accessible through simplicity as online banking and AI become more ingrained into society.
Environmental and social justice issues require tremendous empathy, with a focus on simplicity in the thinking behind making impactful and widespread shifts in society.
Healthcare is another huge realm in which the many touch points of the customer/patient must be finely considered. Booking appointments, communication between doctors and patients, medical equipment training and so much more task UX designers to apply all their knowledge in creating user-friendly, intuitive experiences.
Applying UX Design as an Entrepreneur
I know that entrepreneurs are tasked with being everything to all people at all times. It can be exhausting and it might feel overwhelming right now to be toggling in your brain about what it might look like for you to apply UX Design to your own business.
But remember, UX thinking is happening whether you know it or not. So be deliberate about it!
With a focus on your particular service or product, you are already fairly comfortable with identifying your customer’s needs, the language and style of their communication, and how you can solve their problem.
So applying UX thinking to your business now requires the application of ease and simplicity all the way through the process of engagement with your business rather than just a good experience with you in the end.
It takes a buyer an average of 12 exposures to a new brand or product for it to register, so you must be sure that any and all interactions that a user has with your product or service is, like a Tahoe hotel offering indoor S’mores during a blizzard, on point.
