A coffee at Starbucks, a visit to Apple stores, a day at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando are experiences that mark their visitors by provoking a bond between them and the brand.
There are two areas in software development known as usability and user experience (UX). Thanks to them, we can cause in our users the same effect that Starbucks, Apple and Disney cause in their customers.
Usability is based on the user’s interaction with the product or system, and can be measured precisely only by evaluating user performance, satisfaction and acceptance.
On the other hand, there are many definitions of user experience, some of them even turn out to be contradictory to each other, for the purposes of this blog we will take as a reference the definition of the Nielsen Norman Group (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/): The user experience covers all aspects of the end user’s interaction with the company, its services and its products.
By combining high usability and an excellent user experience, a market differentiating product is generated. But the benefits of engaging these elements aren’t just in differentiating themselves, UX’s return on investment includes higher customer retention, more customer recommendations, repeat customer growth, and increased credibility. Despite being published for several years, this document (https://www.infragistics.com/media/335732/the_business_value_of_user_experience-3.pdf) can give you a better idea of the value behind UX.
Now, in order to implement a solution that adequately addresses these concepts, it is advisable to have a team trained in the subject, which has extensive knowledge of the user, their characteristics, skills, needs, desires, fears and objectives. And in addition to this, have a technical team that knows the design of user interfaces through different techniques and work tools that we hope to share in our next blog.