Importance of User Experience in Product Adoption

We live in a digital age and have the power to access quite literally anything from the palm of our hands and hence, a mobile app is a great tool to create a large user base, increase site visibility and generate more sales. “User Adoption” is a process in which new users adopt a system helping them fulfill their needs — whether it’s ordering groceries or buying clothes online.

Resistance to change is embedded in human nature and coming up with creative ways to retain a new user can become a difficult task, but the math is simple — A more user base or better retention percentage is directly proportional to a high user adoption rate. It’s an indication that more users are adapting to newly added or distinct features (supported by research) incorporated in the application for better penetration in the targeted market.

From a business point of view, adoption leads to revenue generation where UX plays a significant role. Alongside addition to the functionality of the software and products we develop for our customers, UX enables us to filter and select the right functionality and helps boost usability which essentially results in effective, smooth, and intuitive user journeys.

According to a study by Standish Group, only 20% of features are actually used, while 50% are barely ever or never used. Customers should be told by the application about the new features. Creating an experience where users discover a new feature/existing feature can improve feature adoption. It’d be a waste of resources, efforts, and money if the users never get to know that such a feature exists.

For some reason, many companies overlook this critical step or fail to use it effectively.

Key aspects impacting E-Commerce User Experience

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One such use case could be an e-commerce platform connecting small grocery stores in rural India using technology. The most efficient B2C e-commerce model is selling directly to customers,

which means customers can purchase directly from manufacturers or department stores. This e-commerce platform functions as an online mediator with an established supply chain. Having said that, no system in the world is without vulnerabilities. This ecosystem also has its fair share of problems. Let’s discuss some of the worrying areas.

• Recommendations
  
  Curating effective and ML-based recommendations can be very difficult since you are relying on data collected from users analyzing their behavior and interaction with the app and its features. Testing and watching your results closely is very important in this case. A good place to start is with existing customers (versus prospects) so that you can personalize their feed or list.
  
  
• First Time Customer
  
  One thing we observed e-commerce businesses don’t do enough is notify customers about the perks and benefits of being a customer. As stated above, creating an experience which makes the discovery fun for the customer is something these businesses don’t focus on. Creating a solid onboarding experience is important as there is an opportunity to ensure all customers have every piece of information they might need to a happy/satisfied customers.
  
  
• A minimalistic approach
  
  We understand the business decision of throwing a lot of information toward a potential customer to have a possibility of converting them into a regular customer but what businesses fail to understand is the sheer cognitive load this puts on the customer. I’d rather have a few quality products to choose from than have a carousel of inventory to choose from.
  
  

Best practices to be followed in enhancing User Experience

Creating a crisp user experience is of great importance to any business because it is how the customer engages with the product of a business. A positive experience increases the chances of retaining a customer which is the ultimate goal.

Let’s discuss some tips for enhancing the user experience of a product.

• Onboarding
  
  User onboarding allows a company to turn amateur users into experts. Making the user aware of the features of the application helps them understand the purpose of the app better and allows the user to have a hassle-free experience. Having said that, make sure that the onboarding experience isn’t stretched too much. Make sure to reduce the friction as much as possible. Customers want to complete the task as soon as possible and not invest much time in understanding the app flow. There are many types of onboarding UX/UI patterns. But each type targets specific user needs or expectations, and any business should focus on it’s potential clientele. A satisfactory onboarding UX is not the easiest task, but when you put the needs of the users first, it turns into a win-win situation.
  
  

Keeping the laws of UX in mind UX laws help in achieving the best possible design solutions to a problem as they are derived from years of research on human psychology and human behavior. Unlike math, it is not an absolute necessity to follow all UX laws (design is very subjective) but it’s never a bad option to perform heuristic evaluations for instance. Example: Fitts Law:

• Do Not reinvent the wheel
  
  UX designers often try to transform something usual for their design to stand out — in other words, they try to reinvent the wheel. However, it rarely works. Users do not like changes, especially, if these changes make them feel lost or uncomfortable. The best practice is to use layouts tried and tested over the years: for instance, the menu bar should be at the top or to the left, but not at the bottom. This is how you will make your users feel confident while working with your product.
  
  
• The KISS Principle
  
  The phrase; “keep it simple, stupid” is thought to have been coined by the late Kelly Johnson, who was the lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works. He told the designers at Lockheed that whatever they made had to be something that could be repaired by a man in a field with some basic mechanic’s training and simple tools. If their products weren’t simple and easy to understand – they would quickly become obsolete in combat conditions and thus worthless.
  
  The gist is “Try to avoid complexity in order to improve website design”
  
  Simplicity is a key design principle. The easier something is to understand and use – the more likely it is to be adopted and engaged with. KISS, “keep it simple, stupid” is thus a great rule of thumb to be applied when considering your design work in a larger context of usage. However, it is also important not to make things so simple that they compromise the functionality of the final design – users will live with a little complexity if it enhances their overall experience. Source:
  
  

KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) - A Design Principle

• Accessibility
  
  It’s so naïve of us to take for granted those things we got used to. Perfect eyesight, good hearing, ability to read and understand, freely move and easily communicate. User interface accessibility is vital for both people and businesses. It’s crucial to understand that, besides permanent disabilities, people often experience temporary or situational challenges.
  
  

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This accessibility toolbar allows users to change the text size and theme of the page as they’re interacting with it (rather than having to navigate to a separate part of the app).

As a responsible employee, a designer should keep the following in mind to make design accessible:

• Ensure sufficient color contrast
• Support color with other elements like labels, bold text, italics, icons, font-weight, etc.
• Use focus indicators
• Add alternative text to images
• Focus on content hierarchy
• Enable multiple input navigation
• Test design with potential users

Is animation really necessary?

Animation is a powerful tool in a designer’s toolkit. Animated effects can help transport users between navigational contexts, explain changes in the arrangement of elements on a screen, and reinforce the hierarchy of UI elements. Consequently, they are an essential element of interaction design.

When animation is used in a subtle way, it can help users build mental models about how the system works and how they can interact with it.  Animations are less critical for user experience when they are simply time-filling visual stimulations during moments of transition (in fact, it’s these down-time animations that often frustrate participants in usability testing).  Instead of using animations to provide surface-level delight (that quickly sours), animations can be leveraged for usability: as clues about what is currently happening with the system, as signifiers for how UI elements will behave, and as easily understandable spatial metaphors for the user’s location in the information space.

• Motion for Feedback
  
  Animations are often helpful as a form of noticeable feedback that an action has been recognized by the system.  A ubiquitous example is the animation of a navigation menu sliding over the page when a hamburger icon is tapped.  Because our visual systems are so attuned to motion, a short animation can ensure that users see the feedback.
  
  Source:
  
  

The Role of Animation and Motion in UX

Concluding Notes

We just want to put it out there… UX Design is not equal to graphic design and it is NOT a 10-minute task. Analyzing the user flow of a process on a regular basis allows designers to discover pain points and find vulnerabilities by observing the user journey. There are many point of view while doing UX analysis like building user personas, mapping out architectures, creating task flows and sitemaps, building wireframes, etc.

One of the most important aspects while designing is to always keep in mind “You are not the user!” The most effective means of doing this is to find out key user segments and gain empathy with those users. As a designer, it’s easy to get lost in a product and be biased. Empathy breaks through natural limitations and a designer’s cognitive biases.

We hope you have found inspiration in the methods described above and that you now have a deeper understanding about design, user experience and it’s importance. We have no doubt that User Experience will become the differentiator factor between a business’ success and failure in the coming years.

Happy designing!

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