As the world advances in technology, our livelihoods are also changing. Businesses, studies and even government services are now offered online. It could have never been more timely to talk about user experience than now. For a page visitor, having a seamless interaction with the system is the basic expectation. Failure to meet such a need may cause a business to lose customers and incur huge losses.

User experience(UX) is a digital term referring to how a person feels while interacting with a system such as a website, a desktop/phone application or any other software. Software owners must therefore strive to provide optimized user experience to the clients for a variety of reasons. The best approach for this optimization requires a clear understanding of the user needs and developing a strategy to have them met.

Forrester Research recently conducted a study on the impact of UX design, and the results were astounding.  A business can increase the conversion rates up to 400 percent by employing superior UX design. Note to understate the weight of the matter, let’s take a look;

What is the significance of UX design?

No matter how long the term ‘UX’ has been in use in the digital world, you might still hear or ask such a question severally. In a bid to help businesses or firms to remain relevant online, we outline five reasons why you should invest in developing the optimized user experience.

1. Cost reduction

Companies are bound to have changes; dropping some projects while picking new ones. With any project, there is an associated risk. Investment in the UX design helps cushion against losses as it focuses on research, analysis and testing.

It is proven that making product development changes is more difficult and costly compared to product redesign. Most of the times, issues that arise are usability problems which could have been solved in the prototyping stage of UX design.

Though you may initially part with a good amount working on a better UX design, it is worth the long-term outcome of proper user engagement and conversion.

2. Increased conversion rate

Many restaurants may be offering the same food delivery services, but you prefer one more than the other. Why? Maybe it is their presentation, how fast they served you, and how easy you can get their attention when a problem arises. The same applies to digital products users. We are always looking for particular things from the web and the site that can accurately and quickly avail the information wins. The probability of returning to the same site in search of related products or services is high. This a plus for both the business and the user.

Now let’s look at it the other way. You search for a product online and get a nice-looking website with the product of your interest. However, you cannot navigate through to read the complete information you require because of the complexity of the design.  In the process, you get frustrated and leave the page. Is there a chance of going back to the same website during your future searches? Maybe but minimal.

Reducing the amount of effort a user puts to obtain the necessary information greatly favours conversion.  UX design promotes this in two principal ways:

Minimizing the number of steps a user needs to follow in getting specific information from an application or website.

Giving clear call to actions. This eliminates any confusion the user may have while surfing your page and reduces frustrations hence increasing the conversion rates.

3. Boosts SEO ranking

That sounds fantastic. UX design influences your SEO ranking as search engines like Google use algorithms that take into account the user experience. The search engines’ goal is to provide the user with the most relevant and easily accessible information.  As a result, a good UX design will promote higher search engine optimization ranking and pay per click marketing.

4. Promotes brand loyalty

Companies like Apple have experienced the magic of good UX design in this dimension. User's devotion to a brand significantly depends on the experience with a site or a business app. A seamless interaction goes a long way with the establishment of a long-term relationship. As always, the first impression is critical, and a business can lose potential customers because of poor user experience on the first day.

It will be of little value attracting new users while losing the existing ones. But with a great UX design, you will retain your clients as you can understand them better and meet their needs. Thanks to the customer journey map (CJP) component of UX design.

5. Increase referrals

Marketing takes numerous forms, and your business needs to benefit from all of them if possible. One way products gain popularity is through person to person referrals. The likelihood that a colleague will recommend an online business to a friend largely depends on the quality of user experience, which is well taken care of in UX design.

In the current age, any marketer cannot afford to ignore the contribution of social media in a successful marketing strategy. With this in mind, the UX designers have ensured there is a flawless interaction to social networks through applications or websites. This makes it easy for users to share their experiences on various social media platforms.

Good reviews promote more leads generation and increase customer base.

Conclusion

Life becomes more enjoyable when we can get what we require without much hassle. When it comes to the digital world, a great UX design web design grants your clients an enhanced user experience giving your business the much-needed reputation. Cost reduction, promotion of loyalty, increased conversion rates and improved SEO ranking are some of the benefits of having a good UX design; therefore each e-business must consider investing in one.