4 Reasons To Start Measuring User Experience Today
In our fast-changing digital landscape, a good user experience is no longer a nice-to-have, it is a decisive competitive advantage. Gartner states that to succeed in the new experience economy, the memories, emotions and feelings that customers take away are ultimately what matters most. So start measuring user experience today.
Yet a problem faced by many companies is that CIOs, CTOS and other decision makers often do not have enough of a business case to invest confidently in improving the user experience of their business applications. Why?
ROI of user experience is often guess-work; most of the time becoming evident only after a project has been completed and users have voiced their satisfaction with the time saved, improved data quality, or the ease of use that comes with working with the new applications.
While companies are waking up to the fact that providing both their employees and customers a good user experience is key, they also need to be able to make strategic decision about how and where to invest their resources to do so.
There is simply too much at stake to be relying on gut feeling. Instead, data must be the main basis of any decision-making, and without it, those responsible for the digital experience have a hard time coming up with a convincing business case to warrant forward-thinking investments.
This is why we teamed up with SAP partner sovanta to bring you four important reasons to start measuring experience data today.
1. Gain a better understanding of your digital landscape
“CIOs, CDOs, CTOs, POs, and anyone else responsible for business applications, need to be able to identify where to improve,” said Cody Wedl, Head of Experience Management and Business Development at sovanta. Yet this can be difficult when there is no industry standard for collecting experience data, and where most existing UX data historically relies on qualitative measurements such as “I like, I wish.”
Though qualitative data can be useful for gathering information that answer questions such as why adoption rates are poor, or why user retention may be lower than expected, it does not lend itself to measuring improvement over time. Companies need to be proactive about gaining feedback and asking for ratings from their customers and end users, while at the same time bringing in operational data (efficiency and performance) to combine all given data points into a single source of truth.
Measuring and quantifying the UX of your applications, Cody explains, establishes a reference point for their health and value, much like putting a stake in the ground. This way, the owners of the digital landscape can begin to understand whether their applications are performing as they should and meeting the needs of end users, and begin to measure improvements over time. Companies will be able to gain feedback from users on how they see the value of their applications and how they measure the maturity of the landscape for specific business applications.
2. Make informed decisions to shape your road map
Once you have that stake in the ground, measuring experience data allows yo to see where the strengths and weaknesses of the applications are, and where there is room for improvement, whether that’s urgent or longer term.
For product owners, this means letting go of their gut feeling when it comes to shaping the product vision. Experience data is actually a great tool to build a better road map as you gain clarity on what steps to prioritize and how to continue to build and improve over time. Using experience data also creates a common ground and the basis for conversation between stakeholders when it comes to setting priorities and allocating budget.
3. Unlock the power of UX benchmarking
Once you’ve begun gathering experience data, you will be able to benchmark the user experience of your company both against your own suite of applications and against industry competitors. Benchmarking internally against your own applications creates a holistic overview of your digital landscape and allows you to uncover winning factors and gaps across the different applications. Benchmarking against industry competitors will allow you to gain an understanding of where you stand in the market and where there is room for improvement.
4. Make your customers feel heard
Lastly, nothing shows your customers that you care more than putting in the work to understand where they need support. Collecting experience data is a great starting point for engaging in conversations with customers and end users about how the applications are working for them and where they would like to see improvements.
Start measuring UX now
User experience is becoming increasingly important, but without having proof of the value of the improvements made to your digital applications, it will be hard to secure future investments. Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with the four key reasons to collect user experience data, make sure to check out the follow-up article on 3 tools to measure user experience for enterprise applications.
Source: 4 Reasons To Start Measuring User Experience Today (forbes.com)
