Designing for Users – A User-Centric Approach
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Designing for your brand or business has evolved.
The focus used to be on esthetics, and now the design has turned into an iterative process focused on the customer journey.
By understanding the path to purchase and various touchpoints throughout, we can design with the intention to make it easier for users.
What's new?
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What's Working?
Every consumer has a story. Every story has a journey. That journey details the joys and pains that each of your customers experiences when interacting with your brand.
You need to understand how these interactions connect, overlap, and influence the customer experience.
Let’s begin!
The Importance of User-Centric Design
User-Centric Design is important because it improves the user experience.
It is an iterative process whereby the design is constantly testing, learning and optimizing to ensure the path to purchase or conversion is easy for the end-user.
Tailoring the design towards the user through involvement makes it easier to understand and engage with your product.
Design Impacts Users
Creating with your user in mind requires research, strategies, and a willingness to adapt.
Before you design, identify:
- Who is using your product?
- What are they using it for?
- Why do they need your product?
- What solutions can you offer?
Create highly usable products that are easy to navigate and leave users with no unanswered questions.
Define your end-point and develop strategies that work towards it.
Understanding Your Customer
You can define your user through the process of User Personas.
The designers need to understand:
- Who the user is
- What goal they are trying to achieve
- Any blockades between them and their goal
When you define your user, you can focus on their genuine needs and avoid the development of unnecessary features and products.
Surveys are a great way to identify users and understand their motives and interests.
Understanding the User Journey
The user journey involves mapping out various behavioural scenarios based on your data.
Technology is constantly changing and user behaviour is adapting, which is why it’s important to use a strategic approach when thinking of your user.
Ask yourself:
- How will they act every step of the way?
- Will the journey/end goal be clear to the user?
- What will they do at each touchpoint?
Set your goals based on this information.
User Journey Map
A user journey map starts with initial contact or discovery and continuing through the process of engagement into long-term loyalty and advocacy.
This encourages and reminds you to consider the entire customer experience: their feelings, questions, and needs while they interact.
Creating a User Journey Map
Review your business goal, since the journey you provide your customer needs to meet these internal goals.
- Choose your personas
- Map the touchpoints
- Design a narrative
- Formulate a visualization from your narrative
Create Solutions - Don’t Make The User Overthink
Many organizations take a set-it-and-forget-it approach, gaining very little insight into how their customers interact.
You want to optimize to enhance self-service, so customers are empowered to complete their tasks with as little effort as possible.
Create a clear pathway to the after state.
Wrapping It Up
It’s clear that design is so much more than a visually appealing aesthetic.
Create with your user in mind: define your goal, strategy and pathway to success to ensure you develop effective systems that are straightforward and easy to use.
Think like your user!
We hope you enjoyed learning about implementing a successful marketing funnel. If you’re looking for more great content, check out some of our other reads below:
