More and more companies and their services are migrating online during the pandemic to survive. But with the move potentially hasty, UX (user experience) is not on the top of their minds.
They just need to show customers their products, and customers really have to make purchases, right? Well, not quite.
Alvin Chai, a user experience consultant at a consulting firm Internet user experience (NX), told Vulcan Post that some of the biggest UX issues still faced by companies (old and new) today are:
- Focus a lot on look and feel but not on the usability of the interface i.e. how easy it is for a user to complete a task on their website / app;
- Develop their website / app / software based on their business requirements without validating their design with real users through usability tests;
- Not interviewing users to understand what their unmet needs are, which may reveal new job opportunities.
But how much does it cost to have a bad user experience?
A painful price to pay
When bad UX isn’t fixed, Alvin said it leads to more support and training costs, so your target users know how to use your digital service, and you’ll have wasted or reduced your return on investment on marketing.
Even if you get a lot of traffic to your site, you’ll see a low sales conversion rate because people simply don’t know how to navigate it.
This increases the need for redevelopment or redevelopment. Alvin shared, “Programmers typically spend 50% of their time reworking which can be avoided, and the cost of fixing bugs after development can be 100 times higher than it was before development.”
Ultimately, poor user experience means lower user satisfaction and retention, and users will be less likely to recommend your product / service through word of mouth.
One case in the example Alvin observed was the US e-commerce site that had new customers register before they could pay, causing friction.
Once this feature was removed, the number of customer purchases increased by 45% and the site saw an additional $ 300 million in sales that year.
Cashless payments could be much better
At this time, Alvin and his team identified an area they believed needed a lot of help with the user experience: cashless payments.
Non-cash and contactless payments are on the rise, as are the surrounding privacy and security concerns.
A local example shared by Alvin is how Malaysians often receive calls and text messages from disguised scams in the form of official accounts of brands like BigPay, for example.
“This would affect the security of the e-wallet. Other concerns are unauthorized transactions or misuse of their accounts. Users can also be bored of how transaction history, location data and their spending habits are used to profile them.”
And while a better user interface can improve some of these issues, others require more scrutiny and actual changes to the UX process.
“For fraud cases, it will be difficult to implement the change in the user interface since the fraudulent activities are being carried out by unknown parties.”
“One of the best ways to support users when a fraud occurs is to provide easy-to-find clues and hotline numbers they can call for help,” Alvin explained.
Experiencing how your company helps a client in distress will go a long way in building trust and customer loyalty.
Alvin Chai, user experience consultant at Netizen eXperience
Another way in which a good user experience can be implemented is to give users the option to hide or click to show their private information on their screens so that their data is protected from prying eyes.
Some e-wallet service providers have also started offering money-back guarantees to ease fear of unauthorized transactions.
Stay tuned for what is on the horizon
When it comes to digital innovation, NX consultants like Alvin collaborate with clients to help them understand target users through UX methodologies that include user research, user testing, user behavior tracking, and more.
“We are also conducting strategic workshops for customer stakeholders to find a balance between business needs and user needs when developing digital products / services,” he said.
“In the midst of the pandemic, in 2021, we still expect healthy double-digit revenue growth year-on-year for our work in the finance related sector.”
There are some challenges that they are happy to face soon with digital banking and in the healthcare sectors as well.
As for digital banking, Alvin said, “Ultimately, everything that can happen at the physical branch level can also happen in digital form, for example, loan application, account registration, transfers, insurance, investment, and more. Things need to be researched and well designed to support online self-service. “
“Apart from that, we are also seeing healthcare sectors benefit from providing better digital experiences, from digital vaccination passports and telehealth to remote monitoring of the health of older persons.”
NX will continue to expand its UX remote services to serve different markets in the region, especially for its customers who are expanding outside Malaysia.
- You can learn more about Netizen eXperience Here.
- You can read about the other Malaysian startups we have covered Here.
Featured image credit: Alvin Chai, UX Consultant at Netizen eXperience
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