Imagine if you had to sip your tea or coffee from this cup…
The color is good.
It has a handle.
It is much like any other cup.
But when you’ll actually pick it up, you’ll notice how the handle is horizontal instead of vertical.
The result? Inconvenience.
The final outcome? You’ll abandon the cup and grab another one.
That’s one example of how bad user experience can make users ditch you and go to competitors.
The cup is a part of The Uncomfortable. It is a collection of deliberately uncomfortable everyday items designed by Katerina Kamprani.
You aren’t planning to add your tech startup to that collection, right? So then you should hire User Experience (UX) designers and offer plausible experiences to your users. Because after all, 70% of online businesses fail due to bad user experiences.
But what is UX design?
Who are UX designers?
What do they actually do?
How does UX design help establish a tech startup?
Can UX design help you scale your tech startup?
Find answers to all these questions and more right here.
What Is UX Design?
Before we talk about why UX designers are important for tech startups, let us discuss UX design in detail. It is important to understand what UX design is in the first place.
The key principles of UX design include:
• Usability: Creating designs that are easy to use and understand.
• Functionality: Ensuring that the product performs the tasks it was designed to do.
• Accessibility: Making the product usable by as many people as possible. Including those with disabilities.
• User-centeredness: Focusing on the needs and goals of the target audience.
Any product, platform, or service designed without these principles in mind will fail to create an ideal user experience.
And a UX designer is the one responsible for creating intuitive, user-centered designs for software products, websites and other digital interfaces.
UX designers typically have a background in design. And they may have a degree in a related field such as graphic design, or psychology.
Now, given their knowledge, skills and relevant experience, UX designers come at a cost.
Source (Salaries are in INR)
Now, this raises a big question. Is UX design worth the salary that tech startups would have to dish out for UX designers? Definitely. In fact, the right UX designer will not only justify their own salary but also help scale the business.
Learn how.
Why Hire UX Designers for Tech Startups?
Hiring UX designers is important for tech startups for a variety of reasons. The key factor is that their success often depends on how well their website, platform, or software products are received by users.
Here’s how UX designers help achieve that success:
1. User Experience Is a Key Differentiator
User experience refers to the overall satisfaction and enjoyment that a user has while interacting with a product, such as a website or software application. In the tech industry, a product’s UX can be a key differentiator. It influences whether or not users choose to use the product and continue using it over time.
By investing in UX design, tech startups can create products that stand out in a crowded market.
Think about why you use that one app for shopping online and not the other one. Chances are you’ll notice UX is a key factor.
2. UX Design Can Improve Product Effectiveness
A UX designer will work to understand the needs and goals of your target audience. And they design your product in a way that helps users achieve those goals effectively. This can lead to increased satisfaction and loyalty among your user base.
UX designers further streamline the processes on your website or software. They remove any unnecessary steps that may hinder the user’s ability to achieve their goals. This can make the product more efficient and effective for users.
They also carry out testing to minimize errors and prevent user frustration.
And 67% of mobile users who like a website’s experience will make a purchase from that site. That’s a clear show of how improving the UX of your website can make it more effective in terms of conversions.
3. UX Design Can Save Time and Resources
By investing in UX design early on in the development process, you can avoid costly redesigns and iterations down the line. A UX designer can help you identify and solve potential problems before they arise. Thus, saving you time and resources.
In fact, focusing on UX during the concept phase of a project shortens development cycles by 33-50%.
But more importantly, bad UX can also cause direct losses. (which you can avoid with good design)
• 70% of customers abandon eCommerce purchases due to bad UX.
• 67% of users mention ‘bad experiences’ as a cause for churn.
• 62% of users even share negative user experiences with others, bringing down your market image.
• 90% of users have said that they won’t return to a site if the UX is bad.
• And mobile users are five times more likely to abandon a site if the UX isn’t optimized for their device.
Don’t believe the numbers? Here’s a real-life example instead.
In 2020, Citi Bank accidentally wired their creditors $900 million. It included the principal and the interest. They were only supposed to send $7.8 million in interest.
The lenders refused to send back the principal amount. The matter went to court. The verdict mandated a return of only $400 million. The rest? A colossal loss for Citi.
How Is That Related to UX Design Now?
Well, the accidental transfer happened because not one or two, but three Citi Bank officials didn’t realize the correct procedure for using the software that they had for making the wire transfer.
The UX of the software (Flexcube) wasn’t intuitive which led to the incorrect wire transfer.
If you don’t want your tech startup’s offerings to become a magnet for such costly mistakes, make sure the UX is clean and intuitive.
4. UX Design Can Drive Business Growth
UX design can offer a 9,900% ROI.
An excellent user experience can drive engagement and conversion rates, which can ultimately increase the profitability of your business.
Here are a few figures to support that.
• Companies leading in terms of UX outperformed the S&P index by 35%.
• Better UX design can boost conversions by 400%.
• Customer experience, boosted by good UX design, pulled up company KPIs by 83%.
• 80% of customers are willing to pay more for better UX.
Thus, optimizing your software product for UX ensures that your startup creates maximum impact and garners huge success.
5. UX Can Increase Conversions
Users generally browse through countless websites. All the websites promote the same product or service but there is one website that they like the most and they go ahead and take the necessary action or make a mental note to come back to it.
Why?
The design was simple and they could find what they were looking for without much ado. Therefore, if you want to maximize conversions, you should aim to reduce the effort your users need to make to take the desired action.
Here are some of the ways you can optimize your website:
• Have an easily navigable menu that reduces the number of steps for the user.
• Meaningful calls to action (CTAs)
• Well-structured content
6. UX Design Helps With Search Rankings
A good UX design helps boost search engine optimization (SEO) rankings. That is because Google itself strives to provide answers to the users as quickly as possible and therefore, promotes the best one first. UX design is an important parameter in SEO rankings.
Here are some key elements of an SEO-friendly page layout:
• Avoid text-heavy content. Divide into blocks of content; use bullets, numbers, etc.
• Use keywords naturally
• Use images and videos where possible to engage the users
• Optimize the images and videos with meta tags, titles, etc.
• Include relevant links
Hire UX Designers Today
Industry leaders have understood the importance of UX design.
[In Amazon’s debut year, Jeff Bezos invested 100 times more in UX design than advertising.]
And leaders have also publicly accepted UX as the key to their business success.
[Mike Gebbia, from Airbnb, said UX was responsible for taking the company to the $10 billion milestone.]
If you want your startup to ultimately join the ranks of market leaders like Amazon and Airbnb, it is time for you to hire a UX designer.
Moreover, you can avoid the hassles of traditional hiring by leveraging talent connect platforms that help you directly connect with pre-vetted talent. By choosing from the top talent, you can prioritize user experience. And ultimately create a digital product that is functional, enjoyable and satisfying to use.
