Today, Thursday November 12th is the International Usability Day.
And I, Raquel Lerones, Creative and Usability Director at Roiback, am celebrating in a way, today is my day! In this article I would like to share with you the importance of usability to build customer loyalty and stand out from your competitors.
Design matters…a lot
There are many studies that show how design and user experience affect sales. In fact, 94% of the first impressions that users express about an interface are related to design aspects.
Poor design can cause customer confusion about what to do or where to interact. This is a problem that is solved by investing in usability. The art of “where to put what” is difficult to master and, unfortunately, the sixth sense of designers and product managers is not always right.
It is obvious that everyone has their own tastes, even among designers we sometimes don’t agree! We must always avoid stating that “users like it this way” or “this is the best way to do it”. This is why usability tests are necessary, as they give us the keys to choose the right solution.
The right design is the one that users understand and prefer. It’s as simple as that.
Design is essential when it comes to building customer loyalty and standing out from the competition and for this it is necessary to put the user at the center of everything: identifying and solving their problems. The main value of product design is the creation of an experience where the user feels comfortable and wants to come back.
The 4 keys to good interface design:
- Define and build interaction patterns.
- Use tools that help study user behavior (UX).
- Create UI and product logic prototypes.
- Conduct and analyze different tests (user and A/B) to verify that this is the best product that can be offered.
By performing user tests, we stop depending on the subjective opinion of the designer or the company’s “committee of wise men”. In this way, we will be able to determine which solution is the most suitable in an objective way and, most importantly, we will find out if users like using our product.
Even if we believe we have a great product, it is the users who will ultimately determine whether this statement is correct or not.
Usability is much more than “look & feel”.
When we talk about usability we refer to the ease with which people use a product, physical or virtual.
Usability allows us to unify the needs of users with the objectives of the company, launch successful and sustainable products in the long term and optimize the user experience in the proposed solutions.
Our goal with design and usability is to offer our customers the best possible product, the easiest to use and, most importantly, one that does not make them think.
In the design world, this statement is known as the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) principle, an acronym used as a design principle. It states that most systems work best if they are kept simple, avoiding complexity; simplicity should be kept as a key design goal, and any accidental complexity should be avoided.
The customer pays for quality
If we offer a wide range of functionalities and also a good UX design, we get more users willing to buy our product.
Investing in usability increases conversion. It has been proven that every dollar invested in UX returns 100% ROI.
At Roiback, we are committed to usability. And not just today, but for the rest of the year.
One of our main objectives is the continuous improvement in the conversion of our Booking Engine, as well as the development of new functionalities based on usage and satisfaction metrics.
To achieve this, we put usability and product design at the center of everything we do. We invest a lot of time and resources to improve our tools and make life easier for our partners and, above all, their customers.
Today, International Usability Day, is a good day to remember this. Although our commitment is daily, 365 days a year!
If you want to know more about the importance of usability, I recommend this 5-minute video that explains in a simple way its importance and the ROI it brings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O94kYyzqvTc
Let’s win – win!! 🙂