How do you quickly improve the customer experience?
Reducing the cost of operating a business and increasing its revenue is one component of the strategy of companies in the B2C segment. One of the more effective solutions that can help achieve these goals is Customer Experience Management, or, literally translated, customer experience management.
One of the key industries where CEM will prove itself in a measurable way, given the numbers and statistics, is retail. As specialists, we verify what emotions the process of purchasing the products we offer can and does evoke, how the customer remembers the process, and whether the result of their "experience" will be a recommendation of our store to others.
UX audit
Auditis a very powerful tool that, only in the hands of an experienced professional, will catch all interface errors. It consists of dissecting and analyzing scenarios representing how the user navigates the site, going through their identification (Cognitive Walkthrough) and categorizing the error and proposing a solution. From a content point of view, the audit is based on Nielsen's 10 heuristics, Shneiderman's 8 golden rules, Connell's 30 principles of usability, Gerhardt-Powals' cognitive rules and the key principles of digital accessibility. If the audited system has an analytical system hooked up, such as Google Analytics, for example, the audit report is also supplemented with conclusions based on numbers and indicators.
Analysis and optimization of user paths
Path analysis involves answering questions such as whether, at any point in navigating the interface, the user knows what to do next and how. In audits, we very often come across blind spots that are difficult to get out of mainly due to the lack of properly designed navigation. If the user hits them, he may decide to leave the store, or worse - abandon the shopping cart and buy the same product from a competitor.The solution to this problem is diagrams depicting scenarios and user paths based on them. This very simple tool helps to find the screens through which any flow is impeded and, consequently, generates customer frustration and their exodus from the site.
Identification and repair of critical interface errors
In addition toidentifying errors in paths, usability audits also identify errors on individual screens. In fact, it is impossible to carry out both analyses in isolation, since very often one error can result from the other, or are strongly interrelated. If a user has trouble moving from screen A to screen B, this is a clear signal to us that there are errors on screen A that need to be identified, whether during an expert audit or research with the user. The latter method is an excellent complement to the former. Putting them together effectively helps identify more deficiencies, and also makes it easier to offset any cognitive errors that may happen to the person auditing the interface. Also under the magnifying glass is the placement of elements, microcopy of buttons, iconography, visual hierarchy, use of color and its psychological aspects, as well as mental models developed over the years by users using the Internet.
Proposal for a new solution
Inmany cases, business owners cannot afford to design the entire site from scratch. Then, staying with the conclusions of the audit and research, in cooperation with the development team, we introduce patches to fix the most critical bugs that prevent or hinder users from executing the scenario.
However, if there is time and budget for it, we propose a comprehensive redesign of the existing solution. We include an iterative process of mock-ups preceded by needs research, final UI and usability testing, oversight of the implementation phase, and a strategy and marketing workshop to help define the language and character of the brand. With all these elements brought together, we are able to propose a final product that will provide customers with a consistent and pleasant experience and a high probability of returning to the e-store and using its offerings.
