When a user visits your website or app, you would like them to be able to glide through the interface. Hiccups, glitches and errors are strictly prohibited if you want to create an user experience that brings your users back. So, it is important to chalk out a UX strategy that helps you do so. You cannot create great user experience by following aesthetics and intuition alone. It needs to be backed by data and research.

Whether you already have a website which you would like to overhaul or you are creating a new website, UX strategy is key to creating one which is actually effective and can promise you a good ROI. A good UX strategy helps you learn the ways of implementing good user experience in your website, app, software.

Your UX strategy does not only consist of what you want to achieve and how. Yes, it does so at a macro-level, but there is far more that is required to create a foolproof strategy.

Starting at the very beginning:

Review: It is always good to go over what you have already got or have planned. Is it serving the purpose well? Are your users happy with the current interface. A quick survey can actually help you figure out answers to these questions.

Expectation: This is where you define what do you want your UX to be like. How do you want the customers to interact with your website/app interface.

Improvement: Once you have reviewed what you have and have a good idea of what you expect from the future UX, you can also run a competitor analysis to find out what they are doing right that you should, too. On the other hand, a competitor analysis can also help you figure out what should not be done.

Results: Once you know what you want your website’s UX to be like, you can think about what do you expect to achieve from the improvements you are going to make. Is it increased conversions, lower bounce rates, increased lead generation, etc.

Metrics: Results bring us to the topic of metrics. You will have to create metrics to measure how your new UX strategy is doing against the Goals you have created keeping in mind the results you expect.

Blueprint: The perfect way to ensure you cover and implement each and every aspect of your UX strategy in a timely manner. This should, if possible, also assign specific roles to individuals who are responsible for the entire effort of reviving the UX. Clearly specified roles will reduce rework, confusions, and too many revisions and ensure timely launch of your new/updated website/app.

“Once you have created a website, it is good to go, forever.”

No, never.

Your target audience’s preferences and usage patterns are changing as quickly as the market and offerings themselves. In this scenario there is no way that one can publish a website or app as per their liking and forget about it for the rest of their business’ life.

You will need to keep revisiting your website and run analytics (Google Analytics) for example to see how your website is doing. You will get a good idea of your audience preferences from their usage reports and other metrics, bounce rate for example. Businesses need to create seamless and smooth UX that bring back users time and again. UX and UI are bound to each other but not the same.

A great UI without a great UX is like walking into a fancy store with not a single clothing in your size or liking. On the other hands great UX without a UI is going to dimly lit and damp warehouse for shopping where you find your stuff but you really don’t want to be there for long.

How do you find out what is the right UX Strategy to delight your users?

The answer is: the users themselves. You will need to find out your users’ preferences, when it comes to the website. What are the features they find most valuable and which are the ones that they find snaggy and redundant. As the designer, you might have certain ideas about the UX but given it is your design and you know how to go about it, the idea might become a bit biased. A user on the other will have a different approach altogether. They will be navigating the website or the app first hand for the first time. The ease with which they move through your website is a good indicator of what is the overall user experience is going to be like.

There is one particular thing that should be taken into account while testing user experience. User behaviour is focus groups during testing can be different from user behaviour of actual users/consumers. Users in focus group tend to put in more time and effort than actual users while interacting with the UI and that might skew the results a bit. So, keeping margin for this phenomenon would be a good idea.

Creating buyer personas is a great way of ascertaining the kind of user experience you should aim for. Personas help you understand the preferences of your target audience in groups and in a manner which can help you in creating a stellar UI and a great UX strategy.

Read more about how personas can help you create great UX/UI.

Check out the competition

It is always a good idea to check out competition to find out what your competitors are doing right or even wrong. Competitor analysis makes the comparison easier as you both are in the industry, in the same space, and targeting the same audience. Head over to your competitor’s site and see what are the features you feel will add value to yours. Similarly, find out features that you find redundant or snags that stop you from smoothly moving through the website or app.

Knowing what needs to be done to make a marked improvement, counts for a lot. Once you have that down, you can go ahead and create a plan and flowchart of how you are going make those changes or additions and keep testing your product as frequently as possible to avoid large scale review and rework. Attach goals and metrics to keep your team focussed and motivated. Use analytics to do a before-after and find out how exactly the UX strategy implementation has worked out for you.

There is always room for improvement and you must plan your UX strategy as such to house enough space for future changes, updates and expansions. Being agile is key in this dynamic world.

Think your website/app needs a UX redesigning? We would be happy to help you out with that. Right from strategising to implementation. Get in touch with us here to schedule a free consultation, today!