As a digital experience agency, staying abreast of the latest trends in technology and customer behaviour is part of our bread and butter. Our clients often look to us for leadership on how they can improve. They ask “What’s the next big thing?”
So, what’s the next big thing in digital UX?
Our answer is somewhat dubious: It depends. It depends on so many things! Fundamentally, as curious digital innovators, we often answer a question with more questions. For example:
- What can you tell us about your customers?
- What feedback are you getting from your customers, and how often?
- How many customer referrals are you getting and why?
- What do you know you need to improve? How do you know?
It really depends!
The answers to these questions will vary hugely depending on your industry, company maturity, product or service, audience reach and reputation. Sometimes, believe it or not, the latest trends and technologies do not even matter. There, we said it!
Rather than focusing on the hot new trends that you think you should be following, we recommend thinking about the following first.
Solve a problem for your customer, simply
User Experience (UX) design is based on the principle of solving important problems, simply and easily. That’s what we aim to do. Sure, the latest technology can help you do things more efficiently and effectively. But if you are not customer-focused and your product doesn’t improve your customer’s life in some way, then that’s where you need to start.
Build your understanding of the customer experience first
Another question - how well do you know your customer experience? There are things you can do to understand where your UX improvement opportunities lie, with or without expert help. Get amongst it - act like you’re a customer of your own business and see how the experience makes you feel. What could be better?
If you’ve got great digital tools and systems already, like Hubspot or Sitecore, you can track your customer experiences down to an individual level and then personalise them. This allows you to use the power of technology to analyse trends while also getting into the minutia. But if you’re not quite there yet, you can start with a general UX mapping exercise.
Keep asking: And then what?
Pick a typical or target customer or user group, and map out their process of interacting with your company. Answer some key questions:
- How do they find out about us?
- What actions do they take?
- What happens next?
- And then what?...
Keep going until you feel you’ve exhausted the cycle. Now, ask what you can do to make it better from the perspective of your user.
