Chesney Hawkes really was a ‘one and only’ Don’t be a Chesney. Make use of good design-thinking, regularly and strategically.
I’ve been genuinely excited that the culture and approach of what we’ve done over the last 15 years as a UX design community is now on the lips of almost every industry and sector globally. UX and CX are now buzzwords, that most people have heard of and talk about regularly.
Whilst the concept of customer experience existed 100s of years ago as the art of providing a good service to people who pay you for your product or time, the shift to companies today embracing and even taking on ‘CX champions’ in their business is excellent and brilliant to see. I’ve been working in UX for almost 15 years. I knew that people didn’t talk about UX outside of our industry much, so it rarely got shouted about using that phrase. There are far too many acronyms and jargon words in digital to confuse our clients even more! However that tide is turning, which is super exciting.
CX vs UX – whats the difference?
For me, UX is the art of defining a delightful journey through a digital product, tool or website. It’s about getting out of the users way, by giving them just enough to move forwards smoothly and easily through the task or journey they are on with you.
CX for me, is on a bigger scale away from just digital. Customer Experience relates to every possible customer touchpoint with your brand, company or product. UX sits within that and is the journey taken through your digital channels.
UX Strategy vs UX Design
General brand or marketing strategy can, as time goes on in a project or campaign, become disconnected from the user digital journey needs, and the holistic CX approach is not always in sync with the UX strategic delivery. This is where UX strategy comes in.
The importance of a good UX strategy cannot be underestimated. Having a long-term plan to align all of your customer touchpoints (CX) with your vision and goals for user experience throughout all channels, does three major things for your company:
- It builds a focussed and strategic journey for business growth
- It creates a route for marketing consistency, and implementation through all touchpoints
- It aids clarity, brand loyalty and builds improved experiences for your customers
Done right, your UX strategy helps to build a connected relationship with your customer and end users, it helps to promote your brand more clearly, and increase conversion both on and offline.
One hit wonder UX
I have in the past often been asked to work on what I call ‘patch it up’ UX projects.
These are one hit wonder, one-off pieces of UX design delivery, with minimal or no strategy or overarching brand or roadmap for testing and implementation defined.
As an experienced UX professional I’m super confident I can get results, whatever I work on. So of course I still take these challenges on. However. If clients only value UX for a ‘fix it and move on‘ approach then you’ve completely missed the point of what CX and UX really is, and the power getting it right (or wrong!) can have on your business.
- People change
- Place changes
- Income changes
- Businesses change
- Culture changes
- Demographics and data changes
It’s vital that we continually evolve product, website, or digital tools. It’s vital that we learn and change, adapt and tweak. Evolving the businesses digital landscape and marketing approach as these things evolve.
Don’t be a one hit wonder when it comes to thinking about UX & CX in your company.
Build it into part of the business strategy of how and what you will grow as a company. Allocate funds to continually work on what your users and customers are responding to.