Hello my fellow readers! On the weekend I talked about some business topics, a friend asked about business and design philosophy. I asked, “Why do you think design can’t help you to achieve business outcomes?” Haha..

Before you design anything for a new UX project, you must have a clear understanding of your objectives. They are two focus in mind, business goals and user goals. Nothing is more crucial for your success as a UX designer.

How well you can match those goals so that the business benefits when the user achieves their goal is the true test of a UX designer.

User Goals

Because they are people and people constantly want something, users always want something. They are searching for something, they are doing something, they also desire to accomplish something.

Business Goals

Each company has a purpose for developing anything in the first place. Usually, it’s profitability, but it could also be brand recognition, enlarging market share, reducing cost, etc. It matters what kind of business aim is.

Your UX strategy will be very different depending on company needs. Usually the business will redefine it in the form of KPI (Key Performance Indicator) or OKR (Objective Key Results).

Since we are are User Experience Designer, it is our main responsibility to create experience that help user accomplish their goal effectively (effort), easily (time), and delightfully (feeling) as much as we can.

The Example Business Value of Design

1. Why Apple cost more that normal computer brand? Not because of the features, not because of the memory / RAM, it’s because of Experience.
2. What’s difference between Starbucks coffee with normal coffee shop? Not because of the coffee bean, packaging, etc. it’s because of the experience.
3. What about the The LV, Gucci, Coach bags compared with any normal bags? Not because of they used golden needle, etc. it’s because of the experience.

There is a Feeling, a Prestige, a Thinking associated with an experience, and then you build a brand around it. For example, Nike, are they 100x better than normal shoes? Not sure.. but 1 thing for sure, “They honour great athlete.” so when you wear Nike, you feel as an athlete, sportman, or support great sports.

You might have different opinion, oh it’s because of marketing, sales, new technology, NOT Always because of experience. It’s okay, because we are user experience design, so we make the experience that matters. Haha…

So, What Is An Experience? How Do We Design Experience?

We could certainly have countless debates about a keyword “experience,” but I won’t because I am not prepared to instruct you in philosophy. In UX, you keep it simple and practical.

1. What the user feels

You might have seen customer journey where we put emoji happy / sad / angry / stressed, etc. under every interaction with your product / service. Why emotion? Because we want to create experience of delight and not full of friction.

What user feels can be observe by choice of words, tone of voice, facial expression, and body language.

More than just enquiring about user “likes” or “what do you think?” We should be smarter than that. We have to analyse and observe them on a user’s face, hear from them, measure them, relate to them, empathise with them and so on.

2. What the user wants

More significant, but not as simple for the user to describe. An individual’s desire drive their actions. Their every action — every click, pick, and purchase — as well as what they see and hear — is influenced by their desires.

Your value in the customer / user eyes are depending on how much you can fulfil their wants or their desire.

3. What the user thinks

Because every individual have different thinking, background, objectives, the way everyone thinking is different. For example, based on one phrase of instructions, learn a new feature, find the proper link, or perform two tasks at once. Your goal as designer to find pattern / commonality to make users think as simple as possible.

By giving them too many options, too many steps, too many informations, you don’t help them to think but making them more confuse. It’s your job to think and present / recommend the best for them.

4. What the user believes

Belief can be varies.

What you believe might not be the same with what your boss believe, and might also different with what your team believe. How about users?

Your job is to find out what user believes about something and then educate them why their belief is aligned with what you offer.

If you are aware of them—and you will be—you can anticipate what people will think before they do.

5. What the user remembers

We only recall specific details, our memories alter with time, and occasionally we recall events at any given moments! Which elements are remembered and which are forgotten depends on your design.

For example, certain ways to do something, what to do in certain situation, and more. Your goal is not to make them learn things hard, or build confusing experience. But based on what do they feel, think, want, believe, and remember to design experience that aligned with them.

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