How to Set User Experience Goals That Actually Work
Eighty-eight percent of online customers – or potential customers – say they won't return to a website after a bad experience. Meanwhile, 91% of customers who have a poor experience don't leave feedback – they simply disappear and never come back.
User experience (UX) is a fundamental factor in the success of your business and brand. And bringing it to the forefront of your strategic plans starts with setting ambitious yet realistic UX goals.
Understanding UX Design
Despite being called design, UX encompasses far more than just aesthetics. Visual appeal is certainly part of it, but it actually covers the entire user’s interaction with your product. It is a comprehensive process that includes usability, performance, accessibility, practicality, and overall functionality.
Today, UX designers play a key role in the software and website development process, as companies become increasingly aware of market competition. Ultimately, your goal is to offer users and potential users an exemplary experience that meets their interests and solves their problems. This, in turn, fosters brand loyalty, encouraging consumers to come back to you again and again.
A UX designer must be technically savvy and possess a range of soft skills, such as the ability to communicate with the audience and show empathy. The work process includes extensive research, wireframing, strategy development, product development, prototyping, design, and testing.
6 Tips for Setting UX Goals
Great UX starts with clearly defined goals. So how do you define these goals? Here’s what you need to do.
1. Think Big
UX goals do not exist in isolation. They should complement, support, and advance your larger strategic goals. It is important to align them with the mission, values, and core objectives of the organization.
Additionally, you need to consider what it will take to implement the projects. What process underlies them? What do you want to achieve? What problems are you solving? How will you and your team implement them? How will you test and evaluate them?
Don't forget to set key performance indicators (KPIs) that will serve as metrics to evaluate progress and results. This will also help you see the big picture and understand what to do – or not do – next time.
2. Consider the W-Factors
Who, what, when, why, and how – these are all critical points when it comes to UX. Let's look at them in more detail:
- Who: Who are your target users? This will help create personas to identify their desires, needs, likes, and dislikes.
- What: What product are you creating? What is it for? What will it achieve and solve for the user?
- When: When does your team plan to launch the product? Timing is an important factor in the UX process.
- Why: Why should or would people want to use this product? Why are you creating it in the first place?
- How: How do you think consumers will use it?
3. Be SMART
SMART goals are a framework that allows you to develop a project concept and evaluate incremental and overall progress toward your objectives. The acronym stands for:
- Specific: Goals should be clearly defined and as specific as possible.
- Measurable: Think about how you will evaluate progress and results. What measurement tool or tools will you use?
- Achievable: There should be specific actions you can take to achieve your goals.
- Realistic: Your goals should be neither too lofty nor too easy.
- Time-bound: There should be a defined timeframe within which you will achieve your goals.
Using this framework will increase your chances of achieving positive results.
4. Build Relationships with Team Members
Although UX design service providers and their teams are the ones who shape the user experience, in reality, everyone involved in the project is responsible for it. That's why it's so important to strengthen relationships with team members – it ensures you are collaborating to create an optimal experience for users. This will also help the process run more smoothly.
Additionally, consider what skills and talents need to be leveraged to make the user experience as effective as possible. To use them, you need to collaborate with each other.
5. Embrace Flexibility
Things change. Ideas change. Projects change. Goals change.
This is the unfortunate part of the UX process, but it shouldn't hinder your project. To formulate powerful, achievable – yet ambitious – goals, you need to accept that not everything in life is set in stone. You must be flexible and able to adapt. This is crucial as you implement your plans. Software and web projects, after all, are inherently creative, meaning there is no rigid structure or path to follow. Therefore, you need to keep an open mind.
6. Always Show Empathy
Empathy is the most important component of the user experience process. Every UX designer must be able to empathize with potential users, and this should be the foundation of any goals they set. So keep this in mind when planning, developing concepts, researching, and thinking.
What Makes UX Goals Work?
UX goals should be central to your design thinking. But remember, they must fit into the holistic development process, complement, support, and advocate for all your goals.
The user is the most important person for your project. They are the ones who will ultimately use the software or website, so your goals should align with their goals. This, after all, is the main reason for all your work.