User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design are critical elements in software development that are often overlooked or under-prioritized. However, research shows that focusing on UX/UI leads to increased user satisfaction, better engagement, higher conversion rates, and reduced development costs over the long-term. Every software product, regardless of its purpose or industry, benefits greatly from an intentional focus on the user’s experience.
Defining UX and UI
Before exploring why UX/UI is universally important, it’s helpful to clarify what exactly UX and UI refer to.
UX refers to the overall experience a user has with a product, including how easy or satisfying it is to accomplish tasks. UX design considers elements like workflow, interaction design, information architecture, and how the interface makes the user feel. UI refers specifically to the visual design elements of a product that allow a user to interact with it. This includes things like screen layouts, buttons, menus, micro-interactions, and navigational elements. UI is one component of UX, which also encompasses behind-the-scenes business logic and user research.
Simply put, UX focuses on having an understanding of users and their needs/goals, while UI focuses on crafting intuitive, aesthetically-pleasing interfaces that address those needs. Good UX and UI work together to create interfaces that are both useful and usable.
Enhancing User Satisfaction
Satisfied users are absolutely critical for any software business hoping to retain customers and remain profitable. User satisfaction stems primarily from products that meet or exceed expectations while delivering value. Users expect software to help them complete tasks efficiently while eliminating unnecessary complexity or friction.
UX design directly improves user satisfaction by making interactions more intuitive, seamless, and focused on user goals. UI design improves satisfaction by presenting features attractively and enhancing workflows with smart visuals. Software products with polished UX create positive first impressions on users and encourage them to fully adopt the product. Additionally, UX improvements provide ongoing value to existing users and can prompt previously dissatisfied users to give a product a second chance after struggling initially.
Increasing Engagement
In addition to satisfaction, UX/UI design also enables higher user engagement. Well-executed UX makes users more likely to fully utilize a software, interact with all of its features, provide feedback, and feel “delight” at certain touchpoints. Strong UIs can capture attention with striking visuals and micro-interactions that make using the software more pleasurable.
Higher engagement leads to benefits like more viral growth as delighted users refer others or more purchases as engaged users unlock the full value of paid features. UX and UI essentially “seduce” users into diving deeper into a software. For products relying on network effects or premium upgrades to drive revenue, seductive design is extremely impactful.
Higher Conversion Rates
For e-commerce companies, SaaS products, and other digital businesses relying on conversions, the impact of UX/UI on conversion rates is likely the most important reason to invest in experience design.
UX improvements like simplified checkout processes, smarter form design, and clear value propositions directly enable higher conversion rates. UI enhancements like high-quality visuals, animations, and contrast also optimize conversions. When users quickly grasp what a product does for them and how to use it through good UX, they are much more likely to purchase, subscribe, download, or take other desired actions.
Additionally, good UX/UI builds user trust, making them comfortable providing payment details or signing up long-term. Research by Nielsen Norman Group found that even marginal UX improvements increased conversions by between 7-17%. For high-traffic sites, UX/UI optimization can translate to millions in extra revenue.
Reducing Operational Costs
Beyond driving user satisfaction, engagement, and conversions, UX/UI design also reduces operational costs for software companies in a few key ways:
- Less need for customer support. Intuitive products minimize user confusion and mistakes, resulting in fewer support tickets.
- Accelerated user onboarding. Thoughtful onboarding flows with good UX allow new users to ramp up quickly with minimal hand holding.
- Decreased development costs. Simpler, more focused UX means less complex features to build. Clean UI reduces engineering time spent building advanced visuals.
- Increased productivity. Employees using internally-facing software also benefit from strong UX that allows them to work more efficiently.
While UX/UI improvements do require upfront investment, over the long run they significantly reduce costs associated with customer support, complex software features, reworking, bug fixing, and unproductive employees.
Enhancing Accessibility
Beyond benefiting mainstream users, UX/UI design also ensures software is inclusive and accessible to people with disabilities. UX research techniques like user interviews and usability testing help uncover how products can fail users with impairments. UI elements like color contrast, alt text, and ARIA labels make visual interfaces usable for the visually impaired.
Accessible UX/UI allows companies to expand their customer base while doing the socially responsible thing. With 15% of the global population estimated to have disabilities, accessible design is both an ethical obligation and smart business strategy.
Optimizing For All Users & Use Cases
The common thread across all the business benefits covered is that UX and UI design ultimately enable better human-computer interactions. While software complexity continues to grow exponentially, human capabilities remain relatively constant. UX/UI design bridges this gap by optimizing interfaces for the way humans actually think, behave, see, and solve problems.
Since UX/UI focuses on users, it applies universally across all software aimed at people. For example, games, enterprise apps, IoT, EdTech, FinTech, and even AI/ML systems need UX/UI to make them adoptable and fit into people’s lives. UX and UI are the “final inch” that connects advanced technology to everyday users who need simplicity and clarity.
Prioritizing UX/UI
Given the immense value strong UX/UI brings to software across metrics like satisfaction, conversions, costs, and accessibility, it should be a top priority for technology companies. Unfortunately UX/UI remains an afterthought for many, especially among engineering-centric organizations.
How can software teams elevate UX/UI in their development process?
- Allocate budget for UX research and access to tools/templates
- Include UX designers from the ideation phase onwards
- Implement iterative design with rapid user testing
- Empower UX experts to make design trade-offs separate from engineering constraints
- Share qualitative user feedback widely within the organization
- Build a culture focused on the user’s holistic experience
- Incorporate UX success metrics in dashboards and reports
For any company building software today, the business case for UX/UI is clear. The research shows investment in experience pays dividends across satisfaction, engagement, costs, and accessibility. UX/UI should thus be a core element of any modern software team’s strategy and processes. Taking an experience-centric approach makes the difference between good software and great software loved by users.
