User experience or ‘UX’ has finally hit mainstream for companies of all types and sizes. It’s the new corporate buzzword these days. There is a scrappy, almost desperate attempt by companies who’ve previously allowed these “just ok” experiences to survive who are finally being forced to put strategic focus (along with budgets and resources) to make focus on the entire experience where the digital portion is not just a component, but the core.
UX research goes into the actual context of people’s lives to help gather insights, data and give a very an honest look at what really needs to happen to allow organizations transform and succeed. It fills a gap of qualitative research where traditional methods of market research is reliant on focus groups and surveys — telling you what is happening, giving you opinions and feedback, but not really getting into the why.
We’re not getting into the emotional aspects of the experience that truly matters.
Companies are moving into a product-centric focus where formerly brand experience ruled. Now it is more than the promise that entices. It is the value and meaning of product or service has over time, and the value that it brings into an individual’s lifestyle is the key success factor.
UX design and research has been intermingled for over a decade. At least. Successful Interface design requires a customer-centered focus, and iterations of design and testing to continuously improve the experience. UI and UX have been intermingled for a long time. We are in a new era where the customer is truly the central focus of all strategic endeavors.
It’s been called the “Age of the Customer” and is merging UX into this larger overarching strategic world of Customer Experience (CX). It can get confusing at times.
UX researchers are coming out of schools in droves. These researchers are trained to focus on areas of design and observation at and expertise level that has not been seen before. Although the training is intense, and focused — most still lack the kinds of hands on wisdom but only time and experience can bring.
In the current industry usability and A/B focused researchers are now exiting lab environments and realizing that true 1:1 customer observation, in context, is the only way to truly understand (what is being called) the omni-channel experience.
In the CX or customer experience space this is called the”age of the customer.” This transition from traditional user experience focusing on the interface level of product design to the strategic level of a product experience coincides with CX or customer experience moving from a higher level of brand to a customer-centric focus.
There are terms that are important to understand as we merge processes, expertise and strategy from both marketing/CX and product/UX perspectives. In this video we will be using the term UX or user experience to define all touch points that a customer has with the product or service.
Why Rapid UX Research?
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