On Good User Experience

2024-10-25

Since the advent of the internet the rapid proliferation of e-commerce based entities has exploded. Arguably speaking, it is one of the most successful uses of the internet in today's day and age. In the modern world, the average person hardly considers a storefront location for most of their accessories, this ranges from everyday household supplies to technology. I mean just about anything that can sent in a box and dropped at your doorstep has a service available to do just that.

To name a few obvious ones, Amazon, Ebay, Shein, Temu, etc. These are generally large providers. We have the midsize entities like Target, Best Buy, Walmart, etc. And then we get into smaller retail, where honestly there are just way too many to count. I mean you have the entire 'dropshipping' industry on top of the smaller retailers who maintain brick-and-mortar locations as well as an online presence. But this I feel is a poignant point, how has this evolved from say several locations of particular services in a small town that knew your name and collectively offered most anyone could ever need?

Well, to say the least, I think with the exception of restricted access to items if you don't use the Sears catalog, the biggest difference is that customers today are used to the idea that they actually don't matter. And well, inconveniences are just the price to be paid in today's digital age. So what do I mean by that, well websites break, I mean they have downtime, sometimes they just don't work, and comparatively sometimes in a physical building there's a board or tile loose in the floor.

But let's say I go to the gas station and I want a $1 fountain drink. And for some reason the registers don't work sure you could say, "sorry you can't buy a drink right now go home". But alternatively, the average store clerk will just let you have the drinks. This is how brand loyalty is built because of good customer experience. Realistically, it's about setting your business apart and making a customer feel like they matter to you.

For some reason, this doesn't often translate to user experience on a website. It seems to me that there is this apparent disconnect where-in developers and designers forget that users are customers period. There is effectively no case where a user isn't a customer. Even internally, let's say your coworkers use an internal application you maintain, your value to the company is related to the quality they experience when doing their own work the fulfill the greater business needs of their organization.

And I wanted to present an experience I had recently while shopping with Banana Republic online. What can I say, I'm a sucker for layers. But I went to get an item, and there was some kind of bug, and the page kinda broke and the add to bag button didn't do anything. And I figured well I'll just refresh it and fool with it a bit and it'll work. I didn't even think thing anything of it. So let's pause, and think about that for a moment though, I mean we're so used to stuff just not working, so used to tolerating these digital inconveniences... So what happens next, changed everything, I mean my view of the company, my brand loyalty, and here five days later has me writing about it, because I'm so compelled to share that this is how every digital experience ought to be. Two days after said inconvenience, I got an email stating that the company was sorry for my poor experience and they even offered a promo code for 10% off my next item.

So let's think about that. This is brilliant because not only did I not have to report or complain about anything, at that point recompensatory actions for inconvenience lose a lot of meaning, but the company made feel like even my digital presence mattered to them. And sure, is 10% off really a lot for a company that runs sales all the time, no but that's not the point, the point here is that they made the discount unique to my experience. They gave me the discount because I was affected when there website failed to work properly. They didn't just plop a photo of the fail whale and say better luck next time.

So the critical take away here is that, users are your customers directly or indirectly. And moreover, that user experience is customer experience and it should extend beyond a nice web design. It should be functional both in the real world and digital world. From a technical standpoint, a lot of that can be automated, so it begs the question why isn't everyone doing this. I should not feel so compelled to write about this, it should be the norm. But since it obviously is not, this is one of the many ways a business can set themselves apart from their competition.