Dubai: The digital presence (websites, mobile apps, intranets, touch-screen kiosks, office automation solutions and ERP solutions) are either “designed” or most of the times only ‘developed’ without even a hint of design, an industry expert said.
“When it’s designed it’s normally a pretty looking layout. Every brand and business can benefit from their digital presence if it’s done right. All they need to do is to ask simple questions to themselves — What channels of digital do I really need?; How is it going to fit into my business process?; Have I set my objectives and goals to achieve from this initiative? and most importantly, how relevant is the planned initiative for my end users?,” Amol Kadam, creative strategist and UX director at RBBi, a specialised user experience/user interface and performance marketing agency based in Dubai, told Gulf News.
While you are trying to find these answers, he said that’s where usability and user experience come in to the picture. Now, both of these terms are still very new to this market, so it’s not surprising that people still get the two mixed up. Although the ideas are linked, usability is essentially part of the overall user experience.
Usability is the measure of ease with which users can use the product, interface, or any other man-made object to achieve the assigned goal while user experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the brand, its services, and its products.
Ultimately, the usability of any product, interface or physical environment can be understood by to these five components – learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors (prevention and correction) and satisfaction.
He said Steve Jobs once said “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
“The user experience/user interface [UX/UI] consultancy approach we use focused on actual users to verify and test the designs, solution and any other interface. Removing roadblocks to understanding is key; on digital user interfaces [e.g. websites, applications etc.],” he said.
“We add user experience design to the traditional web design. We use actual users and their insights to put the users first rather than putting together nice-looking designs. We never pitch leading with designs, but lead with user research,” Kadam said.
E-commerce
While there has been an internet boom in the region, especially sparking a growth in e-commerce, “how many of these new companies understand the importance of usability and user experience? If they do, how are they measuring it,” he said.
Bad UX is often a reflection of poor design and complexity in the underlying product. A hallmark of good UX is the elimination of unnecessary or marginal features. This reduces the complexity of the code base, making it more robust and less buggy. As a wise man once said, “there are no bugs in the code you don’t write”.
If you take a broader look at digital, overall in this region “we feel that the most important issue is undelivered brand promise: agencies and brands are great at creating a brand and generating good brand perception. What they neglect or fail to deliver on are their digital interfaces. Their websites and mobile apps lack their personality and promise; perhaps this primer on usability will help”.
Most websites are developed by programmers. Designing an interface is a specialised task. Even the print graphic designers or creative directors are not fully eligible to design an interface. You need “professionals” to design an interface.
