Businesses are increasingly prioritizing the user experience of their applications.
As up to 70% of software development projects fail due to poor UX, this should hardly come as a surprise. In today’s application-driven economy, there’s little room for failure if you wish to maintain a competitive edge.
Despite this increased focus on UX, we’re finding that many businesses don’t fully understand all that UX encompasses. In turn, they are unable to take full advantage of the potential that it could bring to their applications.
I wanted to promote a better understanding:
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‘UX only focuses on the look and feel of my application’
It’s true that user interface (UI) design is an important part of UX; however, UI design is just the ‘tip of the iceberg.' UX is focused on the entire product experience. Activities that are less frequently associated with UX include prioritizing and discovering feature requirements, usability testing and managing customer feedback. -
'UX only one step in the overall development process'
As just stated, UX is focused on the entire product experience. So, to maximize its impact, you’ll need to incorporate UX activities into all aspects of the development lifecycle. At Alliance, we center our activities around a continuous feedback loop to keep users and stakeholders informed at all times. -
‘I don’t have to focus too much on UX since I already know what my users want’
Or better yet, ‘I know more about what our users need than they do.’ We often see product decision makers who assume they know what functionality will make their users happy much less productive. Perhaps they’ve thought up a seemingly good idea, or they’ve gotten input from a few users. It’s possible that these assumptions are valid, but you’ll want to conduct usability testing to know for sure.
While these are just three of the many UX misconceptions out there, we hope that they get you thinking about all that UX can offer. Are there misconceptions that you’d add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.