Many tech companies get a great start with world-class algorithms, or next generation services, or a brilliant business model for an un-served niche market. Those are all great components of a successful product offering, but insufficient. If the experience of using your technology doesn’t improve the quality of a user’s life, then your business will eventually fail.

Look at Microsoft’s early presence with Windows embedded on telephones in 1996. Microsoft was in the market long before Apple, competing with Symbian, Palm, RIM, and dozens of others. Apple didn’t enter the market until eleven years later, but when they did, they changed the world, and computing, and secured their existence as a business because not only was their technology great, but the user experience of interacting with iOS was far more engaging than any of their competitors. They have since leveraged their lead in music players to define a new category of personal devices, which we used to call telephones, and eventually gain a greater market capitalization than Microsoft. Apple held firm to the conviction that they must control the user experience regardless of what the telco wanted and in so doing was able to deliver a truly designed user experience without bloatware or ill-conceived add-ins. In my own professional experience, I’ve seen hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in techno-centric releases that do nothing to move the key performance indicators of a business forward, all for lack of a user centered point of view in building the system.

We understand this as an industry, but too often we don’t act on that understanding. User stories in Agile teams include a user and an outcome that benefits the user, however it’s all fantasy unless we do the diligence to confirm that our actual users are seeing the value in, and are capable of getting value out of our product offerings. Very few consumers or businesses are interested in tinkering with tools just because they are cutting edge cool. That kind of hobbyist pursuit may be second nature to geeks in the tech industry (and I’m one of them), but they are entirely irrelevant to the customer who just wants to accomplish some task with greater efficiency, mastery, or joy. Most knowledge workers, businesses, and consumers today are overwhelmed with data, and a competitor’s offering is often just a click or a gesture away. Customers don’t care if your tech is cool. They care if your product makes them feel more satisfied and in control of their lives. Very few businesses have the courage to hold themselves accountable to success in user’s terms, since it seems simpler just to ship and see what happens. Customer impact or understanding just seems too squishy to base a release on. Just as hope is not a strategy, careening forward on a tech-centered product vision is not a roadmap to customer loyalty. Very few businesses hold themselves accountable to the only target will secure long-term customer loyalty: positive outcomes for their customers.

In the experience economy, the gold standard is customer attention. Unless a team consciously applies itself to ironing out problems in the usability and usefulness of their product experiences, they will lose business to a competitor that makes that investment. Forrester Research has tracked the performance of customer-centered companies and proven that those with a significant investment in understanding and building on the customer experience far outperform the stock market average. Humans always want the most benefit for the least effort, and our measure of effort must extend to intellectual and emotional effort. Intellectual and emotional effort can be measured and minimized through a systematic and iterative design process that incorporates user feedback early and often.

User Experience (UX) Design is the discipline of applying sound ethnographic, experimental psychology, information architecture, interaction design, and visual design methods to the creation of experiences that give users what they want, when they want it. UX design puts the user at the center of the product vision, and validates that the target users can succeed with the product. Steve Blank likes to remind us that facts only exist outside the building. Alberto Savoia reminds us that the most fatal bugs are the fundamental idea bugs because they will prevent your product from succeeding even if the tech and business plans are solid. UX Designers help your business get out of the office to observe the facts. Although at first glance, adding an entirely new discipline to the creation of technology seems like a great cost, investing in a solid user experience design discipline is a great discount compared to building and shipping a white elephant. UX designers realize that, for a technology to thrive in the marketplace, it must have great technology, a sound business model, and a user experience that is useful, usable, and principled. UX Designers have the tools and techniques to understand your customer’s goals and context of use. Only when we have that understanding can we ever help our customers achieve those goals. Only when we help our customers achieve their goals can our businesses thrive. UX Designers will help your business see outside in, to deliver something that your customers love, and that becomes the gateway to customer loyalty and investment. As long as your business model and tech are solid, then customer loyalty and investment are the foundation for business success.