Challenges of Integrated UX
Conversations like “Hey, have you used this new app? It’s amazing!” are quite common these days. Every day we are using various applications spanning across different platforms. User experience design (UX) is revamping the application with an aim to ensure customer satisfaction through improvements in accessibility, interaction, and security. Basically, the goal is to make the customer relish their experience when using the application.
Given the obvious advantages of cloud in UX, it is still not being widely used, even though it has the potential to have a large impact. Very few companies focus on adopting UX to improve their cloud applications. The advantage offered by UX is more than just better looks of the application. It has series of advantages that combine to have a big overall value added to products. We will look into these advantages and also see how a UX can support cloud development and inculcate improvements.
The Importance Of UX In Cloud Development
Let us first have a brief overview of what cloud computing is. Cloud computing, in simple terms, is a company renting server capacity instead of owning their own servers. With the billion-dollar industry formed around it, cloud computing has become a part and parcel for every large tech company and start-up. The reason for this major shift can be analyzed by studying all the advantages of cloud computing offers.
Cloud computing offers many features that make it easier for companies to handle data and applications. A substantial number of servers can be dedicated to specific tasks. This enables companies to improve scalability, that is, handling more number of users. This also results in boosting the speed of delivery. For example, the loading time of applications is reduced which eventually saves the user's time. Another advantage is that the methods of searching specific data or information are significantly faster. Cloud computing also reduces costs as companies do not require to pay for the hardware and the storage of their own servers.
With the rise of cloud-based applications, integration of UX into these applications can not only grow your user base but also play a crucial role in increasing performance. A very basic example can be the case of data loss. With a proper cloud environment where data is constantly saved on the cloud, there is very less scope that you would actually lose your data. The first thing comes into mind on this feature is how Google optimized its "Google doc" feature. Every letter you type in the doc, and every tiny change you make to your sheet, it is always saved.
Another useful feature is accessibility. Applications can now be accessed on various devices such as smartphones, tablets or laptops. The same application can be accessed on all of these platforms because of cloud computing. This enables the user to access data or application from any place and at any time which can be a major advantage for companies. If a person is able to use an application on any platform to access data, he could work from anywhere which will again result in saving time.
A good UX can help in customer or client acquisition. If the user experience is positive, the likeliness of customer acquisition as well as customer satisfaction increases. Similarly, the training costs can be reduced with improved applications that are used for onboarding. Together, UX and cloud computing provides value through saving time and resources and also increasing the customer segment.
How UX Can Help Enhance Cloud Applications?
For implementing UX into cloud development successfully, there are many aspects to consider that might be helpful. The important things to keep in mind while implementing UX in cloud development are:
- Researching the users before designing. This includes understanding how the user interacts with the application and what will be the main features that the user would like to have in the application. Trying to understand the expectations of the user will be helpful in designing the user interface of the application.
- Brainstorming various ideas before finalizing the design helps in bringing new ideas that can improve the UX. It will lead to creative ideas and out of the box thinking making the application exceed the expectations of the user. This will result in customer retention as well as satisfaction.
- Conceiving smooth user flow for the application is vital in UX. Having a simple design that is easy to use matters a lot. Neat organizing of various features along with intuitive design for icons, navigation bars, and other graphics really helps in getting a positive user experience. Establishing a clean efficient framework to ensure that the application is fast and optimized is also important.
- Ensuring proper security for the data the app collects is crucial. User satisfaction increases if the user knows that his private data is secure and protected.
Attracting customers using out of the box creative user interfaces and providing beneficial features like speed, scalability, efficiency, and security are necessary steps for any business. The more creative and engaging user interface an application has, the user base is supposed to grow more rapidly. So the focus should be on providing a pleasant experience while maintaining its core selling points.
Companies have their unique approaches regarding UX. It can be a simple minimalistic and user-friendly environment, it can as well be a vibrant UX full of animations and videos. Selecting a perfect UX for your cloud can be daunting, but nevertheless, equally interesting.Need to increase customer acquisition of your application while also increasing performance? Contact Architech today and have our user experience design experts assess.
