Smarter and leaner digital transformation towards a UX focused touchless future
Ergomania — Fintech Product Design’s recent webinar with UX promis Dr Andras Rung — UX Strategist for Banking and Fintech, Kathleen Van den Keybus, Edward Croft Baker, Thomas Fogarasy and Hannes Robier was thought-provoking with important takeaways summarized as follows.
During Covid19 UX design industry should have provided quick MVP responses to situations when ‘entire industries’ went remote from one day to another. There was simply no time and opportunity to go through each step of the classical design process just to come up with solutions fast instead.
Following the initial shock, however, the operating framework for ‘the next normal’ became quite generally applied throughout the UX design industry.
‘The next normal’ in the UX design industry? Benefits and drawbacks of remote
Some of the elements managed smoothly in remote highlighted as follows:
- The entire design process became fully remote. UX design belongs to a limited number of industries that can operate fully remotely.
- There is no need for the users to travel which resulted in easier scheduling of research and testing sessions. The willingness of users to participate is increased at least temporarily since it is another social interaction in the lockdown period when the social relationship was restrained.
- A specific segment of professionals, high-net-worth, mid-to top-level business managers who are normally difficult to approach and reach for research and testing became more accessible remote eg. at lunchtime which is otherwise booked fully.
- The documentation is easier.
- While users are at home, relaxed, they seemed to be more open to emotional tracking recordings.
Some of the drawbacks to be calculated with and challenges to be managed in remote:
- Technical issues will most likely arise with the clients. Those can be everything, practically: closed corporate IT systems with firewalls, weak internet bandwidth, hardware problems, various software versions. All these require flexibility, options, empathy, and extra time.
- More preparation efforts for research interviews and tests because it is remote. More time needed to build initial trust for instance, recordings properly pre-set, potential technical issues at the users etc.
- Tools and methods have changed. There are very popular methods that could hardly be applied remotely.
- The meaning of the reactions might differ remotely which requires relevant practice on behalf of the interviewer.
- The users' behavior can be different live than in front of the camera.
- Building trust to use a method, or with respect to cultural differences, or to launch a new design project with a new client is more challenging in remote than in person.
Covid19 put public services and elderly people in focus with enormous potential and need for UX design-based solutions
Varied widely among countries, but most of the public services are not yet capable to operate fully online due to deficient or inadequate interfaces. In Europe, there are notable exceptions like the classic but not the sole example Scandinavian countries, but it is still the case for South-, Central-Eastern, and South-Eastern European countries. The response of governments was in these cases to extend the validity of official documents matured, just to mention one typical example. However, these ‘solutions’ were very limited. Yet to come for the governments to recognize the importance of comprehensive, user-friendly, and accessible digital services backed by a full UX design process. This is still a huge theoretical growth potential in many countries.
The elderly people are exposed to the highest risk and to have cared about the most. Yet, they are very poorly served and educated today with relevant digital solutions. Obviously, one part of the elder generation is already familiar with the passive use of some popular apps.
To support their everyday life ‘no mistake’ solutions gain ground to fit their user needs and capabilities. Just to mention a few, elderly people need one focus, no divided screens, stronger contrast, larger objects, no interactions, but longer texts, reminders, voice.
Covid19 fastens smarter, UX focused digital transformation backed by some remarkable trends
- The role of design systems is even more accentuated by Covid19 since supports the fast processing of quality interfaces, thus, their spread continues.
- Expanding borderless cooperation implies the standardization of processes in UX design.
- Remote work gave a boost to collaborative tools in UX and will also differentiate among tools, platforms, methods with respect to their quality of collaborative capabilities.
- The more variable user base including the above mentioned elderly segment for instance needs adaptable software, personalization, and fast marketable niche apps for the underserved with mobile ethnography gaining ground.
- The UX industry must better explore what the technology is capable of: sensors, smarter AI, and new voice channel set the touchless trend.
The UX industry seems to benefit from Covid19 in the mid-term, definitely. The current pandemic period resulted in actual fall and higher short-term uncertainty concerning the revenues of most of the companies. The rule of thumbs is cost-cutting. The longer-lasting effects Covid19 are a threat to current business models, therefore, thinking through the cycle requires acceleration of the UX focused digital transformation of business models and operation. The focus of UX will be on ‘less output, more outcome’.
Companies should take the risk and move ahead with comprehensive digital transformation despite the internal pressures and political struggles when it comes always to picture in the allocation of scarce internal resources. There are at least two truisms to mention over and over again. ‘Going digital’ without UX does not make any sense, and we are not digitizing the way we have been working so far.
On one hand, with the elimination of travel and non-productive time in the lockdown and as a longer-lasting effect due to remote work, the UX projects will be more affordable to a much wider spectrum of companies, institutions, and industries, a beneficial effect. On the other hand, however, due to the above transformation challenges more complex, cross border collaborative projects with the strategic approach are also expected.
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