How does UX transform businesses? The effects of usability testing

It has already become clear that User Experience (UX) is a key factor in shaping how companies build a business. The customer-centric approach has almost completely replaced the organization-centric point of view. All because entrepreneurs noticed how many benefits for business development could be brought by improving the design. 

As it is demonstrated in Robert Pressman’s book Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, “For every dollar spent to resolve a problem during product design, $ 10 would be spent on the same problem during development, and multiply to $ 100 or more if the problem had to be solved after the product’s release.” Thus, after a quick calculation, you realize that every dollar invested in UX returns $ 10 to $ 100.

Who will benefit from improved UX and how to achieve it?

Every business based on a digital product can significantly benefit from UX improvement. Among the benefits such a step could bring you, we can mention increasing the number of users, making better use of customer potential, and free marketing – as users will recommend the product to their family and friends.

So what’s the best way to boost your product’s design? Think about getting an UX audit. As experts who have helped improve the UX of many digital products, we can surely say you do not have to throw yourself into the deep sea and spend a fortune to achieve valuable benefits. There are several UX research methods that you can carry out cost-effectively, gaining a lot of profits. An example of such a method is usability testing, based on direct product tests with actual end-users. 

Among BinarApps’s UX services, we offer assistance in analyzing existing products and functionalities but also auditing new ideas and projects. Finally, we can also support you in introducing recommended improvements to your app. 

The most important benefits of usability testing

Among many UX research techniques, usability testing is particularly valuable. This is because the method relies on direct interaction with actual end-users. Thus, let’s see the most significant benefits of usability tests.

• Savings

Usability testing is a method that will benefit you in two cases.

Firstly, if you run usability tests before the development, you can be sure to save yourself a lot of trouble. You will also save money. Even a carefully designed interface may contain bugs or unintuitive elements that could easily be noticed thanks to direct interaction with users. And that’s precisely what usability testing will help you gain.  

Secondly, if your application is already on the market, you must remember that UX updates are not a one-time action but a repeatable process. If you miss the moment when it’s time to improve, you will have to reckon with the fact that later introducing changes might come with a bigger investment. Test on a regular basis, and you will save time and money.

• Ready-made recipe for problem fixing

By conducting research directly with the representatives of your target audience and knowing how to implement the best usability testing practices, you can count on gaining valuable information straight from the users. During tests, participants will notice what doesn’t function well and tell you how to improve it to address their needs.

• Less frustrated customers

Usability tests work as a natural pain point detector. Since this method is based on an interaction between the facilitator who orders the tasks and the participant who completes them, the process quickly discovers where end-users might get lost or frustrated.

By verifying pain points with users, getting prototypes and pre-built applications fixed is much easier. This way, you can find, for example, a hardly visible button that finalizes the purchase. And fixing such an error will prevent the customer from abandoning the shopping path (at least for this reason).

• Customers focused on the purchase, not the tool

Since the usability testing method will help you verify what else you can improve in your application to provide users with relative benefits, it will also let you deliver a tool in which they do not have to think too much. Yes, you read that right. Users don’t want to make an effort. So, if your product corresponds to the natural reflexes in the customer flow, you have a chance to create an improved and optimized sales tool in which the purchase is not disturbed by any unauthorized factors. 

How methods such as usability testing make a business grow – the Da Grasso case

It’s not enough to have a great product. Experience influences the customer’s acceptance of new products and, more importantly, their continued use. Good experience shows customers that you care, further increasing your brand commitment. That’s why, in order to meet users’ expectations, it’s crucial to build a UX based on customer data. And that’s exactly the approach we took when working on the Da Grasso case.

When the decision to renovate the ordering system was definite, our cooperation with Da Grasso had already been going on for several years. Thus, we got on well and knew what strategy would be most effective in creating an intuitive design and optimizing the ordering process.

Aiming to achieve the intended goals, we had to carefully examine the needs of our client and his consumers – Da Grasso is a franchise chain of over 200 restaurants, and each of them may be slightly different. The challenge was to find a solution that would fit the overall character of the brand but also meet the expectations of each of the premises and target users.

Initially, we offered our consulting activities, including a series of workshops, analyses, and, very importantly, direct research with users. The collected data served as the basis for our main project – the ordering system redesign. 

We have worked to make the navigation as clear and intuitive as possible, improving existing functionalities and adding new ones. One of the changes was to show the menu with larger pictures so that users would immediately know where to go after opening the application. We have also created the option to add pizza to the cart quickly, without any modifications. The whole process went much smoother and more adequately thanks to user-based research.

The key goal of Da Grasso’s cooperation with BinarApps was to combine data collected with the use of web analytics with the one provided directly from target users, which during usability testing revealed their habits and preferences. Moreover, we didn’t forget mobile users, responsible for 79% of traffic. By implementing the PWA technology, we created a solution that allowed customers to use new functionalities directly from the mobile app. Finally, introduced modifications contributed not only to greater system availability but also to cost savings of the entire project.

Despite the challenges, we managed to shorten the ordering process from 12 to just 4 steps. After implementing the new version of the website, the conversion (the number of orders processed through the website) increased by 13%. As a result, the project won the industry award for the best RWD service in the Mobile Trends Awards competition, awarded by experts associated with the mobile industry.

As you can see, UX research methods such as usability testing are great tools for creating an improved digital product design. Hence, responding to the challenging customers’ needs and growing your business. Just as we achieved working on the Da Grasso project.

How do we work in BinarApps?

Our main distinguishing feature is that we have a technological background and experience in building digital products. This means that the recommendations collected based on analysis are possible to implement. We simply know what is doable and what is not. We mind the technology, too. In our team, we always make sure that our client does not have to micromanage the people responsible for implementing established recommendations – we have a team full of experienced developers, so we can continue working together on many levels. Simply put, our UX experts are practitioners, not theorists.