Why You Need to Prioritize UX/UI Design in Your Employee Experience
The business value of good design makes perfect sense.
If customers find it difficult to do business with you, whether online, on the phone, in a physical store, or anywhere else, they will go somewhere else where there is less friction in their experience. It’s that simple.Much of the discussion about the business value of good UI UX development services focuses on the consumer experience. However, this is largely an employee experience and productivity issue. If you're not already treating it as such, it's time to reconsider.
Many of the common means of measuring the relationship between design and business value reflect this reality. A single UI change could dramatically reduce the rate at which customers abandon items in an online shopping cart, for example—a long-favored metric in the e-commerce world.
That same principle holds just as true when you shift your focus from internal to your own employee experience. Poorly designed employee tools, processes, and workflows are just as much a revenue and profit issue as they are with customer-facing products and services.
And design is, to a large extent, a matter of tangible business value. A McKinsey report on the business value of good design found a high correlation between companies with strong design and superior financial performance.
Companies in the top 25% of the McKinsey Design Index grew revenue (the holy grail of virtually any company) at twice the rate of their industry benchmarks. They similarly delivered higher total returns to shareholders than their peers. What’s more, this correlation held strong regardless of sector, from medical technology to consumer goods to retail banking
Among the findings of that report: The argument for prioritizing UI UX design services isn’t really about a single product or service, but about the entire user experience. I think that’s absolutely true, and it’s also true of your employee experiences; however, too many organizations don’t apply this same kind of thinking to their internal systems and workflows.
In fact, it seems that many companies tend to take an “it’s not broken, don’t fix it” approach to internal applications and workflows. However, they would be better off thinking, “It’s probably broken, so let’s fix it.” That sounds harsh, and it’s unlikely that all of your tools and processes are actually broken. But are they optimal? Probably not, and ignoring good design when it comes to your employee experience may be one of the root causes.
Design thinking in internal workflows and employee experience has never been more important. The proliferation of remote and hybrid work has magnified the already outsized role that digital tools and processes play in our current businesses. We (rightly) invest great urgency in digital transformation and modernizing businesses across all industries, but truly doing so means redesigning and optimizing the way people within those businesses get their jobs done.
One of the best ways to uncover the impacts of poor UX/UI (or simple lack of attention to UX/UI, which can be just as damaging in an organization) is to identify friction points wherever they exist. You should focus on identifying repetitive tasks in your end-to-end workflows, duplicate data flow between people or systems, and responsiveness to customer requests or issues. While these are obvious areas where design issues can arise, technical, cultural, and other factors can also play important roles. All of these can be alleviated with UX/UI improvements.
This is for much the same reason that an eCommerce company cares about abandoned carts, conversions, and other metrics. You can borrow similar metrics for your employees as well. For example, if employees find it difficult or frustrating to use a particular tool or complete a workflow or task, they are more likely to abandon it. At the very least, it is going to take them longer to complete the job. Ultimately, a solid design should be considered the foundation for optimizing productivity, employee experience, and satisfaction.
Four things to keep in mind when implementing or improving UX/UI design
1) Solid experiences don't just mean a digital portal.
Optimal employee experiences and workflows don’t just mean creating a self-service portal and directing people to it. Design thinking should permeate every aspect of employee workflows and experiences.
2) Good design doesn't have to be beautiful.
If you're working at a consumer brand, you almost certainly value aesthetics. But good design in employee tools and workflows doesn't necessarily mean attractive design, but perhaps attractive functionality.
3) Great design is simple and intuitive.
I believe the strongest UX/UI decisions are those that make it easier for people to do their jobs. Good design creates intuitive experiences that reduce training time and support requests, and increase satisfaction or efficiency.
4) Results accumulate.
Simple UX/UI changes can lead to quick wins that can increase employee adoption. Increased adoption can create a greater opportunity to achieve long-term business value and ROI, and can improve employee satisfaction.
In short, there is tangible business value behind your employee experience. Prioritizing experience through a good UI UX design agency can help remove digital bottlenecks and constraints in your company and improve the way your employees work.