Dear Valued Customer..

We’ve seen the all too familiar tagline, “dear valued customer” in circumstances where we do not necessarily feel that we are being heard as users of a product. Customer retention fuels profitability. But, this can be challenging for companies and many spend time focused on acquiring new users versus engaging with their existing base of customers. In a world where competitors are constantly rising and innovating, it can be difficult to keep your users satisfied and engaged. *enter drum roll* Welcome UX research!

What exactly is UX research? User research gives you a deep understanding of users’ needs and behaviors while providing an essential foundation for your design strategy. What is amazing about UX research is that companies big and small can dive in, as well as largely benefit from the practice with various methodologies. In engaging with UX research you will begin user testing, of which is continual testing and engagement with the product’s actual users before software development begins, or before the product is officially released.

If the product lacks actual feedback or validation from its intended users, it can cost your team thousands of dollars and result in missed deadlines even for a simple change like redoing a screen or workflow. UX research can be a less costly option to reduce customer churn as it allows companies to be proactive versus reactive in scaling their product offering. Engaging in a proactive approach allows you to make data driven decisions in product design and development.

How To Get Started..

This is your chance to gain unbiased insights from your users to create the best possible product. Let’s make the best of it!

It is critical to define goals for the testing environment. What are the goals for the test? Meaning, what are the UX metrics that you are testing such as a new button or form experience. Next, ensure that you are prepared to track task completion, user flow and engagement, along with time to complete the task. This will allow you to see if it is possible for the user to complete the task at hand, how long it is taking them to complete the task, as well as judge if the flow and engagement of the interaction is smooth.

After establishing your goals and metrics, it is now time to determine which group of users you want to test. This is important as you can ultimately choose to focus the study on a specific group of users or offer it to a wide range of users. Which as you can imagine can dramatically change the results and feedback of the test, like if you were test a group of 16 year-olds operating a web application versus a group of 75 year-olds. The experience will be very different.

Lastly, create task scenarios. You do not want to give the test-user too much information up-front and throughout the test as it will ruin your experiment, as well as create bias around the usability. But, you ultimately want to guide them into the right direction so they can interact with the features being tested. Develop a list of questions to cheer your users to the finish line!

What To Expect..

Now that you are equipped with the tools to form a user-testing environment, check out our blog post on the different methods of testing you can implement. But, we do want to share with you some awesome results you can expect from understanding your user. On average, it is expected that ROI on UX projects is 9,900%. Yes, that is for every $1 invested you can anticipate $100 in return.

Additionally, a well designed UI experience can significantly raise your website’s conversion rate (up to 200%) and UX improvements can yield conversion rates upward of 400%. This leads to no surprise that companies focused on the user-experience outperformed the S&P 500 by 35% or more as 8 out of 10 customers are willing to pay more for better experience.

UX research allows you to make data-driven decisions on your product design and development roadmap, rather than assuming what your users will want. This in turn will save significant time and resources, allowing you to focus on future innovations and building an amazing product.


Codelitt is obsessed with the end-user experience in our building process. Check out our Dribbble profile to see some of our design work or contact us if you have an idea or project in mind! We would love to help in understanding your user to create the best possible digital product experience 🚀