Customer Experience has become the number one concern for business small and large in the last decade and remain the number of one priority beating price and costs, according to Delloite's 2023 global contact center survey. Happy customer is a paying customer after all.

Our approaches of thinking about customer experience have also transformed significantly from Customer buying behavior: process models (Lavidge and Steiner (1961); Howard and Sheth (1969)) to Customer Engagement of 2010s (Libai et. al. (2010)) to the recent Omnichannel Customer Experience (Rahman et al., 2022), where everything flows seamlessly (like going to Disney Land).

If Customer experience is cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, and social responses to a firm’s offerings during the customer’s entire purchase journey, UX is the essence of our interactions with digital platforms and physical objects. From smartphone apps to kitchen appliances, UX is intertwined with our daily lives. Let's explore the fascinating world of UX and its principles through two diamonds.

To better understand why we care about UX it is useful to look at the key performance indicators that define good UX.

• Task Success Rate: Measures successful task completion.
• User Satisfaction: Assesses overall user perception and satisfaction.
• User Engagement: Tracks user interaction and involvement.
• Conversion Rate: Reflects the effectiveness in driving desired user behaviors.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Gauges user loyalty and advocacy.

These metrics help measure the effectiveness of the user experience, drive customer satisfaction, improve engagement, increase conversions, and gauge user loyalty and advocacy. By tracking these KPIs, storage companies can identify areas for improvement, optimize user interactions, and enhance the overall experience for their customers. Front matter, or preliminaries, is the first section of a book and is usually the smallest section in terms of the number of pages. Each page is counted, but no folio or page number is expressed or printed, on either display pages or blank pages.

Double Diamond process was developed in 2005 by the British Design Council. The structure represents two phases: Research and Design. And form of two connected squares signifies going wide and narrowing doing.

Everything starts with an initial problem statement, such as "How do we make users rent units online instead of over the phone or in person?" If we don't have a problem we could start with hypothesis or assumption that we would like to test.

The Double Diamond UX design process emphasizes both divergent and convergent thinking. The "Discover" and "Develop" phases involve divergent thinking to explore a wide range of possibilities, while the "Define" and "Deliver" phases involve convergent thinking to narrow down and refine the design. This iterative approach ensures that the final solution is well-informed, user-centered, and aligned with the identified problem.

The double diamond approach begins with comprehensive research to understand users and the problem's intricacies. This phase is divergent, focusing on collecting a breadth of data and listening to user insights.

• User Interviews: Conduct direct conversations with users to gather qualitative insights, understand their needs, pain points, and expectations.
• Data Mining: Extract and analyze large volumes of data for patterns and trends that can provide valuable insights about the users and their behaviors.
• Existing Product Analysis: Review the current product to understand its strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement, helping to identify user needs and challenges.
• Contextual Inquiry: Observe how users interact with the product in their natural environment. This allows for a deeper understanding of user needs, behaviors, and experiences.
• Mind Mapping: Create visual diagrams to explore and organize insights, ideas, and connections. This can help in understanding the problem better and in ideating solutions.
• Ethnographic Studies: Understand the cultural, behavioral, and social contexts in which users operate. This can lead to more nuanced and context-specific insights, which are invaluable in creating user-centric solutions.

The double diamond approach begins with comprehensive research to understand users and the problem's intricacies. This phase is divergent, focusing on collecting a breadth of data and listening to user insights. After research, the next step is converging the collected data, using tools to validate and analyze findings. Patterns and trends emerge through techniques like:

• Affinity Mapping: Organize insights and data into groups based on common themes. This helps to reveal connections and relationships.
• 'I' Statements: Elicit users' needs, goals, and perspectives in their words. This can highlight underlying issues and opportunities.
• Personas: Develop detailed representations of user segments based on research. They embody key characteristics, behaviors, and motivations of the users.
• Archetypes: Identify universal patterns of behavior that can inform the design process. These are broader than personas and can provide deeper insights into user psychology.

This process may result in a revised problem statement, serving as a basis for the design stretch. This revision is key, as it sets the direction for the next phase.

Once a refined problem statement is established, the design process begins with a focus on creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). In this divergent phase, multiple options are explored through usability testing. Prototypes and wireframes help create a testable version of the product, and early usability testing is crucial for gathering feedback when changes can be implemented more effortlessly. Regular interactions with the development team are also pivotal for effective collaboration. Key techniques in this process include:

• MoSCoW: Prioritize features for MVP.
• Lo-Fi Wireframes: Sketch design ideas.
• User Flows: Visualize the path a user takes to complete a task.
• Prototyping: Create a testable model of the product.
• Usability Testing: Validate the product with actual users.
• Iteration: Refine and improve the design based on feedback.

The design phase eventually transitions to a convergent mode for hand-off to the development team. The focus here is on delivering a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). To facilitate this process, important documents are prepared:

• Hi-Fi Wireframes: Provide detailed, near-final design representations.
• User Stories: Define features from an end-user perspective.
• Spec Doc: Detail the design specifications for developers.
• Brand Guide: Set guidelines for the product's visual identity.
• Asset Creation: Compile necessary graphics and UI elements.

User Experience (UX) is more than aesthetics—it's pivotal in driving business success. It significantly influences key performance indicators, such as customer satisfaction, retention, and conversion rates. Here are some ways UX investments can add value to a business:

• Increased Conversion Rates: Smooth, intuitive UX can guide users towards conversion. For example, Walmart's mobile optimization increased their conversion rate by 20% and mobile sales by 98%.
• Reduced Development Costs: Early UX investment during product development can reduce costs. As Dr. Susan Weinschenk points out in "Usability: A Business Case", nearly 50% of programmers' time is spent on avoidable rework that could have been circumvented with initial UX incorporation.
• Competitive Advantage: In an increasingly digital world, superior UX can set a company apart. Companies with high McKinsey Design Index (MDI) scores experienced greater revenue growth and returns to shareholders compared to industry peers over five years.

We're humans, not computers—we think in sentences, often messily. Have you ever been frustrated by complex filters when trying to book a flight, hotel, or car?

Let's use the redesign of a real storage website's main filter as an example of UX application, reflecting recent trends and philosophy. This is not a critique; their website is great, and I enjoyed using it.

We aim to enhance the filter implementation, which currently appears overwhelming. The goal is to reduce complexity and cognitive load, improving speed, efficiency, and engagement, and making the website more user-friendly.

How? By restructuring the query into natural language, allowing visitors to adjust it to their needs. The visitor would click on each part to adjust it to their own needs building the request that they want to ask!

The new approach isn't necessarily superior, but consider implementing it if it seems useful.

Embracing UX is an ongoing journey rather than a one-time task. By continually applying UX principles, businesses can drive revenue growth and reduce costs. And if you need help on any stage of the journey Bridges and Barriers in partnership with Mercantile Systems would be happy to drive your User Experience Research with our experience in data generation, analysis, and design!