User Experience: The Secret Ambassador of Your Brand
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At EnticEdge, we are healthcare and wellness business consultants dedicated to helping companies clarify and align around their competitive advantage, which we call your authentic edge! Our team brings 30+ years of healthcare expertise in strategic advising, value mapping, business consulting, client experience, team and cross-departmental alignment, and more, all tailored to helping teams achieve mission-driven growth.
Principles of UX Design That Enhance Brand Image for Customers and How to Align UX Design with Overall Brand Strategy
Your company’s user experience (UX) design is a pivotal and vital part of the client experience, yet often overlooked in the world of branding and marketing. But why is it the unsung hero your branding and marketing strategy? Well, in this blog, we'll be exploring why UX design isn't just about website appearance or smooth functionality on your digital platforms, but rather a powerful tool that speaks volumes about your brand values and commitment to the customer experience, at every touchpoint. So, let’s jumpstart this conversation with a staggering statistic that will reinforce the value UX brings to enhancing your brand and improving your ROI:
“Research shows that, on average, every $1 invested in UX brings $100 in return.”
One of the most underrated aspects of UX design is the insight it gives customers as it relates to your company values. For example, let’s say that you’re a healthcare company specializing in quick and easy access to regular examinations and consultations for your patients. Now, one of your principle company values might be client satisfaction and ease, but if a potential new client’s first interaction with your digital presence is an unsettling or inefficient online experience, your values might be lost in translation, and this can inherently insinuate doubt around the efficiency you provide in your services to new clients. Understanding the value of a strong UX design and investing in enhancing your digital brand presence and functionality can improve client conversion rates and increase your ROI!
Principles of UX Design That Enhance Brand Image for Customers:
Empathy and User-Centricity: The heart of UX design lies in understanding and empathizing with your users, and creating a digital experience that reflects that same client-first experience when it comes to your client’s ability to navigate your digital platforms. Designs that prioritize user needs and preferences resonate more strongly, reflecting a brand that values their customer’s experience with their company, and goes one step further to reiterate it in their brand presence and digital UX design.
Consistency is Key: Consistent experiences and design elements across platforms reinforces a cohesive brand identity, and builds trusted recognition among potential new customers/clients. Having consistency and uniformity when it comes to your company colors, typography, and digital layout creates a familiar and trustworthy brand presence.
Simplicity and Clarity: An easy-to-read and easy-to-understand design not only enhances usability for your clients, but also communicates a brand's commitment to offering direct, no-nonsense, or engaging solutions, while communicating your unique value proposition at the first touchpoint with your customer. This is important to capturing your customer/client’s attention within a short window.
“Judgments on website credibility are 75% based on a website’s overall aesthetics.”
Essentially, if you want to reflect your value to consumers on your digital platforms, first and foremost your UX design in itself has to reflect your commitment to a positive customer experience while using your digital platforms. This signals to customers that you value their time—both as it relates to creating a satisfactory and efficient UX, and also when it comes to the service/product you’re providing. Building credibility among your consumers begins with reflecting your values in your brand presence and the user experience you create for potential new clients.
Aligning UX Design with Overall Brand Strategy:
Reflecting Brand Values in Visual Design: Let’s say, for example, that your company’s mission is to increase sustainability in the workplace by suppling sustainable replacements for common office items, your experiential and visual identity should reflect the same mission and commitment to your target audience. In this case, your design might incorporate eco-themed design elements to give quick and immediate insight into your mission. Beyond that, if your mission is to increase accessibility to these products for your clients, it’s important that your UX reflects your commitment to accessibility by ensuring that the UX on your digital platforms is equally accessible and easy to navigate.
Strategic Design for Target Audiences and Markets: This one is a biggy! Tailoring your UX design to appeal to your specific target audience is extremely important to improving client conversion. For example, if you’re a biotech company bringing in a tech-savvy demographic, your audience might value your company incorporating cutting-edge features into your UX. On the other hand, a care-centric brand offering therapy to adolescents might prefer a design centered around simplicity, comfort, and ease—to reflect the same values that their clients are looking for in their care!
“88% of online consumers report that they are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience.”
Remain Open to UX Feedback for Continuous Improvement: Align your UX design with a long-term brand strategy so that you can adapt to the evolving needs of your target audience, and drive ahead of innovations from fellow competitors. If you’re branding is intended to speak to your client, and reflect the values your company brings to the consumer, then it’s important to take the consumer themself into consideration first and foremost. How do you do so? Value customer feedback. It’s important to continuously collect user feedback and make changes to ensure your UX remains relevant and effective, and strategically speaks to your target audiences’ preferences and needs. In addition, bringing in third parties, like EnticEdge, to incorporate industry-specific insight into your UX design strategy is critical to ensuring that your company is incorporating feedback from both consumers and UX experts!
UX design is a fundamental expression of your brand's identity, and a reflection of your commitment to your company values, mission, and target audience. By investing in consumer-centric UX design, you're not only making the value of your product/service easier to understand; you're sending an important message about your company’s investment in creating efficiency and ease for your customers or clients in every area of your brand’s digital presence. Remember, in the world of branding, UX design is your silent ambassador, signaling your values at every digital touchpoint, creating lasting impressions with potential new clients, and building meaningful connections with your target audience!
Ready to improve your UX and strengthen your brand’s digital presence?
