By adaptive - January 30th, 2017
The mobile user experience has become a high-stakes moment. There are more options than ever fighting for screen space and user loyalty while at the same time mobile device users have become much savvier and expectations are greater than ever in the smart device era.
A slowdown in both app adoption and growth rates among users confirms the bar has been raised to get a user’s attention and retain it.
That has raised the bar not only for manufacturers but also for software designers and companies leveraging mobile technology to reach customers.
And with more widespread availability and usage of AI, machine learning, and chat bots, the options are expanding even as the stakes are getting higher for nailing the consumer-facing experience the first time.
In this second installment, we continue examining how companies are handling these challenges in the rapidly-changing mobile worold.
A number of executives from different disciplines shared their insight, experiences and outlook for this analysis.
We greatly appreciate their time and contributions without which this project wouldn’t have been possible.
They are as follows:
Dagny Prieto, VP, Product Platform and UX, Time Inc.
Aryk P. Moore, Chief UX Designer, The Boeing Company
Doug Reston, SVP, Design & Mobile, GoDaddy
Future Forms
As mobile experiences move onto other devices and into other areas, designers and developers need to stay ahead of the game.
And newer technologies such as AI, machine learning, and chat bots are opening up new ways to communicate and engage consumers in even more creative and of course, customizable ways.
Moore: In aviation, I think the future of user experiences and design will take a much more personalized and integrated approach.
A user experience will be targeted to a specific role or person that integrates multiple products into a single user interface.
Prieto:AI and predictive search and recommendations will get better as people invite Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook into more aspects of their lives.
That Echo in your living room will get to know you better and provide better service.
Design will be less visual and more about transitions, voice and smoothing out the divide between virtual and real.
Reston: Experiences will become more distributed, more integrated into everyday devices and they will be more platform and channel agnostic.
For instance, Alexa ordering through voice, ordering a taxi through SMS, Netflix and Spotify being in every media device and car will expand and customers will be able to engage through a broader set of devices and inputs.
Cross-Discipline Collaboration:
In the multi-device and cross-platform world, many companies find having silos no longer works and that they can actually hinder success.
Executives say to create successful mobile experiences these days it requires the product, design, and marketing units to work together more closely than ever.
In fact, some firms are not only encouraging it, they are directing this collaboration.
Moore: All three groups must consider the user experience in their day-to-day work.
Products should be managed and prioritized based off the users, design should be done with the users involved, and marketing should be working with the other two groups to tell the user-focused story.
Prieto:Set common goals. Build teams around goals to achieve them.
Reston: Maintaining customer focus is a way to align teams. A shared understanding of the customer goals serves as a way to bring teams back to center and adjust along the way.
Also, the relationship between the groups can be improved by using rapid collaboration, journey mapping, and prototyping early with all stakeholders to align on a shared understanding of direction, opportunities, and desired outcomes.
End Note:
While these executives note the great risks in not meeting the new challenges that arise in the new mobile market, they are also excited about the opportunities to expand their customer base and to improve user experiences and engagement in ways hitherto not possible.
AI, machine learning and chat bots are already being deployed in this battle to retain users and broaden the relationship with these consumers.
The cross-platform handoffs and interfaces will offer seamless experiences for existing and new customers to discover and interact with a brand.
Keeping these consumers engaged is a common theme, as new user acquisition is slowing for apps and the greatest growth is coming from existing users. This reengagement will become an even bigger theme for established brands facing disruption from upstarts.
And the companies that are succeeding in these endeavors say they are finding that greater cross-discipline collaboration between product, design, and marketing units within their firms will keep creating exciting experiences to deliver meaningful messaging that keep consumers in the fold even as the formats change.