User Experience

What is User Experience?

User experience is simply defined as how a person feels while using a product or service, or you can say user experience is the encounter of a user while using a product or service. A user can either have a good or bad experience.

It is very important to ensure that your product or service meets the users' needs because when a product or service isn't solving the target user's problem, it becomes another problem for the users.

For your product or service to meet users' needs, it must be:

1) Usable

2) Useful

3) Enjoyable

4) Equitable

Usability: When building a solution, you need to understand the type of users you are actually building it for. This can be determined by carrying out a survey first. You can't expect a granny to be able to use the same app or website created for Gen-Z; she will be lost. It's like giving my grandma an iPhone 15 and expecting her to use it. That's why it's necessary to test your product or service with your ideal users to see if they can use the solution you created for them.

Usefulness: If a solution is not addressing the user's needs, it's "useless" to them. Always ensure that the solution you are building solves users' problems; otherwise, they will discard it.

Enjoyability: When a user enjoys a solution, they become your advertiser. Something similar happened to me when I tried using Palmpay for my transactions. The aesthetics, smooth page transitions, and overall performance made me recommend it to friends. This is what the "enjoyability" of a solution can bring about. So, make sure your users enjoy your solution and periodically send them surveys to gauge their satisfaction.

Equitability: Ensure your solution is equitable, meaning users from various backgrounds can use it. That's the only way users can have a good experience using your product or service.

If your product or service lacks these four important aspects, your users are bound to have a bad experience and will seek alternatives.

Always keep your users in mind when building a product or service. I vividly remember what happened to me years ago when I bought my first new brand phone.

Let me share my story: One morning, I visited a nearby shop that sold mobile phones. I asked the seller for a good phone, and he gave me one. I paid for it and went home. When I unboxed the phone and checked the memory space, I was heartbroken to find that the phone's storage was only 50KB instead of the promised 16GB. I was frustrated and regretted my purchase.

The key takeaway from this story is that the product was neither enjoyable nor useful to me, resulting in a bad user experience. I never visited that shop again, nor did I buy that brand.

In summary, when building a product or service, always consult with users and test a prototype of the solution with them to understand what they need for a seamless and positive user experience."