User Experience happens to be one of the buzz words in digital marketing. All your marketing efforts will fall flat on their faces if they fail to offer unsurpassed User Experience. Turn to statistical data, and you will find that nearly 79% of users will leave your website, and search for another if you are unable to offer the desired experience.
The statistical insight is enough to explain the paramount importance of User Experience. And it becomes a crucial success factor for self-service websites.
Every self-service site has a single-point agenda. And that is to help and guide users find an appropriate answer to their queries. The approach should be to help customers find ways of helping themselves. That will prove to be highly beneficial for customers and business alike.
Knowing self-service
The idea behind self-service bears resemblance with the term itself. When users require assistance while updating account information, it is then that these self-service sites come in action.
User-friendly self-service websites offer direct answers to critical questions. On the other end, poorly-developed sites will lead to confusion and disturbance amongst users. User Experience can solve the issue to a great extent.
And that is quite evident from the instance of the GDS or UK Government Digital Services group. Take a look.
The introduction of UX in self-service
The year 2013 witnessed a great revolution for self-service sites, as the GDS team brought User Experience into the picture. Quite like them, other self-service websites need to understand that customers seek useful assistance, and not chunks of unnecessary information. So, how does UX promote self-service?
I. Begin with serving users
Try answering this question first. Do your users need to know about the nuances of your business to receive the assistance they want? Perhaps no, you will just need to provide them the information they want, and they will take it from there.
Emphasize on user interests, needs, and requirements. Steer clear of educating them, since that doesn’t matter.
II. Say ‘S’ for simple
Every user is different from the other. You simply cannot expect them to talk or write in similar fashions. Quite inevitably, they will phrase their sentences in unique ways. As the UX designer, you will have to bear the brunt of hard work.
What you need to do is perform usability tests, assess user personas, and language studies to identify their sentence phrasing patterns. You will get a hang of the phrases and words that users frequently refer to while looking for your product.
III. The need for iteration
Even if your self-service site enjoys unsurpassed popularity amongst users, you must never stop iterating it. Perform the iterations based on user feedbacks. Use data analytics or other tracking tools to find out what users wish for.
These constant audits will help you improve your site, thus ensuring great User Experience.
Final thoughts
Other than the UX tips mentioned above, there’s a lot more you can do for improving your self-service website. Getting the correct approaches in place is half the battle won. Proper implementation of UX strategies and plans is what you will be left to do.
