Recently, The UX Collective released their report on the State of UX in 2022. Focusing on top trends in user experience, the report centers around one pivotal question: are you ready to rebuild? At Tangoe, we’re on a constant quest to reimagine the ways that our customers interact with our platform. After all, the value of a good user interface speaks for itself: studies have shown 94% of the factors that affect a user’s first impression of your product are design-related. By contrast, 67% of customers claim unpleasant UX experiences as a reason for churn.
As a customer-centric company dedicated to innovation, here’s what we’ve been doing behind the scenes to improve the customer experience in 2022:
Starting at the Source
The initial switch to working from home was an adjustment for most designers, since in-person whiteboarding and collaboration are cornerstones of the design process. And sure, there are lots of online whiteboarding tools out there, but there is usually something missing in the experience compared to being in the same room together. When beginning the journey to rebuild our UX processes at Tangoe, the solution turned out to be quite simple (and already in our forté): using an iPad and an Apple Pencil to write onto a virtual whiteboard. When coupled with software such as InVision or Figma, which both offer a shared real-time whiteboarding capability, this revolutionized our workflow as a team.
We’ve also dedicated time and resources to revamp our design team itself. One of our overarching goals this year is to complete the newly launched Google UX Design Professional Certificate. Despite building our team from the ground up with UX professionals who bring strong foundational knowledge and extensive design and technical experience, we are continuously committed to improving our skills to keep pace with industry standards and emerging trends.
Process is Everything…Until it Isn’t
Don’t get me wrong, processes are important. At Tangoe, we do have established process guidelines that are leveraged by both designers and developers to streamline tasks. But, while UX processes and design systems are must haves, they do not guarantee success on their own. In theory, anyone can take the basic UI/UX components and throw them together, but this alone does not automatically churn out great results. Both product and UX teams must understand the needs, pain points, and business challenges from the customer/user perspective, and know when (and when not) to use certain patterns or design approaches. Every design element we implement is carefully reviewed and tested to ensure it solves a challenge – or serves an intentional purpose – to meet our customer needs.
At the end of 2021, we also surveyed our customers directly to gain intrinsic feedback on what’s working, what isn’t, and what would improve their experience on our platform. Working in tandem with our customer success and product teams, we’ve taken their assessments and begun to implement intentional and strategic design changes to our platform.
Coming Up Next
In 2022, we’re putting even more focus into reimagining how our customers visualize and access their data. By investing in our teams, improving our collaboration and workflows, and leveraging customer feedback directly, we’ve been able to rebuild the way we approach UX at Tangoe. As a result, we will be launching dynamic, user-friendly changes to our website and platform interfaces in the coming months. We can’t give too much away just yet, but think consolidation, innovation, and transformation.
Because we believe greatness can always get just a little bit better.