User Experience Archives - Institute of Product Leadership

5 Ways You Can Humanize Digital User Experience

What’s the difference between MakeMyTrip and Airbnb’s website? One makes me want to close my tab and the other makes me want to explore new places. I’m not going to tell you which is which, but instead let you be the judge.

The point I am trying to drive here is that it’s not enough to go digital. You need to make the communication gateways extremely intuitive to get more users to try out your product. Your company’s philosophy needs to reflect in it’s digital presence, be it an app or website. The easiest way to do this is by humanizing the user experience or journey at all points of interactions and decision making.

Storytelling – Today it’s not enough to have a beautifully designed website. It’s the emotional connect that a user has with your product that makes you stand out in the market. In the digital world, storytelling is a powerful tool to build bridges.

Check out Apple’s Airpod video. In just a 2 minute video they are able to convey so many features in a seamless manner. The manner of presentation is just as important as the Product, and no one knows this better than Apple

Build a Personality – This might sound weird, or you may not have thought of it before, but your website needs to have it’s own personality. You can do this by customizing your interface.

Amazon’s Alexa website has a great personality. They have compelling copy, which reflects a confident voice. They have bold or different fonts when they want to bring your attention to something. But they could do better with the design.

Cut the Crap – I know you want to get all the possible options out there so that your customer can take an informed decision, but sometimes you need to cut the crap.

Swiggy has nailed this concept, and it is constantly putting efforts into making it easier to order food on its app. Be it bigger images of food dishes or orders without a minimum limit, they ensure you have a smooth buying process. Hungry people have zero patience and Swiggy understands that.

Use Chatbots and VR – Using a Chatbot to humanize your user experience might sound contradictory, but they are a great way to make your user feel connected. Read this article by Redbus to understand the impact that a Whatsapp Bot had on their customer support experience.

If you are a travel website, you can use VR to simulate hotels, places and more to give users an experience that comes close to the real thing. This could be a gamechanger for you.

Know Your User – With Data, AI and Machine Learning everything is getting personalized. Make sure that you have the right algorithms and models in place, so that you can leverage the data to drive more engagement. More importantly though, don’t make it seem too direct, but make it an implicit part of your UI.

Netflix takes this to the next level by personalizing every generic feed based on your viewing history. They even change their artwork thumbnails from user to user!

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