According to The Color Marketing Group , visual appearance influences 93 % of buyers ’ purchase decisions .
The Key to Better Tech Design — Knowing Your Customer
When you ' re seeking to improve or change technology , knowing your audience is critical . By observing your market you can understand their motivations , choices , and behaviors ; determine what they valued in past designs ; and establish what ’ s needed in future versions .
This practice of ethnography — the study of people and culture — allows you to look past the metrics and data and see the person behind the purchase . In technology design , you ’ re not only trying to understand customer needs and how the technology actually needs to work , but also why certain functionalities and features are essential — and why others aren ’ t . Ethnography offers such understanding .
While no design can ever satisfy 100 % of its users , you ’ re far more likely to hit a higher benchmark of acceptance if you utilize an ethnographic-based approach . Some tips to do that and to deliver a better user experience :
Invest in future technology . Tech giants like Facebook , Google , IBM , and Amazon have created programs in which AI ( artificial intelligence ) software can learn how the user directly interacts with the service . An ethnographic study on its own , this AI shift opens the door for technology to be placed within products in order to provide sophisticated insight into the individual user ’ s usage and needs .
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Explore your customer base . Get to know them and their experience with your product or service . Also , delve into who they are and where they ’ re from . One way to do that is to place yourself in their path so you can listen and observe . Without the peer pressure that a focus group can bring , you ’ ll see behaviors and hear opinions that are more true to form .
Document consumer interactions . When it comes to market research , realize that research specialists and visual designers don ’ t speak the same language . In order to avert miscommunication of your audience ’ s thoughts and impressions , researchers and ethnographers should document important snippets of their interactions — preferably with video so that designers can see and hear from the audience they ’ re actually designing for .
Combine resources . Marry data with interpretation of customers ’ feelings toward your product or service to generate more insightful enhancements . People often can ’ t articulate what they want and like . Through ethnography , however , you can uncover trends that may not be revealed by hard data alone . This blend of information will give you a well-rounded view of your next iteration , and won ’ t waste resources on developing products or solutions that don ’ t suit their needs .
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