UX = Efficiency
Over the past 10 years I have really grown as a designer and as I think back over these years. It has always been focused on making products more efficient. I wanted to take a few minutes and talk about why UX and efficiency are parallels. Just how important it is to always be focused on improving systems or apps to be just that.
In a nutshell my job as a UX design is a process that seeks to make applications and websites more efficient, user-friendly, and pleasant for the user. I have done this by considering the user’s goals and needs, as well as the business objectives of the app or website.
My UX experience has largely been spent in the internal tools arena. I spend a ton of time trying to understand what the business needs to make employees more effective in there day to day jobs. I love what I do, I really enjoy spending time figuring out solutions that will make people's lives easier.
One of my favorite projects was a clock in system that could allow employees to use a phone or personal device to clock in. With this came a lot of what ifs. Especially dealing with employees still in High school. The end solution I helped design, was allowing them to clock in but we used GPS coordinates and made a zone around each store. If by change they are out of the zone it would prompt them with a response. “Your manager will need to approve your clock in since you are not within the store. Would you like to request permission? Yes or No” Something to that extent, Ultimately this was to save the company money. Since the majority of shifts started at the same time. We has minutes wasted with employees waiting to log in. We estimated over 5000 mins a day got saved of company time, within the 300 + stores at that time.
Problems like this and other projects are very rewarding as a designer. I love to solve problems. I am currently researching on how to make some reports more useful. After several user interviews I have been combing through the data to understand whats being used, what they want to see and trying to put together a solution that makes sense. In the end I want to make the users workload more efficient. If they don’t have to download a brick of data to sort through and can just export what they need. I can save them hours of time a week. I will have done my job correctly.
UX to me is not only about how appealing something looks. I’ve taken it upon myself to make the user’s experience with a product or service as fast and efficient as possible. Nowadays, people expect to receive whatever they want in a matter of seconds; my job is to make that happen. My goal is to provide the right content at the right time.
That is why UX and efficiency are closely linked; an efficient user experience is necessary for success in today’s fast-paced digital world. Good UX design leads to better user satisfaction and increased efficiency of systems, applications and websites. I am always looking forward to the next problem I can help solve.
