Want your users to fall in love with your product? After helping apps reach millions of downloads and get featured by Apple, I've learned it's not about fancy designs or complicated features. It's about understanding a few key principles that anyone can use – even if you've never designed anything before.
First things first: UX stands for user experience. It's everything someone experiences when using your product. While many people mix it up with design, UX is actually much simpler – it's about making it easy for people to achieve their goals when using your product.
Think about walking into a house. In most Western homes, you enter through a hallway that leads to different rooms. Imagine if you opened the front door and walked straight into a bathroom, then had to go through the garage to reach the kitchen, then through a bedroom to find the living room. It would feel weird and confusing, right?
That's exactly what bad UX feels like in an app or website. When things aren't where users expect them to be, or when simple tasks become complicated, people get frustrated and leave. And here's the thing: once someone has a bad experience with your product, they rarely give it a second chance.
Here's a secret: you rarely need to create completely new ways of doing things. Think about online shops – the shopping basket is almost always in the top right corner. Product images are usually in a grid. Prices are clearly visible. There's a reason for this: it works.
While some big brands experiment with unique layouts (like fashion websites that feel more like magazines), they have entire teams testing and tweaking things. As a founder building your first product, stick to what users already know and understand.
Look at similar products in your space. Is it an app? A website? A shopping experience? Study the common patterns and use them. It makes your product easier to use because people already know what to expect.
User research isn't just about asking people what they want – it's about understanding how they think. It's like getting a peek behind the curtain of their decision-making process:
The more you understand this, the better you can design something that feels like it can read their mind.
Here's a real example: When I worked at SwiftKey (a keyboard app), we faced a huge challenge. Installing the app on iPhone required 13 different steps – far from ideal. But by testing with users every week for 12 weeks, we made each step crystal clear. The result? On launch day, 83% of our million first-day users successfully installed the keyboard. That's what good user research can do.
Here's a common mistake: giving users tons of options thinking it makes the product better. It doesn't. In fact, it often makes things worse.
Think about how you feel when faced with too many choices. It's overwhelming, right? That's called decision fatigue, and it's a product killer. When users feel overwhelmed, they often choose to do nothing at all.
Instead of offering loads of options, do the hard work of figuring out what most users really need. If different users need different things, help them quickly figure out which option is right for them. The easier you make these decisions, the more likely people are to actually use your product.
Most founders focus only on their actual product – the app or website itself. But the full user experience starts way before someone opens your product:
You don't need to perfect every single detail, but thinking about the complete journey helps you spot opportunities to make things better. Take Apple as an example – even their product packaging is carefully designed to make you feel special. While you might not have Apple's budget, you can definitely find two or three ways to make your user's journey smoother and more enjoyable.
If you're building a tech product, setting aside some budget for a UX designer is often worth it. While it might seem like an extra cost upfront, it usually saves money in the long run:
Great UX isn't about fancy designs or complicated features. It's about making things simple and intuitive for your users. Focus on these principles, talk to your users regularly, and don't overcomplicate things. That's how you build products people actually love to use.
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