Smash UX For Small Businesses

Abi Fawcus suggests some alternatives to big budget UX when working for small businesses

I once believed that UX was a catchall improvement for everything. That was until I started working with small businesses – where brand recognition and volume of traffic is lower, navigation, content and audience segments are simpler and objectives are easier to distil – and it became clear that the balance of return on investment against the cost of UX as a percentage increase in sales was negligible. UX increases performance by increments: where traffic is high this generates considerable revenue on low percentage increases but drop that traffic to less than 5,000 visits a month and the sums just don’t add up.

Unfortunately, the catch-22 is that small businesses, a valuable part of our community, need to grow online and so still need to offer a relatively sleek experience to their users. So here are 10 ways to grab the low-hanging fruit in terms of UX and deliver great results for smaller clients’ budgets.

LEARN FROM BIG BUSINESS

Big businesses have spent considerable sums on user experience, so do some research on competitors and large corporations in your client’s line of business. Select five to carry out a competitor comparison, getting a good look at dos and don’ts. There’s often treasure to be found in their online reviews as well.