2019, it’s all about perspective
With 2018 all set and done, a new year, a fresh start with new year resolutions. At the end of the year it is acustom that you look back, all kinds of list and overviews appear to showcase 2018.
But why would you only do this at the end of the year when it’s already possible during the year. I must say all the lists and overviews have something neat and nice to it, but what if you could already know what is a success right now?!
Of course you can take lists and numbers and put them into charts in presentations, but no one really cares. Figures and numbers are not important, the end-user is. So that’s why OutSystems introduced Insights.
Mismatch
End-users are mostly expressed in numbers, like number of (unique) page visits, or how long did the end-user spent on this screen. Another way of presenting those numbers is when it comes to performance of applications/screen. But this is exactly why there is a mismatch (although that info can be relevant).
User engagement isn’t a byproduct of how much time someone spent on a particular screen. For all I care it’s because loading data on that screen takes for ages and the user is forced to stay. Pretty much like Robison Crusoe, stuck on a beautiful island which he didn’t plan on staying…
Insights
Insights is the latest addition to the OutSystems Platform, still in beta but with enough potential to help you achieve the next level with your application.
What Insight does is tracking how many users and re-occuring users are visiting the application/screens.
Nothing new you might say, but here’s the trick, you can present the user with a widget to invite him to share his feelings about that screen. It can be anonymous or personal.
It is done in such a subtile way that it is just about emoticons. No “can you take 5 minutes so we can ask you 20 questions about this application”. Just emoticons from “oh my goodness this is bad” to “oh my God this is amazing”!
If you want to provide extra feedback, that is possible, but not mandatory.
This elegant and simple way of working is how Insights provides you the Customer Satisfaction and Engagement. In this way you get a much clearer picture in how the adoption and engagement is doing for your applications from a UX perspective.
It might be the case that your bet performing applications are the worst in UX, or vice versa.
Event driven
As your application changes over the year with releases, you want to see if there is a impact on the engagement and satisfaction…
With Insighs you can ear-mark those events to see if it really did give an increase in user satisfaction/engagement. It did right, or not…
Building the right thing
With OutSystems you are able to do Rapid Application Delivery. But with great speed, comes also the great question. Are we “Building the thing right” or “Are we building the right thing”. With Insights you can track the progress you are making with every delivery.
Combine Insights with a Design Thinking, or building of a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) and you can actually see the progression of user satisfaction and engagement is making. And adjust when necessary.
2019 is just like Insights just getting started, so you can expect much more.
So the goal at the end of the year 2019 is not to have a list, but only happy users who can’t wait what’s next :-)
All the best for this year and hopefully a year where you can make a difference in delivering beautiful UX applications!
