6 Reasons UI/UX are the roots of digital marketing
You might be wondering; how is UX design an element of digital marketing? Without a user interface, there is no user experience. Without a user experience, there is no digital marketing.
UX (user experience) design includes everything from research to usability testing, while UI design references the production of visuals and the function of an interface. You need UX research for an effective UI.
I’ll also tell the story of why even with some success in digital marketing I decided to switch to UX. One for personal interest and also for its importance in digital marketing. I could not make any sales without a good website.
Why I studied UX:
When I was a kid my parents told me there was a button museum. I immediately was obsessed with the idea. In my head, I was imagining Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory with buttons hooked up to different machines that shot lasers and made cool noises. Unfortunately, it was a museum of buttons… for shirts.
Fast forward to my early twenties and UI/UX has become one of the most important professions across industries and it involves a lot of buttons. I get to make buttons all day. They don’t shoot lasers but now money is a lot more interesting to me.
The demand for designers is still outnumbered by the demand for developers but this demand is shifting as web & mobile development becomes increasingly streamlined by platforms like Wix, Squarespace, and Figma which recently got acquired by Adobe for 20 billion dollars.
There are even more reasons I decided to study UX in India which you can read about here.
eCommerce
Ecommerce is expected to account for over 20% of all retail globally in 2022.
China leads the world in retail ecommerce share, with 45.3% of the country’s retail sales occurring online this year. The UK will take the №2 spot, with a 35.9% share, followed by South Korea, where 30.1% of retail sales will be via ecommerce.- Insiderintelligence
Now that you can see why eCommerce is so important, let's go over statistics showing why UX/UI is so important.
UX/UI
- User experience shapes customers’ experiences.
- 94% of a website’s first impressions are due to its design. (Ledgeview Partners, 2020)
2. User experience shapes sales
- On average, for every $1 spent on website UX, the company can expect a return on investment from $10 to $100. (UX Planet, 2020)
3. Good customer service means repeat customers
- Repeat customers spend 67% more than new customers
- Acquiring new customers costs 5x as much as keeping old ones (Shopify)
4. More retail is shifting online every day
- 58.4% of internet users buy something online every week. The current categories with more spending are consumer electronics ($988.4 billion) and fashion ($904.5 billion). (Datereportal).
5. American UI design is behind the global trends.
- Only 64% of small businesses in the US have a website. (Small Business Trends, 2019)
6. Bad UX/UI leads lost sales in eCommerce.
35% of e-commerce sales are lost due to bad UX/UI (Amazon)
Conclusion
I hope this was a sweet and short overview of why I studied UX and why it is so important to digital marketing. To understand how UI/UX affects the cost and efficiency of ads, you can read this article where I cover the primary forms of online advertisements. For an overview of how UI/UX affects SEO and organic growth, this is another brief overview.
UX/UI will continue evolving with technology and consumer behavior. The general trends that are clear are that customers are gravitating towards eCommerce for convenience, greater selection, and flexible customer experience. They can create their own customer journey through your interface if it lets them.
Further developments in AR are letting users place desired products in their homes. Product renders are reaching close to realism which is allowing companies to display fully interactive product displays right on their websites. These are the developments I’m most excited about, what are yours?
Leave a comment, follow, or connect with me on LinkedIn for more discussion. Thank you for your time.
Here is an article on how UI will shape the future
