How COVID-19 Has Transformed User Experience?

The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically changed people’s lives across the globe. Users’ preferences have changed, buying behavior and habits have changed. Things are quite different now than what they were before late 2019.

Organizations and businesses weren’t prepared for the after-effects of the Covid wave and had to adjust quickly to meet people’s new needs. As the world got more digitally connected than ever, UX designers also realized that the online user experience was now more important than ever.

Though the old habits have been restored to a significant extent, the habits that people adopted during Covid-19 aren’t going to be changed as people have become familiar with them. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at how Covid-19 affected User Experience and how things would be going forward even if we get rid of the virus.

1. Adopting New Tools for Collaboration

The shift from an in-office environment to a remote work culture was a massive one, and it had its fair share of challenges.

One of the major challenges that people reported while working remotely was the absence of in-person communication with team members. In order to minimize the gap, many companies adopted new tools that could make remote collaboration easier.

Tools like Miro and Mural were massively and widely adopted by employees to make notes and collect feedback. If reports are to be believed, there was a 650% increase in the count of people who used Miro which was only a mere 8% the previous year.

People enjoyed the new collaboration tools and are likely to stick with them in the post-pandemic era as well. We feel that the adoption of similar tools or platforms by employees will have a long-lasting and positive impact on the way UXers work, thereby allowing for improved flexibility and speed.

Also Read: The Impact of Covid-19 on Cyber Security

2. Disrupted Systems, Changed Behavior

To prevent the spread of the virus, a complete lockdown was imposed across countries. Businesses were force-closed, stay-at-home orders were regulated, and thus people had to find a quick way to reorganize their lives. As a result, people started using tools for the purpose which wasn’t actually the primary purpose of those tools. One such example is Zoom video conferencing software which was earlier used for work meetings only but now for social gatherings as well.

Within a short period, a large volume of entirely new users logged into the app. Be it online classes, yoga sessions, or poetry readings, the tool was being used for every sort of activity that couldn’t be held in person. But because the tool wasn’t actually designed for these sorts of things, many users ended up being frustrated with sub-par experiences. Those poor and frustrating experiences reinforced the UX principle that design should happen the other way around: users shouldn’t have to adapt to technology or products or designs, those things should be designed to suit and serve user needs.

2.1 Good Designs Can’t Be Made Without Understanding Context

It became quite clear during the initial period of the pandemic that Zoom wasn’t an ideal option for social gatherings for people who are less tech-savvy. It was never made for it.

If the designers had anticipated earlier how people would use it later, they would have definitely made some adjustments to suit those needs accordingly. For instance, they might have included a feature that could detect when the user’s Internet connection wasn’t stable for video and could make an automatic switch to audio-only. Or maybe they’d have made their mute/unmute buttons more visible or introduced an automated solution for muting and unmuting purposes.

Be it any industry or any situation, one needs to understand the context to produce a good design. Steve Jobs once quoted: “You can’t start with technology; you have to start with the customer experience and then work backward to see whether technology can improve it.”

So, what needs to be done before is to check the customers’ situation and then figure out what can be done to address it, whether with or without the involvement of technology. Solve problems before they become problems. You, as a designer, would never want a user to save a problem- that’s not a sign of a good user experience.

3. Medium Changed, User Expectations Changed

Because of the disruption caused by the pandemic across industries, most companies took the online route. Grocery delivery businesses skyrocketed as there was no other way people could buy groceries. The surge was obvious since groceries are essential for day-to-day life. Many other businesses that had no digital presence earlier scrambled to mark their presence and offer people the option to transact online.

Since the medium had changed and things were taking place digitally, user expectations were bound to change too. Apart from better digital experiences, they expressed the desire for a safe and convenient experience. And these expectations will now remain forever even if the world gets back to the old normal.

In the last one year or so, brands or businesses had to revamp their UX strategy to offer a great experience to their customers. The bar for user experience has significantly raised, and there’s no going back.

What lies ahead?

What would the UX industry look like in the post-covid world? What would be it hold for UX professionals? Here are a few predictions-

1. Demand for Better and More Thoughtful Experiences

Since the world has become more digitally connected after being hit by the Covid wave, users now expect every app they use to be fast, intuitive, and personalized. These things reflect that consumers are moving towards more conscious, socially responsible spending. It is believed that in the future, users will prioritize accessible and inclusive products over the ones that aren’t.

2. Remote UX Research

It’s been found that teams are doing more remote research. This isn’t a replacement for in-person research but it’s a great alternative to traditional research methods, especially these days. Performing remote research makes it easier to recruit a diverse and representative pool of participants, apart from making the process easier and quicker.

Summing Up

In the post-pandemic world, the organizations to taste success would likely be the ones that design experiences that truly meet the needs of customers and who work proactively on their designs to tackle any kind of challenge that may arrive in the future. It is always important to design keeping in mind the worst-case scenarios and be prepared beforehand to address sudden critical challenges.