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Introducing new features to users can be tricky at times. Change can be overwhelming to some and unwelcomed by many, but if you follow certain guidelines when introducing new functionality, your innovation can be met with open arms and considered a success.

Crafting the right message about your new feature is as important as crafting the feature itself. It needs to pique users’ interests enough for them to take action, while simultaneously educating them on what the feature does.

So how do you go about introducing new functionality in a way your users will respond positively to? Here are four guidelines you should follow to help ensure a successful feature launch:

1. Don’t get too creative. Creativity is a wonderful thing that breeds innovation and unique solutions to everyday problems. However, overly creative design solutions used on conventional user interfaces and gestures can alienate users. The phrase “don’t reinvent the wheel” applies here. If your creative solution is born out of boredom rather than necessity, then it probably isn’t the right answer and you may find yourself with dissatisfied and confused users on your hands. Many of our studies have shown that many new and unconventional functionalities result in a low satisfaction rating of the product and negatively affect customers’ perception of a brand.

2. Keep it out in the open. When it comes to introducing new features, you don’t want to bury the lead. Anything that may change the way your user interacts with your product should be clearly communicated to them from the get-go. For example, you might first introduce your users to a new feature either before or on the launch date, explaining what it does and how to use it. A link to a tutorial video can be helpful here. Additional alerts when a user signs in are of upmost importance: a notification badge highlighting a new feature provides high visibility where it matters, and for an added bonus you could walk them through the new feature set with a guided tutorial, just remember to give them an opt-out on that tutorial, just in case.

3. Explain why it adds value. Because there will be hesitation with any new functionality, it is important to communicate the benefits for the user. It is not enough to just announce a new feature and tell them what it does. What will they get out of it? How will it add value to the product? Often times, if a user understands how a new feature or functionality will help them, they’re more willing to alter their usual habits in order to try it out.

4. Guide the user. Utilize a seamless process to guide users to the new functionalities. Don’t expect them to find it on their own, and don’t expect them to figure out how to use them. We already mentioned walkthrough tutorials, but it’s worth mentioning again. More subtle forms of offering assistance, like a “tip of the day” feature can make helpful information available to the user without it being too imposing.

What it all comes down to is communication. Keeping your users in the loop every step of the way will gain their trust in your product and improve their perception of your brand. This will also get them on board with new features as they’re introduced. See how not communicating to users clearly when introducing a new feature backfired on a very popular mobile app: Instagram Users Are Already Angry Over New Facebook-Style Feed

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Advocates of user research are familiar with real benefits of testing an interface with the target audience: customer satisfaction, engagement and loyalty, which generally result in higher conversion rates and increased revenue. Including user research late into the design process can create certain challenges. In many cases, the changes are too costly to implement or it’s too late to implement them before launch. However, it is possible to include user research into an Agile framework harmoniously.

The ROI of User Research
The user research of a product needs to be factored in at early stages of the design process in order to achieve the maximum levels of return on investment. As the saying goes: Bad UX = money lost; Good UX = money gained. Indeed, maximum savings are gained from making changes earlier in the design life cycle.

The rule of thumb in many user-research-aware organizations is that the cost-benefit ratio for user research is $1 : $10-$100. In other words, once a system is in development, correcting a problem costs 10 times as much as fixing the same problem in design. If the system has been released, it costs 100 times as much relative to fixing in design. (Gilb, 1988)

What is Agile Development?
If you work in the tech industry, you’ve probably heard of Agile, and maybe you’ve even practiced it. For those who haven’t, Agile is a set of product development practices that favor responding to change rather than following a plan. The Agile framework operates in sprints that usually last one to two weeks at a time, allowing for several design iterations and changes. The agile process embraces change as a useful part of the process that actually pushes designers and developers in the right direction.

In addition to responding well to change, Agile development values individuals and interactions, customer collaboration, and products that work. There are several agile frameworks including Lean and Scrum.

The alternative framework to Agile is known as Waterfall, which is a process where time and cost are variables, but the scope of the project never changes. It’s an efficient way of getting a project done, but it doesn’t account for change very well, which can cause significant–and expensive–problems.

User Research Testing in an Agile Framework
Traditionally, when working within a Waterfall framework, user research is factored in close to the end of development. Because development is mostly completed at the point of testing, making any necessary changes found due to testing can be very costly. Additionally, there may not be enough time to incorporate the user research recommendations prior to launch.

“Agile offers many opportunities for overcoming problems with traditional development methods that have long impeded user research.” (Source: Nielsen Norman Group)

When working within an Agile framework, user research can be done from the early stages of the design and on a regular basis, meaning changes are easy to make and much less costly.

To overcome the challenges with conducting traditional user research in an Agile framework, you need to incorporate the following solutions:

• Test small
• Test during every sprint
• Test any fidelity of the product
• Add a feature/functionality to every test
• Try different types of testing
• Observe testing sessions with the entire team
• Streamline the findings and recommendations report

Promoting Excellence with Agile and User Research
When user research is done during every sprint, it creates beneficial changes that improve the overall experience of a product because Agile methods inherently embrace and harness change, giving your product a competitive advantage.

Agile and user research go hand-in-hand because Agile principles call for good design and technical excellence, and User Research enforces excellence early on.

User Research is all about individuals and interactions while customer collaboration is an Agile value. User Research and Agile bring the user, team and business together on a regular basis. Iterative studies throughout the product life cycle can further inform the product’s Experience Design and result in task success and customer satisfaction.

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To fully comprehend users’ experience and satisfaction with a digital product, it is important to gather both quantitative and qualitative data. In the past, quantitative and qualitative testing had to be done separately due to limitations of online testing tools and methodology. This inherently created timeline and budget constraints. For example, if you needed both types of data, performing two separate studies meant that you also needed two separate user groups. This was not only costly and took longer, but it also meant your data wasn’t coming from the same set of users.

Today’s industry leading online testing tools allow user research researchers to combine both quantitative and qualitative studies into one, while using the same user set, and consequently accommodating more efficient and cost effective results.

Some of the latest online user research tools are able to collect a comprehensive set of quantitative and qualitative data in a single study:

Behavioral/Qualitative Data

• User comments and reasons why
• User’s facial expressions
• Clickstreams
• Heatmaps
• Screen recording

Quantitative Data

• Task success or failure
• Task effectiveness and efficiency
• Task ease of use
• User preferences
• Survey responses
• Satisfaction metrics
• Net Promoter Scores
• Information architecture data

What’s more, this data can be collected from hundreds of participants all over the globe, not just the 8-12 participants that one-on-one studies average. This will generate statistically significant results for your study.

Another benefit of online user research is the participants are taking the tests in their natural environment using their own devices, so their behaviors are natural – this is something that is almost impossible to recreate in a lab setting. And, because online testing can be automated (rather than just moderated), users are able to participate on their own schedule.

With automated testing, there are fewer logistics involved. There is no longer a need to set up test schedules, moderate individual test sessions, or recruit more users than necessary due to no-shows. All of this saves time and money. The majority of the effort is in configuring the online testing tool based on the user research research goals, monitoring the study while it’s live and analyzing the data collected by the tool. Online user research research facilitates frequent testing at lower costs at any stage of your product design cycle.

Many UX research experts agree that modern advancements with online user research allows us to perform more complete research that can capture the same qualitative data as in-lab tests, in addition to many other quantitative points of data. Because of this, unmoderated online user research is becoming more commonplace and more trusted. According to UX Matters, “Remote user research is a welcome addition to any researcher’s arsenal—particularly as we try to fit data collection into agile sprints and work within the constraints of an increasingly lean bottom line.”

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A well-designed dashboard provides users quick access to their data on a regular basis. However, user research of dashboards is often overlooked during the design phase.

In order to promote user productivity, dashboard interfaces should be designed to provide quick access to crucial content in a clean, concise and intuitive fashion.

In a recent remote and moderated user research of a complex customer dashboard, real users of the product expressed their pain points in trying to find information they needed. Users expressed how it took them multiple clicks to get to a piece of data they needed on a daily basis. We found that difficulty in use of the existing dashboard had resulted in poor perception of a well-known product.

What Dashboard Users Really Want
The user research uncovered a considerable number of user research issues and resulted in a list of actionable recommendations to improve user research of the dashboard. We found that most users needed quick access to the same data on a daily basis. They wanted that information to be displayed using large font size on top of the page. We also found that users did not find it easy to look through a large amount of unorganized content to find what they needed.

Utilize an intuitive dashboard visual design to prominently display information that most users need regularly, no more or less.

Data Organization and Prioritization
Each dashboard is unique in terms of data and users. Once you have identified your dashboard target users’ needs, prioritize the top 3-5 pieces of information and prominently display them on top of the page. Use graphs, icons and color to differentiate each data. This will help users find what they need at a glance. It is important to display high-level information here. Details may be accessed by expanding each section or graph.

Alerts and notifications need to be given prominence on the face of the dashboard as well. Anything that requires immediate attention needs to be displayed within the user’s main visual field. Organize the rest of the content into meaningful categories and provide access to those from the dashboard. Always make sure your dashboard design is responsive as many users access it on the go.

Customization and Personalization
As user needs may be different based on their roles or preferences, allow for customization and personalization. In many cases, users have expressed an interest in customizing the information displayed and personalizing access to different sections of the site. A usable dashboard design is flexible enough to accommodate unique customer requirements.

Similar to any other interface, find out what your users need and design a dashboard that is usable across all platforms. As always, test regularly to improve user experience of your interfaces. This will result in customer satisfaction, engagement and loyalty.

When all is said and done, good dashboard design works to overcome the limitation of the user’s short-term memory. Read more about Short-Term Memory and Web User Research.

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You may be wondering what is keeping your customers from completing the checkout process. You have all the right content available and have implemented marketing strategies, but your customers keep abandoning their shopping cart. What could be going wrong?

Through our user research studies we have revealed the key reasons why your customers are not converting:

1. Your product pages are overwhelming

Users give up if they cannot find the right product quick enough. They get frustrated having to look through a long list of products they may not be interested in.

Solution: Best practices call for categorizing products logically. Take it to the next level by providing product filters. Intuitive filters help your customers narrow down their options faster.

2. You don’t display tax and shipping estimates in the shopping cart

Users feel the company is holding back information on taxes and shipping if they are not provided in the shopping cart. Many ecommerce sites provide that information towards the end of checkout process.

“22% of carts abandoned happen due to no shipping information available.” (source: CPC Strategy)

Solution: Providing tax and shipping estimates in the shopping cart makes users more comfortable before clicking on the checkout button to place an order.

3. You require login/registration during the checkout process

The first step of checkout, that mandates login or registration, has continuously shown to have the highest drop-off rate. Users generally find it intrusive to have to provide unnecessary personal information in order to place an order. Many users perceive registration as only benefiting the company for their marketing purposes rather than benefiting them as a customer.

Solution: Providing a guest checkout option significantly improves conversion for many ecommerce sites.

See how offering a guest checkout option drastically increased a site’s revenue: The $300 Million Button

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Discoverability & Standardization
Users mainly interact with the interface for primary and necessary actions. Ensure to follow industry standard gestures specific to a platform (i.e., iOS or Android). Secondary actions may be easily dismissed if the related gesture is hard to discover. If users can’t find it, it doesn’t exist.

Consistency
Participants expect the same gestures to produce identical or similar results. Swiping is an industry standard and well-known gesture, but it could translate to multiple outcomes within your app. For example, flip to the next page, change a section, delete content, scroll up/down, turn a function on/off, etc. With all these possible outcomes, users need a sense of predictability within an app.

Be sure to keep gesture results consistent within a single app.

Feedback & Recovery
Touch screen interfaces need to provide responsiveness by displaying immediate feedback upon user’s action. Any delay in feedback may result in abandonment on the user’s part. They need to know immediately if their action resulted in their desired outcome, and if not, find a way to fix it. The app should allow users to recover from their mistakes, especially if they are due to non-standard gestures or lack of immediate feedback. For example, if a user deleted an important piece of content by mistake, the app should to provide a confirmation question.

In conclusion, unpredictable outcomes have a direct effect on users’ confidence, level of engagement, and frequency of revisiting. Ensure your mobile app accommodates for user needs by following best practices.

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