The soul of a digital product is the brand DNA and personality implemented in design patterns that guide and support users on each path of their remarkable journey.
Every element of the design system is there to support the brand and it’s uniqueness. Intuitive interface, proper fonts, lovely illustrations, colour palette, animations, transitions, icons and the overall consistent style of the product — all these elements work together to make users’ experience easy, delightful, and fun. It seems everything is perfectly fine. And we have great news — it can be much better. Here are some tips and best practices to upgrade your digital products customers’ experience.
A Personalized Experience
Lots of products are focused on the average user. Customers’ experience is mostly the same without feeling special. A tool you can use to delight users is to personalize their experience. The special treatment gives customers an impression that the whole product is tailored specifically to them and their personalities matter a lot to the brand.
Personalized notifications, recommendations, personal trends, and stats — everything should be based on the user’s data. It brings lots of valuable and powerful insights for the user. And, of course, it showcases your digital product in the best possible light.
User In The Spotlight
Customers with a great memorable experience want to come back and use a product again and again. Attention to the users and nice details will help you to create this experience.
As customers, we face good and bad experiences, but something extra always stays in our memory. Exceeding users’ expectations is a key to building a strong emotional connection between customers and the product.
It can be unexpected lovely things that would show the company’s attitude to the user and highlight how the product values its customers.
Something extra with digital products means:
- emails of gratitude for customer’s loyalty;
- thank you modals for user’s actions that help to improve the product (surveys participation, bugs reports etc);
- awards for the first successful interaction with the product (congrats on entering some data or completing the first game etc);
- cards to celebrate some user’s event (anniversary with the product, user’s birthday etc).
Great packaging
Yes, digital products can also have packaging, and their appearance should be magnificent. It can be an electronic gift card with bright design elements — funny illustrations, extraordinary fonts, animations, and other elements to look like a real card. Alternatively, you can keep it unique and not have it look like a real card at all. Product subscriptions can have some perks to it along with its premium features —a new mode for the app, some changed design elements such as app icon or any other detail that could be small but still a delight for the user’s eye.
Buying a product or service can be considered a gift to anyone, or even as gifts customers buy for themselves. When sending an email with a product that the user purchased, it needs to be a well-designed email to make an impression of a well-wrapped gift that is waiting to be unwrapped. Every product deserves a package users would be thrilled to open and excited to unwrap it like it’s already Christmas and the holidays.
Fresh Design
Design is not a fine wine, it doesn’t get better with age.
Keeping the design of the digital product up-to-date is crucial to being modern and popular among different users. The younger users quickly detect products with outdated and old-fashioned designs and stop using them.
Constantly update the design of the digital product or even change it at least once every few years. Every detail can be a sign of an outdated design. For example, mockups of very old devices with product screenshots in AppStore, PlayMarket etc. Using old devices can confuse users and they might think that product is no longer supported for the newest devices.
Following the latest trends, popular patterns, and implementing unique design decisions will create a better user experience for all customers.
Let’s create something powerful together! 🚀
