Robosoft Technologies

Across the age spectrum, more people are opting or are at least open to using financial apps for managing tasks ranging from daily budgeting, stock investments, banking services, payments, or insurance needs. In 2019, consumers accessed financial apps over a trillion times. China, India, Brazil, United States, and South Korea were the Top 5 nations in terms of total sessions in finance apps.

Are User Stories mandatory for product development? The short answer is ‘No’.

User Stories are not a ‘must-have’ in product development. The Waterfall methodology of software development does not include the concept of User Stories. But owing to its sequential approach it also offers no scope of considering customer feedback and iterating the requirements. Hence, it often fails to deliver a product that customers actually want. Exactly why, 97% of companies have now shifted to iterative and customer-centric Agile development methods, where User Stories are considered as ‘primary development artifacts’. Along with the popularity of XP and Scrum, User Stories has become a common approach to Agile requirements definition.

Product leaders who have set an example in creating the best user experiences, give a great deal of importance to creating User Stories. For instance, Netflix ensures that they understand every User Story with advanced personalization. As a result,  75% of Netflix views are a result of their recommendation engine.

There are millions of apps on app stores, but only a select few have been successful with users and most others experience a drop of interest right after their launch. As per research, an average individual uses close to 25 apps per month, of which 96% of the time is split between just 10 apps.

Forrester reports that 70% of the projects fail due to lack of user acceptance. This is mainly due to the apps poor user experience. As per a study from Bain & Company, 80% of companies feel they delivered an exceptional user experience while only 8% of customers agree. This is one of the main reasons why it’s crucial to gain customer insights with scientific techniques like user research and identify what users prefer than rely on assumptions or gut insights.

Let’s explore some of the key factors that make the user experience integral for enterprises to craft & deliver products and services that resonate with the pulse of their customers and prospects.

A day in the life of an average consumer today is filled with digital experiences. From the time we wake up (and check our social media feeds of course) to the end of the day, we interact with native mobile apps, websites, smart watches perhaps and maybe digital kiosks of some kind. A product manager and a team of experts are behind every such experience. They decide the features, look & feel, functionalities and more. But is that all they do? Is there scope to take a broader view of today’s product managers and their role in the success of an enterprise? I believe so. But first, what is product management? Up until recently, this term was used largely to convey project management. An enterprise would decide to revamp its website or app and that project would need to be managed within a specific time frame, specifications, quality and cost. The person leading such projects – by definition short term approach, would be the de facto Product Manager. Thankfully, things have changed.

The ongoing global crisis arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll in many ways – thousands of lives have been lost and the world has been disrupted like never before.  Enterprises have been forced to adapt to new ways of functioning and employees are also discovering the pressures of working under severe constraints. Several industries like travel, traditional retail, hotels, MICE (meetings, incentives, conferencing, exhibitions) and more are affected adversely. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development says the world economy will go into recession this year with a predicted loss of global income in trillions of dollars.

Clearly, we are heading into an age of uncertainty on many fronts. Even after the COVID-19 crisis is over, which I hope is sooner than later, the impact of the crisis on our mindset and behavior will be long-lasting. In the coming months, focusing on customer experience will be even more critical for enterprises.