Most companies cringe at the thought of modernizing their app. That’s because they see it as a struggle involving time and money. What’s worse, it can be hard to justify updating for improvement to the user experience when the current software is still functioning. But in order to compete in the customer-centered marketplace, today’s business apps must be designed with UX principles in mind.
The thing is: many organizations aren’t fully aware of the extent to which users have evolved. They demand a high quality, seamless experience that gives them what they need when they need it. Enterprises, small and medium size companies, can benefit from this shift in user demand by enhancing the overall user experience of their apps.
What is app modernization?
Modernizing an existing enterprise app entails taking a custom enterprise application from an obsolete platform or framework and moving it to a modern platform or framework. Among the advantages are a reduced need for support and usability benefits to end users.
So, why will updating your legacy software be the right decision for your business?
- Reduce support and maintenance costs
- Add value to the current solution
- Meet user expectations and demands
- Use new technology and improve performance
- Enhance application usability
- Provide stakeholders with higher reliability, extensibility and scalability
The return of investment (ROI) on updating your legacy software and improving the user experience has an impact on your business. It empowers you to focus on further objectives, to boosts sales, increase your profits, and of course, engage your customers.
Organizations need to understand the important connections between how application modernization contributes to productivity and how it contributes to business purposes while achieving corporate objectives.
“App Modernization contributes to productivity and to business purposes while achieving corporate objectives.”.
Paula Alonso Ishihara, UX designer
Diving into the UX Modernization Process
For UX designers, redesigning a legacy app represents an extraordinary challenge. It demands the breaking of every established boundary so as to imagine a whole new design while taking into consideration what already exists.
Here are 3 key guidelines that we consider while working on your UX update:
1- Research the product and users
The first thing we do when facing a re-design project is to get to know the product and learn how the users interact with it. By creating personas, analyzing the user journeys and doing contextual and competitive research, we get a clearer picture of the user’s needs.
2- Align everyone along the same goal
Get every key stakeholder aligned with the goals of the re-design and development direction. Having a clear product strategy and keeping everyone on board helps when we’re evaluating the implications that technical and design decisions will have on the business. In turn, that helps us determine the business requirements and how to best fulfill them.
3- Add value but focus on your users
Include the users of the current application into the process. They can provide valuable insights, and by observing them interact with the app, you will gain knowledge about their pain points, features they use, and what they find key to their everyday tasks.
Keeping these guidelines in mind when redesigning the user experience, we hope to avoid going down the wrong path of development. We know our clients don’t want to see features that the user won’t make an effort to learn to use, no matter how simplified (because they are used to the old application, or it doesn’t offer them an advantage over what they used).
User experience and technology are indispensable in driving success to your app. Today’s users are in need of an easy-to-use and intuitive experience, and are demanding more.
Enhancing overall user experience is a must for the success of your app and thus, of your company as well.