Over the past year I have been involved in many different discussions and meetings with the purpose of determining a company’s or product’s customer. I quickly realized that there isn’t a simple answer that can be applied across the board. However, I sometimes like to propose a different question: Who is your brand’s most important asset? More often than not the answer is simple. The users.
How does this help?
If you are asking this question then you are missing something vital to your business’ success. Without users you have no advertisers and typically no content. This also usually means you have no revenue. Basically, you have no business.
Building for the user and thinking about pie
Keep this principle in mind as you build out your web service or product. With every decision you make ask yourself “Is this good for the user? Why?”. User-centric design is indeed on the rise but you’d be surprised how many UX and product designers are still slaves to aesthetics. Looks are nice but they are not everything. If your web app was a pie, aesthetics would be a single slice while user experience would be half the pie.
Conclusion
We truly are entering an era where the user is king. Customer service, customer interaction and user experience are becoming increasingly important in our society. This is because users, at their core, are the primary link to revenue. Users are the ones who add true value to your platform, product or service. Without them you don’t even have a business.
I also want to note that I realize this principle doesn’t apply to all products everywhere but most modern services and products would truly benefit from this user-centric mentality. So what do you think? Is the user really that important or are there other factors? Let me know in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!