“Our users are professionals—they don’t care if it’s pretty, they just need it to work.” If you’ve ever said this about your B2B product, you’re forgetting that your users aren’t comparing your software to enterprise tools from 2015. They’re comparing it to the consumer apps they use daily, where thoughtful design is the norm, not the exception. It’s also based on the false assumption that good design is skin deep.
When your competitors launch features that work exactly like yours but require fewer steps, that’s not a feature gap—that’s a UX gap that compounds into a competitive disadvantage.
A lot of teams obsess over adding features for beginners and power users while ignoring “perpetual intermediates”—the 80% of users who are competent but never become experts. These users can be invisible in feedback loops because they are just busy doing their jobs and don’t necessarily need new features. They’re particularly vulnerable to switching when competitors offer something different and better that fills those UX gaps.
Meanwhile, redesigns undertaken because of internal team boredom with the UI rather than driven by true user problems often backfire, especially when they’re pure visual refreshes that ignore years of user frustration and requests. Smart companies treat UX and redesign efforts as part of their competitive strategy, not a cosmetic afterthought.
Read more about UX decision-making
Over the years a number of simple and affordable user research tools have been gobbled up by big players who target enterprise customers and offer a suite of tools with custom (read: high) pricing.
If you’re looking for something a little more than self-managed recorded Zoom calls, Userbrain is an affordable option to help with remote user testing. On their free tier you can conduct remote tests with your own users, and starting at $99/month you get some additional features and access to their pool of testers.
In our Newsletter we often highlight companies we recommend for work that’s outside our area of expertise. It’s not because we have a formal arrangement to promote them, but because we legitimately believe they do good work. It’s probably no surprise that a lot of our work comes from referrals and recommendations, and those come from people like you.
We don’t have a sales team per se at Uptech Studio, so we rely on our network to think of us when they hear about companies we might be able to help. That said, if you’re interested in a more active or formal role helping us connect with great projects & clients, please reach out and we’d love to discuss a more formal partnership.
Need a strategic technology partner that can help you navigate if, when, and how to include UX design in your product development process? Let's talk.
Thanks,
Adam Korman
Partner, Uptech Studio
www.uptechstudio.com
