Chapter 7. User Goals and Business Goals
When you start a new UX project—before you design anything—you need to understand your goals. Two of them. And nothing is more important to your success as a UX designer.
User Goals
Users always want something because they are people, and people always want something. Whether they are peeking at an ex on Facebook, trying to find their next ex on a dating site, or looking for sneezing pandas on YouTube, they want something.
They might also want to do something productive (or so I am told). There is a whole section about user research starting on page 61. For now, just assume you know stuff.
Business Goals
Every organization has a reason for creating a site or app in the first place. Typically it’s money, but it might be brand awareness, or getting new members for a community, etc.
The specific type of business goal is important. If you want to show more ads, your UX strategy will be a lot different than if you want to sell products or promote via social media.
These things are often called “metrics” or “Key Performance Indicators” (KPIs) by the business-y folks.
Align the goals
The real test of a UX designer is how well you can align those goals so the business benefits when the user reaches their goal. (Not the other way around!)
YouTube makes money via ads, and users want to find good videos. Therefore, putting ads in the videos, or on the same page, makes sense. But, more than that, making it easy to search for videos and find similar videos will ...
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