When I talk to software product development shops, discussions on user interface (UI) design encompass a wide variety of principles—perhaps ten to a dozen interrelated ideas that help to create a functional and enjoyable experience for the user. However, there is another reason to focus all the more intently on a great UI: product marketability.

Products don’t just need to be usable—they also need to be marketable. Usability, marketability, and UI design intersect properly only when the UI leads the customer to assign value to the product.

Emotions in Technology Purchasing Decisions, As Affected by the User Interface

Both designers and developers can forget that that purchasing decisions are often strongly influenced by emotions. While we like to think of the software purchase/subscription decision as being a shrewd comparison of features and benefits, it is in part an emotional transaction. (How much emotion comes into play varies dramatically from customer to customer.)

A good UI helps customers to bridge the gap between their current needs/aspirations and a new reality of knowledge and capability, and this results in a greater value being assigned to the product. Potential customers need to feel intellectually and emotionally rewarded through the product experience.

Moreover, designers need to remember that customers may arrive at product testing with strong emotions created by outside factors. A good example: upsetting past experiences using “unintuitive” and “unhelpful” software to perform critical tasks. This may not only have limited the customer’s ability to get things done, but may have contributed to frustration and anxiety about team/individual performance assessments.

The customer will push the “panic button” early in product testing if the “next move” isn’t immediately obvious. So which “panic button” will the user choose to push? The marketability of the product may depend on it; the value that the customer assigns to the product may be going down by the second.

One Way to Control the Panic Button: The Help System

An area of good UI design that is critical to building positive user emotions is the Help system. It is very important that the customer feel supported throughout the product experience. UI designers can control the panic button by placing Help system cues at appropriate locations within the system. (Hiding a small question mark icon in an over-cluttered toolbar barely counts.)

In my observation, over the years designers have become better at placing help cues throughout the interface. Developers have become better at making help systems respond intelligently by providing information relevant to the context in which the user is attempting an action. But there is still a lot of room for improvement in the location of Help cues, the presentation of Help information, and the content of the information itself.

If the struggling user is able to access the Help system quickly, get the instructions/explanation needed, and get right back into the game, the sense of panic or frustration can be turned into accomplishment and appreciation. What might have been a threat to marketability becomes an asset.

The Wrap Up

Many user interface design decisions are hotly debated, and only so much time and budget can be spent on the design process. Often, design decisions are the result of some type of compromise.

However, software development shops need to have some conception of how the UI is influencing perceived product value and overall marketability. Otherwise, you risk increasing the marketing budget and decreasing return on investment for both the product’s development cost and its marketing expense.

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