Forget About Interface and Experience (for a while), Let’s Move To Business Thought
A few weeks ago, I get offered to write an article on a UGC-based website of the local community and this leads my curiosity about the website model that is still unfamiliar to me.
UGC is an abbreviation of user-generated content, which alternatively known as user-created content (UCC) which might be better known as buzzword marketing. Often, those contributors are fans who promote a brand instead of the brand promoting itself. Medium and social media is an application that uses UGC to popularize their brand. But UGC is not limited to the platform that is creating the market, the BBC which already has a market also implemented UGC, and this has proven to be effective in increasing audience engagement on their website.
Pipeline and Platform
Examining the article Why Business Models Fail: Pipes vs. Platforms and Pipelines, Platforms, and the New Rules of Strategy gave me knowledge about the business models that are generally used by tech-startups who successfully build their markets. In those articles, we can describe that customer-oriented businesses are the key to the successful business idea.
This is because to be successful, an organization needs to continuously change and adapt to its customer’s ever-changing needs and wants. Customers are getting information quickly, and they want openness to the products they choose. The direction of the platform that puts the user forward is a reference for startup founders. Therefore UI / UX designer has got its role in the current new media era and is no longer charged by front-end engineers.
So why is this useful in UI / UX designers?
Engineer as coder generally known as a team who builds the application and UI / UX Designer for almost cases is the part of those builders. UI / UX Designer is not a passive actor but also the key role of the success of an application because of their role in bridging between product owner, developers and users.
Therefore, if UI/UX wants to be a valuable designer in (typical) IT industry, I suggest they learn and understand users not only the context of the problem but also point of view from the company where they work, so they can articulate the business insights into the user needs to produce a worthwhile digital product that gains profit. However, business thinking should be known to expand their perspective, not to be a versatile machine.
As the one of the closest person to the user, a UI / UX designer should not only focus on the best interface design and experience but also knowledge about the company’s core business and relationships with consumers to create better designs that are suitable for the target market and sufficient with the company needs.
note:
I use the UI / UX term because this profession is still commonly combined among IT/tech-startups companies in Indonesia
another reference :
Why You Should Always Learn The Business Logic Before Coding
What Does a UX Engineer Do, Exactly? A Little Bit of Everything
Business Savvy UX Design: Improving Business Acumen For Designers
