In recent years, the concept of digital advisor is expanding, in terms of popularity and of strategic importance. Digital advisors represent an important component in the digital customer experience enigma. Companies today should convert into becoming a trusted advisor for their customers. Trusted digital advisors are those who facilitate simple, straightforward, and hassle-free digital experience no matter where the customer is.
This rationalization gave birth to another revelation, that is, not all of the digital advisors are equally good and effective; user experience is a crucial factor to the success or failure of digital advisors.
Below are some points on how should an organization design successful digital advisors:
- Consider the things that should be present when starting in the design of your digital advisor
To provide a good user experience and user-centered designs, it should be founded in having a deep understanding of the future advisor users. To do this, you must find out who your customers are, what they actually need, what the things that they value are, what are their abilities, and also what are their limitations.
You should also factor in some of your own business aspects like the overall business goal, the project requirements, and the objectives that you want to reach with the advisors.
These various aspects will influence the way on how you will approach your advisor design project. If you are prepared and have a solid plan in place, this means that you will not have to backtrack as much later. Putting in a little extra work at the start will save you a lot of time and effort at the end.
- Determine how the design process will look like and the people that should be involved
It is highly recommended that the project manager and the product manager should be involved throughout the design process. Concerns on when should the project be done and how should the design be done should be addressed not only in the early stages of the process but throughout the entire design process because this safeguards the advisor against not being able to meet the requirements and objectives.
You will also need to clarify the visual style by using the brand’s visual style guides along with the corporate brand standards. With this, you are confident that the user interface decisions are in-line with the company’s look and feel. This makes the users feel at home when they are using the digital advisor.
Give the design with real content. The design for an advisor project is different because the flow will dictate what the interaction is going to be, and what design elements, like, checkboxes, buttons or sliders, are to be placed along with how it should be aligned to produce an optimal user experience. Given all of this, it is but proper that you should have an early advisor draft in place before diving into getting creative with the design.
You can use sketches and wireframes for the prototyping of the design. The prototype will give you and the project managers an up-close view of the advisor design at the early stage of the process.
The most basic form of prototyping is the paper prototype. This will help you explore the efficiency and usability of the design. This prototype is good for brainstorming and feedback solicitation because of the simplicity of its format.
On the other hand, the interactive wireframes or the lo-fi prototype adds a little interaction into the wireframe which will also enable you to test the design early on, thus making way for quicker feedback. You don’t need to have complex interactions, you just have to make sure that the important elements are clickable so that people can actually make use of the design.
- Ensure that your digital advisor can give a good user experience
The design should be based on your customer’s needs and should be in the most user-friendly way possible. There are seven factors that describe user experience. If your design has these seven factors, then you can be confident enough that your advisor can give a good user experience.
- Usefulness – the reason why there are digital advisors is to assist people with their decision-making. This goal should always be kept in mind when designing the advisor.
- Usability – the design of the advisor needs to be clear, simple and of course, it needs to be user-friendly. The design should be in a way that is familiar and easy to understand. The speed of the interaction is important too.
- Findability – you should be able to integrate your advisor which allows users to find the support and advice easily.
- Credibility – this is an important feature because the advisor in itself and the contents need to be trustworthy and the design is a great factor which contributes to the credibility of the advisor.
- Desirability – the advisor should look good because this will attract the users and will always keep them engaged.
- Accessibility – the advisor should be designed in a way that people who have disabilities can still use the advisor as much those user who does not have disabilities.
- Valuable – the advisor should be able to give value to the user and your company as well. This impacts both by providing a better digital experience and, of course, contributing to the bottom line.
- Determine the elements that should be part of the digital advisor
The focal point of any digital advisor is the question and answer. This is the essence and purpose of why there are digital advisors.
But, insofar as defining these, there are still a few other elements that should be factored in which are essentially useful and help improve the end-user experience:
- Informational Texts or Info tests – these info texts should be easily accessed and available so to provide the user with more relevant information.
- Images and Icons – proper images should be placed in to be able to create an emotional connection and can easily describe the things therein.
- The progression bar – providing a feeling of progress is required to produce a successful advisor. This shows the status of the user in the process.
- The main navigation buttons – these buttons are the back and forward buttons. These buttons should fit in with your brand impeccably.
Aside from the points above, it is important that you do not limit the design with the existing concepts and rules. Best practices are there for a reason, and these should be respected, however, this should not become a hindrance to your creativity.
