Product experience design: How Amagi delivers exceptional user experience

One of the top USPs of our suite of cloud-native solutions is unmatched user experience. At Amagi, we believe in the business value of User Experience (UX) design. We know that it is the cost of entry and a key differentiator in a crowded market.

Our UX strategy is infused with the core principle that technology can be engineered to shape experiences and evoke emotions. We keep in mind that there is a human behind the screen who just wants to get his/her work done in the shortest amount of time.

Product design is a process of co-creation that stems from specific business needs, user aspirations, and technical know-how. To factor in all these aspects, our Product Experience Design team collaborates closely with Product Management and Product development teams.

At Amagi, we are guided by our belief that good user experience is functional, intuitive, simple, elegant and seamless. Which is why we always keep two key questions at the back of our mind: 1. How does the UX work? 2. How does the user feel while using the product? End of the day, our product and UX design teams work to ensure a fine balance between user needs and our internal business goals.

We strive to keep bias at bay

The discovery and exploration phase is a very important part of the design process at Amagi, since it provides our design team a true and complete context of the requirements and challenges at hand. Without context, we risk letting bias influence our decisions.

Bias is a tricky proposition that can often make a mess of design. Designers need to be aware of unconscious biases within themselves or cross functional teams while designing solutions.

UX design decisions must be rooted in solving real problems faced by real users, and strongly shaped by research, data and facts. Not by opinions! This can be the trap that design teams fall into if any key stakeholder is biased and dives into the solution space without exploring the problem holistically.

UX research can solve this by helping the team take a step back, gain an understanding of the context – i.e. what we are solving, for whom and why it is important. It can also help validate a design and prove or disprove a team’s assumptions.

User is at the heart of our design

The Product Experience Design team follows a user centric design process driven by the following:

• Periodic user research sessions. Here, the product design team also work with users to help prioritize our product roadmap.
• Regular tracking of the voice of the customer via demos, regular calls with our Customer Success Management (CSM) team, support tickets raised, usability testing, behavioural analytics and so on.

The teams thus strive to understand the customers’ business and workflows, the mental model of the target audience and then provide solutions on how our products can serve them better. This ensures we are in line with the user’s expectations and provide real value to our customers’ business.

After the discovery phase we come together as a team to brainstorm, work on design explorations, wireframing and prototyping to get quick feedback. Once there is a buy-in from stakeholders, we proceed to work on the visual design and then hand off to the engineering team.

A north star for us is being cognizant of the fact that people care more about their problems than our solutions. By genuinely investing in the user experience process, the company as a whole mitigates the risk of spending thousands of dollars on trying to solve the wrong problem and hence avoid unnecessary development and rework.

Robert Pressman, in his book “Software Engineering, A Practitioner’s Approach,” says, “For every dollar spent to resolve a problem during product design, $10 would be spent on the same during development, and multiply to $100 or more if the problem had to be solved after the product’s release.

Explore our multi-disciplinary approach

At Amagi, product management, product design and product development teams are equally responsible for the user experience. Incorrect definition and compromise on implementation whether it is frontend or backend, negatively impact the intended user experience.

We believe that the devil is in the details. In a scenario where functionality is developed but there is a deviation from the design specifications, the feature is not allowed to be shipped as it compromises the brand image.

The product is almost like a living being that goes through its natural evolution. Just because a product is launched, the design or implementation can never be considered ‘done’. Our teams are constantly trying to gather feedback, look at ways to enhance the experience and create more business value. This is where having an agile mindset comes in where the three teams are open to correct and even go back to the drawing board if required. Like they say, a stitch in time saves nine.

Data is our ally

To conclude, we at Amagi, strive for a thoughtful and data informed product design strategy with highest standards of implementation to ensure that Amagi suite of products simplify workflows and provide a delightful experience. This has been the bedrock of our engagements with over 500 content brands who have banked on us to thrive in a multiscreen world. Well, apart from the obvious advantages of reduced sales and support costs, our strong design principles have enabled us to build strong, long-term relationships with our customers.