Why HR Should Care about User Experience
Why HR Should Care about User ExperienceThe user experience of a product, website or mobile app is very important in today’s world. With the rise of social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, people spend hours every day playing with intuitive, easy to use platforms—so they don’t have the attention span to try and figure out antiquated and cumbersome enterprise systems1.
So, why should user experience matter to HR?
Before we dive into why user experience matters, it’s important to understand what is meant by “user experience” and what goes into creating it. It’s not just about the design. A user interface, not to be confused with the user experience, only takes into consideration the aesthetic of a product. The user interface only makes up part of the user experience. The user experience goes a few steps further and considers objective metrics and engineering principles to help drive design decisions2.
The Importance of User Experience to HR
Employee engagement has always been an HR concern because it increases retention and performance. The easier a software or application is to use, the faster employees will adopt it—wasting little to none of their time. Thus, employees will feel like the software is simplifying job processes versus making them more difficult—increasing overall engagement.
At the end of the day, your employees probably interact with their screens just as much (if not more than) they interact with other people3. And an aesthetically pleasing interface can’t simplify business processes and help people get their jobs done faster—but a great user experience can. This is why, as an HR professional, caring about the user experience, should be at the top of your list.
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