Designing a user experience may be easy to you, but remember that customers and users don’t know what they specifically want in a solution. They know that they want efficient, effective solutions and they have ideas about how to improve the workflow, but it is up to the software solution provider to bridge the gap between the customer and user needs and the technology solution that meets that needs.
The solution usually ends up being something that the customer and user never envisioned. The real value that the software solution provider brings is the ability to interpret their needs and deliver a solution that is better then they could imagine because of the expertise that you bring in understanding their needs and the solutions that enterprise software can provide.
Customers have ideas about incremental improvements to their workflow, but if you develop something that is truly innovative, your ideas probably won’t make sense to existing customers. The type of early research you’ll need to conduct will change. Looking at previous solutions or workflows that satisfied the market may no longer apply. In many cases, innovation means looking at a solution in another market and adapting it to yours. Your research may include investigating the market, competition, customers, and users of the market the solution comes from and extrapolating from there.
This blog series is based on the article Easy to Use for Whom: Defining the Customer and User Experience for Enterprise Software