The top business challenge revealed at the Business Innovation Expo
Last month was an exciting milestone for our team as we set up our very first booth at the Business Innovation Expo at the Excel in London. It was exciting to see behind the scenes for the first time, and witness how surprisingly unglamorous it is - building IKEA furniture on the floor at 7pm eating a Sainsbury’s sandwich. But, come show day, everyone had their gladrags on with impressive stands and we found ourselves mingling with a mix of innovative startups, fellow agencies, and big players in the industry.
We wanted to interact with people, so we experimented with an interactive activity and a spinning wheel at our stand (you can’t represent the world of UX without a set of post-it notes), which both turned out to be an attention grabber! It was a great way to break the ice and chat with people about the challenges they face with their digital products.
One thing we kept hearing was that many businesses aren’t really sure why people interact with their digital products the way they do. They’d like to increase engagement and better serve their customer needs, and therefore increase the success of their platform, but when asked if they’d actually asked their users these questions, the answer was largely no. This was a lightbulb moment for us. User research is a great starting point for these businesses, yet they have the impression that it’s an expensive process. Research doesn’t need to be expensive, it can be focussed and budget-friendly yet still offer huge insights. We enjoyed spreading the word about the small steps you can take to conduct research, and the impact it can have on your business by understanding your audience better, which can make your digital products and websites perform better.
For those that still feel user research is too much of an investment, we found that a UX audit was a welcomed alternative. Spending just a few days evaluating a product using established heuristics can highlight actionable improvements, giving people tangible actions & results from a minor investment. This simpler, more immediate approach can demystify the initial steps toward refining digital platforms.
In addition to chatting about digital product design, we also watched some great sessions, of particular note was Diary of a CEO, Grace Miller, showing us how to ‘Embrace failure and experimentation within your business” and hearing how AI can transform our work day by Microsoft’s Chris Wheeler. We made friends with our neighbouring stands, and forced ourselves to join the ‘speed networking’ activity - does anyone actually enjoy networking? But, it was great to meet such a diverse bunch of businesses, all who are so passionate about what they do.
Our team came away from the event with a fresh set of new ideas and a renewed focus on helping businesses get to grips with their digital challenges, as well as improved our IKEA building skills.
It was a great first experience for DPP at an expo. Here’s to more adventures and helping spread the word on how businesses can improve their digital offering, starting with user research or a UX audit.
If, like these businesses, you’d like to take the first step in enhancing your digital offering, get in touch about an initial UX audit or user research!
