To improve UX, digital product leaders prioritize app modernization and data experience

When people talk about UX, they often mean the front-end design and usability of a digital product. But a proper UX is also significantly impacted by choices made on the back-end — building a secure and scalable architecture that supports the experience your customers see.Technology leaders need to think about both.

Fortunately, our latest researchfound that decision-makers are already doing this:improving their infrastructure and improving their customer-facing products are top digital transformation priorities trending in 2024. The bottom line: if you aren’t working to improve the user experience by modernizing both the front-end and back-end, you are already behind.

Digital product UX investments

Modernizing existing customer-facing digital products is among the major trending initiatives that organizations will be focused on in 2024, according to 36% of those surveyed. Not only are customers becoming increasingly aware of and drawn to products that have the latest technologies and capabilities, but their expectations of a best-in-class user experience across channels are growing exponentially. With new offerings from both startups and established competitors crowding the market, it is becoming nearly impossible for organizations to maintain market share with legacy applications.

“User experience is as good as any reason for organizations to modernize their applications. User sensibilities and expectations evolve more quickly than ever before. What might have been considered intuitive UX even three years ago might look dated today. Therefore, modernizing your app for better UX isn’t a one-time project. It involves creating an architecture that allows for rapid UX iterations.” — Sarah McCasland, Chief Strategy Officer, Modus Create

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of organizations surveyed in our research will be investing in IT modernization, such as resolving technical debt and cloud migration, this year.

Data experience is essential to customer experience

Like many digital transformation trends, “data” has been earmarked as important for so long that it’s easy to glaze over it, particularly as it relates to UX and the customer experience. But while data has long been a part of the conversation, it is now undoubtedly front and center to product development decision-makers.

“Data blindspots in your business stem from more than just legacy tech — they increasingly also stem from analog business operations. Unifying data access is as much about enabling end-to-end digital operations as it is about enabling a modern enterprise architecture and software stack.” — Patrick Sheridan, Chief Executive Officer, Modus Create

Part of this shift in focus is driven by consumers, who expect data-driven, personalized experiences while also trusting companies to handle data properly. Another part is driven by companies who want to leverage data to make effective business decisions and better understand their customers.

Providing an effective customer experience externally consists of having a cohesive data experience internally. A good data experience means employees in an organization can effectively use data — requiring a consistent process for gathering, disseminating, and interpreting data.

When it comes to addressing top business challenges, boosting data and analytics capabilities ranks among the top initiatives that organizations will focus on in 2024. As data collection and tracking get more sophisticated across multiple channels, enterprises are challenged to ingest and make sense of data from multiple inputs. Businesses need a platform to capture, clean, analyze, and action data. An effective data platform will handle everything from the data pipeline to the output of data visualization tools to deliver actionable insights.

For more insights on UX and data experience, access our latest research report on the digital transformation trends of 2024.