Why do Internet companies do not take the user experience seriously?

Edit Introduction: Once, the user experience was regarded as one of the core of the Internet industry's innovation, and it also valued. Today, when profitability has become a major focus of the company, the user experience is left behind. Why do Internet companies do not pay more and more attention to user experience now? The author discussed from four aspects and took a look.

User experience has been regarded as one of the cores of the innovation of the Internet industry. In addition to the competition in normal business, marketing, public relations, etc., the user experience has been repeatedly hung in verbal. Update, the upgrade of user experience will be mentioned, e -commerce, games, news information, digital music, video websites and other fields.

The advantages of user experience are generally manifested:

However, the user experience is another standard that cannot be inspected by data. Some people will say that the user experience is good, and some people will talk about the poor user experience. When the entire Internet industry is going up, the user experience can still be valued, but the new changes that the Internet industry now faces is: testing profitability and net profit, and only the number of users without monetization is useless.

When the profitability becomes an assessment indicator of an Internet company, the user experience must naturally stand by the side. In fact, the Internet company lost the user experience and quickly.

For example, a news client product once lived more than 100 million, but now for profit, the advertising density in the FEED stream has increased to one advertisement. For users who are used to "screen brushing" news, advertising is the advertisement is the advertisement is the advertisement is the advertisement is the advertisement is the advertisement is the advertisement is the advertisement. Information noise, when the advertising density is too concentrated, the information noise brought by advertisements is far more than the information itself. Advertising is the most important profit point for news client products. Without other means of monetization, it can only be filled with "advertising density". The previous product made by this was a certain post bar product, which eventually led a large number of old users to escape.

For example, if the PC version of a certain e -commerce platform is not even available if the user is not logged in, the system will frequently jump to the login page. Even if the mobile phone end, the system will frequently jump, or the function is "castrated", and the content that users can search for limited content. You must know that the number of global active users of the e -commerce platform exceeds 1 billion, and how many people and potential users are used to use it without logging in? These people's platforms may not intend to ask.

Many people take shopping online as shopping, so the question comes. If you go to a shopping mall, you can not go in if you do n’t buy things. Now in the Internet industry, tourists who are not welcome to "unknown and surnames". Only after logging in is a normal "user".

There is a news client product that is even more chicken thief. Even if the user turns off the "Automatic Video in WIFI Environment" button, the advertising small video in the FEED stream is still played normally, that is, you can not watch the short video recommended by the system. , But you have to watch the short video of system advertising and do not provide any closure means. Are you so angry that you want to uninstall it?

Today, who is flooding in the disaster, who does not swipe a short video, but the problem is that a short video app will frequently and many times remind users whether to allow reading "address book" and constantly try to call the user's address book relationship relationship What do the system call the user communication record? The name is to make better recommendations to users.

However, even if you do not catch the user's address book data, in the current situation of personalized recommendations, the information recommended to users is already very accurate. To put it plainly, I still want to grab more data in my own hands. Precise personalized recommendation, eventually recommend advertisements to users, not the content itself. The ID of a user immediately, "Is this company closed today?"

As the above -mentioned user experience, such as the rapid decline in the Internet industry is not uncommon. Under the heavy pressure of profitability, Internet companies have completely tear up the final shame, and the user experience has long been thrown behind. So why do Internet companies dare to ignore the user experience now? What is their confidence?

1. The difference between the user experience is not important

Any new social software is launched, and its user experience may be better than WeChat. Why? Because the function is simpler, it is a video number, a game, and a small program. The WeChat department has the most mobile phone storage space, but many people may only want to treat it as a social software. Naturally, users have their own choices. WeChat, which is getting bigger and comprehensive, can help users from all aspects, but they are all bloated at the same time.

After the launch of the chat treasure, multi -flash, and toilet MT, only a small wave of waves disappeared. After that, the giants such as Tencent and Alibaba also launched a number of social apps in turn, but it is still not enough to watch in front of WeChat. Tencent 2022 Q1, 2022 Q1 According to the financial report, as of March 31, 2022, the number of WeChat and WeChat consolidated monthly active accounts was 1.29 billion, a year -on -year increase of 3.8%.

On the one hand, the competitive pattern of the head app is almost shaped, and the slight differences that the user experience side can show, which cannot make up for the cost of user transfer.

On the other hand, even if the newly launched app has a good user experience, it still has to solve several practical problems:

First, the number of users;

Second, retention rate;

Third, user activity.

If you want to make the above three data as the current mainstream app, money, people, and teams are indispensable. The Internet giants have not had the minds of making a giant app, and small and medium -sized startups are subject to human and financial factors. I dare not make a high investment again. The wind direction of the Internet industry has long been in investment. Second, it is difficult to have another product's user experience to show obvious advantages

Most of the products with better word -of -mouth in the Internet industry were born in the early days of mobile Internet. Pea pods became popular around 2012. Netease Cloud Music was launched in 2013. The earlier, the lower the competitive pressure, and the more obvious the user experience of the product can reflect. By 2022, the mobile Internet industry is very mature.

On the one hand, the talents in the mobile Internet industry flow each other, employees jump around, and the advantages of a manufacturer can easily be learned by another company.

On the other hand, the personal imprint of the product manager has disappeared, and the user experience is generated by collective thinking. In the case of lack of personal imprint, it may only be a product that can be born with a regular and large difference, without producing a very, very good product.

In the face of group competition, it is difficult to have a product experience for a product to show a significant advantage over another product. User experience and no intellectual property rights, other apps can easily learn the advantages of some user experience. The gap between Netease Cloud Music and QQ Music, Cool Music, and Cool Dog Music in the user experience is not so large.

Whether it is small and medium -sized startups or Internet giants, the industry chain of APP is very mature. Therefore, it is impossible to surpass another head product from the user experience. And advertising is the focus of consideration.

Third, no matter how strong the user experience, we still need to pay attention to the ability of commercialization

The Internet company is afraid of the decline in user experience. To some extent, it is also constrained by commercial pressure. For example, the problem of advertising density of news clients is not that product managers can decide whether to fill the advertising density value. Product managers must also consider Mice bowl problem.

Fourth, the number of users is at the top, rely on the user experience to attract users' strategic failure

Including Giants such as Tencent and Alibaba, the overall growth rate of the Internet industry has slowed down. Data from Xinong Institute show that in Q4 in Q4 in Q4 my country's listed Internet enterprise revenue growth of 12.9%, a recent low.

In addition to the slowdown in revenue growth, the number of users of the Internet giants also appeared. According to CNNIC data, as of December 2021, the size of netizens in my country reached 1.032 billion, an increase of 42.96 million compared with December 2020; the Internet penetration rate reached 73%.

Judging from the financial report of the Internet giants, the growth rate of many Internet companies at a new low.

In the past, there was another important reason for the user experience to make up. The user base was low. At present, the number of users of a variety of apps has exceeded 100 million. In the face of such a huge user scale, it is difficult to rely on the advantages of some user experience. Let the user migrate, and the user experience itself is constantly changing. For example, when you listen to songs on your mobile phone, users may pay attention to it. Are there any copyrights? No copyright is empty.

What do you do if you do n’t pay attention to the user experience? The Internet companies have tried it. In fact, it will not be done. The number of users has not declined significantly. When the user's habits have taken shape, users rarely change it, because even if it is changed to another APP, it may be considered at the beginning. The user experience is good. After a while, it may not be as good as the previous app.

In the past, Internet companies also paid attention to dreams, faces and good user experiences. Now, only two words are left: making money.

#Columnist#

Guo Jing, WeChat public account: Guo Jing's Internet circle. Everyone is a product manager column writer, self -media, Baidu Baijia, Sohu Technology's self -media member, authors of titanium media column, Netease Technology columnist. At the same time, long -term contributions to multiple magazines. Pay attention to the Internet, pay attention to TMT, and make an original dog in the field of Internet.

The original published in this article is a product manager, and it is not allowed to reprint without permission.

The title map is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol

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