A comparative approach towards Customer Experience, User Experience, and Digital Experience. It talks about UX process and Digital Thinking under CX space. It also covers the Target Audience for all 3. Looks at the Customer Journey process for all 3 generations. Touches ROI and Business Benefits.
A 3 point perspective about CX, UX, and DX ecosystem
1. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 1
A 3-point perspective about
CX, UX and DX
Ecosystem
Prachi Bhruguwar
Spreading the joy of Design
2. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 2
The industry is moving rapidly with technology innovations and business expansion towards
‘Digital’ solutions. The customer is largely in focus in the business world today. Customer sat-
isfaction is the new key to success.
Users relate well with the physical world, human interactions, and emotions. It has become impor-
tant that ‘design’ and ‘technology solutions’ take care of the same.
While design has stayed well since decades and has evolved with time and demands, designing IT solu-
tions have seen the transition from Graphics Design to Web Design, UI Designing, to UX and now DX. CX is
an independent area that also has been in focus.
This transition has not been too difficult however terminologies have been used quite interchangeably and have
got jumbled-up many times.
This white paper focuses on three key areas- Customer Experience, (CX) User Experience (UX), and Digital Experi-
ence (DX). Explaining the capabilities and comparison at a conceptual level. Customer is considered as ‘buyer’ here
to make it is easy to compare in an e-commerce space.
3. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 3
What is CX
Noted psychology researcher and writer
Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi observed in 1998 that
people who perform seamless, sequence-based
activities regularly are happier than people who
do not. He coined the term “flow” to describe this
behavior.
Let us apply this to the customers. Customers who are
able to perform seamlessly with a brand at different
touch points of experience. They would be happier and
loyal customers. The entire “Flow” of knowing about a
brand or product, reaching to the product, getting the
required information, and making the decision through
online or offline purchase. Post purchase, experiencing
the customer support process. All of it would add
to seamless “Flow” and as a result- good customer
experience. However, achieving it from business
standpoint calls for complete thought process,
business strategies, investments and trainings
(Internal staff).
In a gist, it is about customers’ brand experience and
emotional experience with a product that is resulting in
perceptions and loyalty in the long run.
Customer Experience has existed since long in
different forms and started taking shape with call
centers in 1960. Then the CRM came in picture and
simultaneously, Pine and Gilmore wrote a book on
“Experience Economy” in 1999 that talked about new
economy opportunities that await companies.
While the products and brands were getting stronger,
customers also started becoming more aware and
demanding. Only good product wasn’t helpful and
hence the modern “Customer Experience” started
taking shape.
What is UX
The first scientific publication with usability in its
title appears, “The Commercial Impact of Usability in
Interactive Systems” by John Bennett in 1979. However,
George Miller had coined the phrase “The magic
number of seven plus or minus two” in 1954. Human
Factors society was formed in 1957.
It had its journey from Human Computer Interaction
(HCI) to Usability and today User Experience (UX).
HCI and Usability focused on Ease of use, learnability,
memorability, effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction
through interactions. UX further included individual’s
emotions and attitude with larger touchpoints that
could focus on end-to-end experience.
4. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 4
A step towards DX
With the social Media launch in mid 2000, Customer
Experience got its ‘Digital’ identity. A decade
later, users or customers started getting into
tech-dependencies. And here the ‘Digital’ started
moving from merely Marketing solutions to ‘Digital
Experience’ for end customers. DX became the
prominent enabler in the transactional ecosystem and
the talk of the town today.
Commonalities and Differences
We know that UX has been considered as a subset of
CX. This was largely done keeping B2C in mind where
the end user is Customer or Buyer and holds lot of
potential for business owners.
There is still a larger peace beyond B2C which
is ‘Enterprise Solutions’ that needs consideration
here. It doesn’t have CX in it but still holds huge
business in the market.
Their customer are buyers of the product that are B2B
but the focus of the solutions is end consumers who
are not direct buyers. Hence it has less potential for
CX but holds good potential for UX. There are multiple
informative sites or online artifacts as well that are
out of CX.
Talking about DX, it is a subset of UX under CX. Every
customer who is going through experience in Digital
space is interfacing through UX and it ultimately
benefits CX. Hence Digital would always be with CX
and UX. What about Enterprise Solutions again? Digital
may have presence there today but whether it would
largely occupy the space is to be left to time.
Email Marketing
Social Media
Search Marketing
Social Marketing
CX
UX
CX
UX
If we consider computers under digital, then everything
is Digital. However, ‘Digital’ in today’s scenario refers to
multiple digital touchpoints together and hence large
subset of business is still out of DX and even CX.
CX
UX
DX
5. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 5
The Future Graph
There are defined goals towards achieving ROI:
CX UX DX
Brand
Perception
Conversion
Rate
Brand Reach
& Awareness
Brand
Experience
Reduced
Error Rates
Enabling
Interactions
Brand
Loyalty
Simplified
Task Flows
Customer
Connect
Customer
Connect
Increased
Productivity
Supporting
UX Goals
Customer
Satisfaction
Clear Contextual
Language
Customer
Support
User
Satisfaction
Emotional
Experience
Visual
Connect
Net Promoter
Score
Brand
Perception
Product
Delivery
Customer
Retention
CX and UX have more defined metrics to test or
measure the goals where DX relies more on the metrics
defined in UX.
With business expanding on B2C domain and customer
Experience becoming the key focus, Digital has potential
to grow fast and the possibilities are enormous. We
see Digital graph expanding but speed and areas of
expansion has to be left to the future again.
The Goals and Business Benefits
The clear goals for all 3 is ROI. Investments are higher in
CX, comparatively lesser in UX and even lesser in DX. It
matches the graph shown above.
As far as returns are concerned-
CX- Not immediate, is less predictable and has long
term impact.
UX- Comparatively faster returns, it is predictable, and
has quick and long-term impact.
DX- Immediate returns, predictable, highly iterative,
and quick impact.
CX
UX
DX
7. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 7
Though the above chart looks linear, it is a continuous evolving process. Design verification and Concept Building is
completely iterative based on users’ feedback during Interviews, Contextual Inquiry or Usability Test, Focus Groups,
and or or surveys. It is also flexible at the same time. You can select the metrics required based on your needs.
Discovery
Concept
building
Business goalsApproval
User
scenarios
Data
gathering
Planning, Structure
& Task Flow
Information
architecture
Wireframes
Visual design
User test
documentation
Analysis and
implementation
Usability
testing
Cybage UX
Methodology
8. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 8
DESign
thinKing
101
UnDErStanD
EXPlorE
matErialiZE
IMPLEMENT EMPATHIZE
Put the vision
into effect.
Conduct research
to develop an
understanding of
your users.
Combine all your
research and
observe where
your users’
problems exist.
DEFINE
Build real, tactile
representations
for a range of
your ideas
PROTOTYPE
Generate a
range of crazy,
creative ideas.
IDEATE
TEST
Return to your
users for
feedback.
‘Design Thinking’ has become the new and highly spoken about term in design field.
However, it is not new. It existed in some or the other form since 1900 and the term ‘Design
Thinking’ got coined in 1990s by David Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO (an International design and
consulting firm in California). Ref: NNgroup.
It has been more around physical design or product design where ideation moved from intuition to
meet the product users’ needs. Now it is getting talked about in Digital Agency terms, where early
evaluation was not practiced to this extent. It gets close to highly scientific UX design approach but is still to get
formalized in IT solution space. It seems to be capturing emotional responses at a higher level.
Image Credit: NNgroup
9. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 9
Target Audience
CX, and UX being there for decades have had consistent audience till one point. With
technology innovations and further movement towards ‘Digital’ the graph is changing. The
potential business growth is in the ‘millennial’ generation category. The industry’s focus on
‘Digital Services’ gets justified here.
The share of user in each area, as per generation
CX UX DX
sBaby Boomer Gen-X Millennials
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
%
10. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 10
Website
Mob/Web
Social Media
Physical Store
Offline Media
Offline
Community
Client/ Support
Points
Research
& Planning
Product
Discovery
Product
Selection
Product
Usage
Product
Services
Advocasy RepeatTouch
Website
Mob/Web
Social Media
Physical Store
Offline Media
Offline
Community
Client/ Support
Points
Research
& Planning
Product
Discovery
Product
Selection
Product
Usage
Product
Services
Advocasy
Test Drive
Repeat
CX
CX
Car Purchase Journey
laptop Purchase Journey
UX+DX UX
Customer Journey Maps with 3Xs and 3 Gens
The potential of business growth further can be seen in the two customer journey maps below.
Many touchpoints that belong to purely CX are not elaborated here.
One is for ‘Car Purchase’ where we consider all three generations being the target audiences. The second one
that focuses on ‘Laptop Purchase’ journey is targeting generation X and largely Millennial. Car purchase has 16
touchpoints where laptop purchase goes beyond 20. This further confirms the focus on the millennial generation
as the key target audience. Both the maps highlight the touchpoints for 3Xs.
Touch
UX+DX UX
11. A 3-point perspective about CX, UX and DX Ecosystem 11
Conclusion
History suggests that CX and UX
presence was almost going parallel and
both were independent until they started
getting close and got merged in the process.
This gave the birth to ‘Digital Experience’ that is
growing along with millennials.
Process perspective as well they all go hand-in-
hand. One has dependency on the other, and having
acceptance for each other is resulting into better
outputs. While CX provides complete ecosystem, UX
has mastered the art of solutions not only for CX, but
for complex enterprise level products or applications
and designs systems for physical world. Having proven
scientific approach, UX is helping Digital World get
acceptance from the users, with support from robust
technologies.
Whether Design Thinking takes over the UX
methodology would depend on how well it proves
About the Author
Prachi Bhruguwar
UX Practitioner and Practice Head
Prachi Bhruguwar is heading the UX practice in IT Industry for last 12+ years with
total 24+ years’ experience in the Design field as a practitioner. She has catered to
multiple verticals starting from Banking to Retail, Healthcare, Travel & Hospitality,
Media & Entertainment and more. She believes in making the practice robust enough
to cater to all major verticals. She is passionate about her domain and has chosen
the leadership role to be able to institutionalize it in the IT domain. She has been
successful in taking her team size from 20 to 200+ in the span of 6 years. She has
been a trainer, a mentor, consultant and a counselor.
itself beyond design. Large scale B2B and Enterprise
Applications may not have enough room for quicker
solutions and iterations. They would need complete
scientific approach with proven metrics to gain
optimum ROI.
Brands also have started understanding the benefits
of all 3 Xs. They know that a loyal customer could
result into sustained business. All 3 Xs’ focus on ROI
got accepted in the industry well. After UX, DX also
is picking up in IT companies as ‘Digital Services’ and
firms are acquiring agencies and design studios to
expand their portfolios. All of these investments would
not have taken place unless all three had significant
benefits from business standpoint.
Once again it is transition phase for the industry that
shall result into better solutions and new avenues.