User Retention Strategies In UX

🎯 UX Strategy vs. Business Strategy vs. Product Strategy. How they differ and how they work together to deliver user value and meet business goals ↓ 🤔 Strategy is often perceived as confusing/overloaded. ✅ Strategy is “what + why” → it guides actions/decisions. ✅ Planning is “how” → detailed steps to achieve a goal. ✅ Strategy is conscious decisions on what we will/won’t do. ✅ Goal: increase and maximize chances of success. 🎯 BUSINESS strategy → distinct choices that set you apart. ↳ Sets the overall direction, owned by the executive team. ↳ It shapes positioning, competitive advantage, objectives. ↳ Advantage: low price + differentiation (perceived value). 🚀 PRODUCT strategy → unique positioning of a product. ↳ Sets how the product will contribute to business direction. ↳ It’s what the product is, its users and customer needs. ↳ It’s how we bring product to market, growth, market fit. 🧠 UX strategy → shape/delivery of product value through UX. ↳ Sets how we create real value for users and the company. ↳ Stems from UX research and answers to business needs. ↳ Shapes what to focus on + why, actions, metrics and risks. 🚫 Strategy isn’t a fixed plan, roadmap, intention or deliverables. The impact of good UX typically lives in differentiation. It’s not about how “different” our experience is, but the unique perceived value that users associate with it. And that value is a matter of clear, frictionless, accessible, fast and reliable experience wrapped into the product. Better UX is always perceived by customers as more valuable. But it doesn’t happen by accident — it must be meticulously orchestrated. It’s always based on deep understanding of user needs and their expectations. But it also requires experiments, feedback loops and innovation to deliver more value steadily, because user expectations grow over time. I always try include 5 key components in any strategic UX work — so we don’t end up following a wrong assumption that won’t bring any impact: 🚀 Vision → the desired, improved future state of UX. 🥇 Priorities → what we will and what we will not do. 🎯 Goals → high-level initiatives/targets we aim to achieve. 🗂️ Feasibility → we consider people, processes, resources. 🎲 Risks → bottlenecks, blockers, legacy, big unknowns. And: it’s always dangerous to be designing a product with everybody in mind. By being very early very broad, we often reduce the impact of design and messaging, making it less compelling for the audience we actually want to reach. Typically it’s better to start with a specific customer segment, then expand — not the other way around. ✤ Useful Books: – UX Strategy, by Jamie Levy – No Bullsh*t Strategy, by Alex M H Smith – The Growth Equation, by 👨🏻💻 Andy Budd – The Path To Staff Product Designer, by Artiom Dashinsky – UX for Business, by Joel Marsh – Pricing Design, by Dan Mall – Business Thinking for Designers, by Ryan Rumsey #ux #design

While browsing on Myntra's product page, I noticed a small but powerful micro-interaction: the subtle animation when you add an item to your wishlist. When you tap the heart icon to add an item to your wishlist, something small but delightful happens. The heart doesn’t just flip from empty to filled. It animates. It bounces, fills with color, and lingers just long enough to make you smile. This raises an important question for PMs: How do we justify prioritizing delight-driven micro-interactions when our backlogs are full of “must-have” features? Why does it matter? 🔹 Feedback Principle (Design) ↳ Instead of a flat state change, the animation tells you: “Yes, your action worked.” It’s intuitive, instant, and doesn’t need explanation. 🔹 Emotional Resonance (User Psychology) ↳ That little bounce transforms a dry utility (saving an item) into a delightful moment. Over time, these micro-delights compound into positive brand memory. 🔹 PMTrade-off ↳ Here’s the hard part: such details rarely look urgent in a backlog. They don’t directly promise higher conversion next quarter. But they act as experience multipliers, small touches that make the entire product feel polished, premium, and memorable. Coming back to the critical question for PMs: 👉 How do we weigh intangible delight against tangible metrics? 👉 When do we make space for these “wishlist moments” in our roadmap? Share your thoughts ! #UXDesign #ProductManagement #MobileUX #UserExperience #DesignThinking #ProductManager #ProductDesign #UIUX #Design

Building Magnetic UI micro-interaction to make your site feel alive This micro-interaction made one of my projects feel much more dynamic and engaging. The first step to creating a magnetic UI is setting the trigger zone (I call it Magnetic Area ) for the effect. To trigger the effect when the cursor enters the magnetic area, we add padding to the element and use `mousemove` event listener. Once the cursor enters the element, we measure its distance from the centre of the element to adjust the text position accordingly. The formula looks like this: x = ((relX - boundingRect.width / 2) / boundingRect.width) * force This calculates how far to shift the text by measuring the cursor’s offset from the centre, normalised by the element’s width, and scaling it with a force factor to control intensity. Check the working code example here: https://lnkd.in/gezqKAzt And here is the prototype: https://lnkd.in/gRAAqSHh #frontend #microinteraction #ux #ui #gsap

Most apps lose users because their workflows frustrate, confuse, or overwhelm them. Avoid these 5 pitfalls, and you’ll retain more users and boost satisfaction. 1. Cluttered Home Screen 🚫 Overwhelms users with too many choices upfront. ✅ Do this instead: Prioritize the most critical actions for users. Apply the “Fewer Choices Principle” to guide attention effectively. 2. Confusing Navigation 🚫 Users can’t find what they need quickly. ✅ Do this instead: Use universally recognized labels and icons. Organize content into clear, logical categories. 3. Lengthy Processes 🚫 Every additional step increases drop-offs. ✅ Do this instead: Conduct task analysis to reduce unnecessary steps. Implement features like autofill and a one-click checkout. 4. Slow Loading Times 🚫 1-second delay = 7% fewer conversions. ✅ Do this instead: Compress assets (images, videos). Leverage CDNs and lazy loading to speed up performance. 5. Poor Mobile Optimization 🚫 70% of users will abandon apps with poor mobile UX. ✅ Do this instead: Design for touch gestures like swiping and tapping. Test usability across screen sizes and operating systems. A seamless user flow isn’t just good design; it’s a growth strategy. By prioritizing simplicity and usability, you create apps that users want to return to. Have thoughts or questions? Drop them below or message me, let’s simplify user experiences together!

People overcomplicate UX strategy. 😔 If your UXer or founder who's had their strategy burn down, here's why. 🛑 5 Reasons UX Strategies fail: 1. No executive buy-in - Your strategy is meaningless without leadership support. Executives care about business outcomes, not pixel perfection. 2. Disconnection from business goals - Pretty interfaces that don't drive retention, conversion, or satisfaction are just expensive art projects. 3. Unrealistic implementation timelines - That 2-week sprint can't handle a complete app overhaul. - Your ambition is crushing your execution. 4. Siloed design thinking - UX strategies created in isolation from engineering, marketing, and customer support are doomed from the start. 5. Measurement afterthoughts - If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. - No clear metrics = no way to prove success. ✅ Do This Instead: 1. Frame your UX strategy in terms of business impact – speak revenue, retention, and efficiency when presenting to leadership 2. Start with a clear problem statement tied directly to business KPIs – what specific metric will improve? 3. Break your strategy into small, implementable chunks with realistic timelines 4. Co-create your strategy with cross-functional stakeholders – host workshops with engineering and business teams 5. Define clear success metrics BEFORE implementation – create a measurement plan that tracks both user behavior and business outcomes The most successful UX strategies aren't comprehensive manifestos – they're focused plans that solve real business problems one step at a time. --- PS: How much of your UX strategy time is spent on documentation versus building alignment? Follow me, John Balboa. I swear I'm friendly and I won't detach your components.

User needs and business goals don’t align one-to-one. After years of helping businesses align what they offer with what users need (we’ve worked with over 2,500 companies), I’ve seen a common unspoken assumption that there’s an equal tradeoff between the two. But that’s rarely the case. They don’t exist in the same hierarchy level. Businesses often set goals based on wanting to grow or improve something without fully understanding why or how it should happen. It’s easy to look at the market and set a goal, but it's much harder to connect a user need to a business metric. There’s no straightforward way to translate one into the other. That’s why we align UX metrics with other business performance drivers in our open data-informed design Helio framework Glare. The challenge is that design concepts often struggle to communicate user needs to stakeholders who have to justify investment in a product or program. But that doesn’t mean user needs should be ignored… they’re just represented through metrics. David Service made a great point on my design metrics tree post when he noticed that "User Needs" weren’t explicitly included: “There's a lot of good stuff to unpack here, but I noticed that "User Needs" aren't mentioned in your hierarchy, and I'm interested to see how that essential value proposition ties into your data model. How do you balance that value exchange between users and the organization using this model?” So I created a new diagram to visualize this connection. While discovery helps uncover valuable user needs, what matters is helping businesses translate those needs into measurable results. That’s why we focus on UX metrics—not just the needs themselves. #productdesign #productdiscovery #userresearch #uxresearch

A product only scales when its strategy is tied directly to business goals. Otherwise, features become noise, and teams burn months on “nice to have” work that doesn’t move revenue, retention, or efficiency. Business alignment means: ✓ Every feature connects to metrics that matter ✓ Every design decision supports growth or cost optimization ✓ The roadmap speaks the same language as the leadership team. ⸻ Example: Healthcare Case I worked with a medical SaaS platform that had a backlog of 120+ features. Developers pushed new releases every two weeks, but churn was growing and revenue wasn’t scaling. I ran a UX–Business audit: — Mapped every feature to a business KPI — Cut 40% of backlog items that had zero business impact. — Rebuilt the roadmap so that every quarter focused on one clear business lever . Result after 3 months: ✓ Customer support tickets dropped by 22% ✓ Retention improved by 15% because patients were guided better through their journey. ✓ Leadership got visibility: for the first time, the roadmap was linked directly to revenue forecasts. ⸻ Example: Fintech Case In a fintech startup, leadership struggled to raise the next round because their pitch deck showed features, not impact. I restructured the product narrative: — Aligned UX flows with financial metrics: fewer failed transactions, faster onboarding, higher account activation. — Designed a demo around money saved and money earned, not UI screenshots. — Synced the product roadmap with the CFO’s model, so investors could see cause–effect clearly. The outcome: They closed a $7M round. Investors saw a product tied to growth levers, not just design polish. ⸻ My takeaway Business alignment is not paperwork. It’s the discipline of turning UX work into financial outcomes. When I step in, I translate design into numbers the boardroom understands — retention, efficiency, growth. That’s how design stops being a cost center and becomes a driver of business decisions. ⸻ I’ve spent over 8 years in UX and 7 years in branding, marketing, and PR. What I do is not just design — I architect clarity between product and business goals. That’s why my work stabilizes teams, speeds up decision-making, and helps products grow in markets under pressure. 

After helping an architecture studio land $1–3M projects, and a startup raise over $5M in funding. Here’s what I’ve learned: You don’t need loud, complex animations to make a strong impression. Even if you do it right, they tend to get in the way and sacrifice clarity. Micro-interactions are what actually move the needle. They guide attention, signal quality, and help your brand feel composed and intentional. Why I use them in nearly every build: → Lower cognitive load: Smooth, focused experiences = higher conversions. Users know exactly where to look and what to do. → Premium brand feel and positioning: Subtle detail leaves a lasting impression without trying too hard. → Faster to build, easier to maintain: Lightweight, reusable, and scales as your business grows. → Snappier performance: No bloated code or long load times. Optimized for every device. → Faster launches: More clarity, less dev overwhelm. Go live sooner. My favorite ways to use them: • Interactive hover effects on buttons + links • Cursor tooltips to guide navigation • Scroll reveals and parallax effects • Clean, minimal text animations

Can a micro-interaction make or break your user experience? The answer might surprise you. In the world of UX design, we often focus on the big picture – the overall layout, the color scheme, and the navigation flow. But what about those tiny, seemingly insignificant details? Micro-interactions—subtle animations, transitions, and feedback elements—are the unsung heroes of user experience. They might seem like minor embellishments, but they have a profound impact on how users perceive and interact with your product. Think about it: ✦ The Like animation on YouTube:  When you click the "Like" button, the thumbs-up icon animates with a subtle bounce and shoots sparkles/fireworks, providing visual feedback that your action was registered and acknowledged. This seemingly minor detail reinforces positive interaction and encourages further engagement with the platform. ✦ The "Pull to refresh" gesture in mobile apps:  This intuitive gesture allows users to refresh content with a simple downward swipe. The spinning wheel or animated icon during the refresh process indicates that the app is working, managing user expectations and preventing frustration from perceived delays. ✦ Hover effects on website navigation menus:  When hovering over a menu item, it might change color, slightly enlarge, or reveal a subtle underline. These visual cues signal interactivity, guiding users toward clickable elements and improving the overall navigation experience. These micro-interactions create a sense of responsiveness, feedback, and delight. They make your product feel alive, intuitive, and enjoyable to use. But here's the kicker: micro-interactions can also backfire. A clunky animation, a delayed response, or an unexpected transition can quickly turn a positive experience into a frustrating one. Users might not consciously notice these details, but they'll feel the difference in their overall experience. So, how can you harness the power of micro-interactions to create a truly delightful user experience? ✦ Be intentional: Every micro-interaction should serve a purpose. Use them to guide users, provide feedback, and create a sense of delight. ✦ Keep it subtle: Micro-interactions should enhance the experience, not distract from it. Avoid excessive animations or flashy effects. ✦ Test and iterate: Gather feedback from users to see how they perceive and interact with your micro-interactions. Refine them over time to ensure they're working as intended. The next time you're designing a product, don't underestimate the power of micro-interactions. They might seem small, but they can make a big difference in creating a truly memorable user experience. #uxdesign #motiondesign #microinteractions #userexperience #ui

Our 9-figure supplement client was bleeding revenue through their navigation. So we took a different approach. We design navigation solely for profit. Here's what we did: 1️⃣ Strategic Separation: - Split shoppable links (Shop by Benefit, Shop by Product, Bestsellers) from non-shoppable links (About, Reviews, Shipping Info, FAQs) - Made shoppable sections visually prominent on the first level - Moved secondary links to clearly marked secondary sections 2️⃣ Dynamic Bestsellers Section: - Added top 4 products with images, reviews, and benefit-driven copy - Made it dynamic so it automatically adjusts based on sales data 3️⃣ Data-Driven Category Optimization: - Used Clarity heatmap data instead of guesswork to reorder categories - Identified low-performing categories like "anti-aging" and "mood" - Added missing "weight loss" category for their growing product line 4️⃣ Mobile-First Strategy: - Optimized mobile menu structure (their primary traffic source) - Created clear visual hierarchy for purchase-focused navigation - Reduced cognitive load for their older, less tech-savvy audience The psychology here is simple. Shoppers shouldn't have to hunt for the buy button. Your menu should push them straight into high-intent buying paths. The results were significant: ✅ Visitors clicked into buying journeys faster ✅ Fewer distractions from non-revenue pages ✅ Stronger focus on top-converting products ✅ Better user experience for their specific demographic No new traffic. No ad spend. Just a navigation that sells.