In a truly ironic twist, I’ve found it’s somewhat difficult to explain to folks what exactly I do as a user experience consultant. Invariably folks think I’m a web designer (I most decidedly am not), or that “user experience” is code for “has no real skills but a big title nevertheless.”

I continue, explaining that analyzing the user experience of web sites takes into account factors like ease of use, structure, functionality, intuitiveness, and aesthetic qualities. Together these elements balance the “golden triangle” – user (usually customer) needs, technical capabilities, and business objectives.

And with that they thank me very nicely and move on to the next person. As a user experience consultant, I knew something is missing.

Clearly I need to show them what I can do.

As it happens, my husband Graham and I recently bought a house. We’re first time home buyers, so we spent hours online stalking potential homes and sorting through the financial options available to us. What I found was not only a house, but an opportunity to explain the user experience through example.

Our mortgage lender, Charles Schwab Bank Mortgage Services, appears to be about average in the mortgage industry. We selected them because we are long-standing customers and wanted to keep most of our accounts at one institution. We trusted their reputation. We got an absolutely awesome interest rate – 4.71%!

Nevertheless, the experience was frustrating and unnecessarily time consuming. We bought at the beginning of historically low interest rates on home mortgages. Call volumes were enormous, and we routinely waited on hold to speak to an agent for 1-1.5 hours. We were forced to call because the information we needed wasn’t available to us online or because the mortgage process is, 15 years into the internet revolution, largely still a paper and fax process. Let me be clear: this type experience is not limited to Charles Schwab Bank Mortgage Services, but is a residential real estate sales problem in general. Perhaps only second the healthcare industry, the mortgage/home buying process is woefully antiquated. In this modern era, the mortgage/homebuying process is a bad user experience.

It does not have to be this way.

There are a number of things that Schwab could do to more elegantly handle the user experience for the company’s portion of service. And so I constructed a sample user experience review, which includes an evaluation of their mortgage services web site along with suggestions of how to enhance the user experience, as a way to explain what I do as a user experience consultant.

I believe good business is a good user experience. Give people the clean, reliable and intuitive tools they need to interact with your business process online and they’ll do it. The transaction will be more efficient and as a result cost both parties less in terms of time and money. A good user experience increases conversion rates, decreases call volumes, mitigates the need for questions, and gives the user an excellent impression of a company. The consistency a good user experience encourages can also decrease development costs.

Good business is a good user experience.

If you’re with a business that wants to ensure a good user experience, let’s talk.