OX’s Jason Bowman Talks B2B Ecommerce Overhauls, Why He Loves His Team, and the Future of UX

If you’re headed to EnvisionB2B in Chicago on September 12^th, you’ll have the chance to hear our own Executive Director of User Experience, Jason Bowman, speak as part of a panel discussion. Do This and Not That—Avoid Big Mistakes in Digital Commerce Makeovers will focus on what you need to consider when launching a B2B ecommerce strategy, so that you’re not taken by surprise halfway through the process.

We sat down with Jason to get a sneak peek into what suggestions he has for organizations working on ecommerce overhauls, what gets him excited about UX, and where he sees things changing in the field.

WHAT MAKES B2B ECOMMERCE DIFFERENT?

Jason agrees that B2B customers expect many of the same features and capabilities as B2C customers, but there are also important factors that make B2B different. “It just has so many tentacles,” he says as he explains the ripple effects that even just modifying your site can cause. “Any change is not just a refresh for you and your internal team,” he says. “It impacts your sales team. It impacts your customer-service team. It impacts your warehouse. It then impacts your customer’s sales team, purchasing team, and warehouse.”

This cascading effect is one reason he encourages people to be realistic about the amount of time projects like this take. These types of undertakings need more time dedicated to research and interviews. “What tools do you use? How is it important? How do you use it? How does this integrate?” These are some of the many questions that need to be asked, says Jason. He adds, “Because a lot of times it’s tribal knowledge within the sales team.”

“B2B sales are still driven very much by salespeople and relationships,” according to Jason. “And so expanding digital teams into a true sales channel is still a new muscle for a lot of these companies.” He says that if you really want your B2B ecommerce site to be engaging, it requires constant nurturing, constant data input, and constant attention. It’s important for businesses to consider that they have to build a team and a budget for ongoing innovation and maintenance in order for their B2B ecommerce efforts to be a success.

WHY UX AT OX?

Jason started out as a graphic designer but found he didn’t enjoy having long discussions about the color of a button. He is more interested in what the button does, how many buttons there should be, and how they should be prioritized. He made the shift to UX and never looked back. “You get to understand how a lot of systems work, how a lot of people think about things, and a lot of different types of problems to solve,” he says. The problem-solving is his favorite part.

Some of Jason’s job is also reminding people that they are not their clients. “Often people just get bored looking at their own stuff, so they want to change it,” he explains. But while someone within an organization might see their own website 50 times a week, a new customer visiting the homepage is just that: new. They have to immediately understand what the company does and how it relates to them. UX is all about making sure the intended audience gets what they need out of a webpage.

When asked why he chose to bring his UX expertise to OX specifically, he said that OX had really smart people and teams set up to complement the UX team. “They have a really strong project-management team and customer-success team,” he says. “Those are fundamental. They have a culture in which I was able to come in as an expert and push for ideas and have other teams and methods that would complement that and push it further. Working with an organization that has really skilled individuals and a lot of depth to those individuals and experiences allows you to move quickly, but with excellence, and stop where you need to.”

AI IS NOT SO SCARY

If you look online, you can find endless articles on whether AI is going to take over UX jobs. Jason isn’t worried about it. “This is what innovation does,” he says. “That is the history of humankindo automate tasks. And then those humans have to find other tasks to do, but it’s not scary to me.” He sees it as a tool that can speed up execution and  allow him more time to think.

“When I started,” he says, “you were figuring out how to build an ecommerce website. Now Shopify has best-in-class templates.” His point is that UX has been finding ways to take shortcuts like this for a long time. Jason sees some of this automation as an opportunity for innovation.

AI can help you automate, but it doesn’t allow you to create anything new. “No matter what industry you’re in,” he says, “if you want to try something new that’s specific to the situation, you have to actually do the work.” Jason sees AI as a instrument that can give him more time to grow his team and experiment with non-traditional approaches. And it’s his plan to continue doing just that.

If you’re considering a B2B ecommerce site launch or revamp, talk to the OX team. We’ll be at EnvisionB2B, and you can reach us at info@officeofexperience.com.