In the early days of any emerging market, companies primarily focus on creating functional products that serve a clear purpose. The emphasis, initially, is on utility—a product’s ability to meet a core need. As markets mature and more products reach baseline functionality, attention shifts to usability, ensuring that products are accessible, intuitive, and efficient. Finally, in a highly competitive market where most offerings have similar utility and usability, desirability becomes the key. This is where user experience (UX) emerges as the ultimate differentiator, creating connections that drive brand loyalty, advocacy, and sustained market presence.
For modern businesses, especially in high-tech sectors like artificial intelligence (AI), where features across competing products can be nearly indistinguishable, UX becomes the vital component for standing out. By delivering on both usability and desirability, UX allows companies to differentiate themselves in crowded markets.
Stage 1: Utility—The Foundation of Emerging Markets
In a nascent market, a product’s success hinges on one fundamental question: Does it solve a real problem? During this stage, companies pour their resources into ensuring that their product has utility. For example, in the early days of smartphones, the main selling point was the ability to make calls, send texts, and perhaps access email on the go. The focus was primarily on making sure the device was functional and could deliver core services reliably.
While this framework of UX is deceptively simple, many a typical UX design agency may miss this point altogether. They tend to assume the product does indeed have a market and then proceed to polish usability and utility.
Utility remains essential even in mature markets, but it is often the easiest element for competitors to replicate. Once a product’s utility is established across multiple offerings, companies begin to look for ways to improve their solutions beyond mere functionality. This shift brings us to the next stage in the market’s development: usability.
Stage 2: Usability—Refining and Streamlining the User Journey
As the market becomes populated with similar functional products, usability starts to take priority. At this point, it’s no longer enough for a product to simply work—it needs to work well. Usability in this context refers to how efficiently and effectively users can achieve their goals with a product. For example, smartphones quickly evolved to have touchscreen interfaces, improved keyboards, and streamlined user interfaces to enhance usability. These changes were not about adding new functionalities but making the existing ones easier and more enjoyable to use.
The usability focus is crucial because it directly impacts user satisfaction. Companies start to invest in UX research and design to identify friction points and pain points in the user journey. A website with all the right information but poor usability, for instance, might suffer from high bounce rates, as visitors become frustrated with cumbersome navigation or cluttered layouts. In a usability-focused market, the company that provides the smoothest, most intuitive user experience has the upper hand.
Stage 3: Desirability—Creating Emotional Connections and Lasting Impressions
In a fully developed market, where nearly every product is functional and usable, desirability becomes the ultimate differentiator. Desirability in UX is about how a product makes users feel. It is an emotional response that can foster long-term loyalty, turning users into advocates who feel an attachment to the brand or product. In a competitive landscape, desirability not only influences user satisfaction but also serves as a powerful marketing tool.
Companies like Apple, for example, have built their success on creating highly desirable products. Many of Apple’s devices have similar functionalities to those of its competitors, yet Apple’s UX design consistently delivers a unique, desirable experience. From the unboxing process to the sleek interfaces and the “human” feel of interactions, Apple’s design choices cultivate an emotional connection that sets its products apart from the competition. This shift to focusing on desirability marks the final evolution in a product’s journey to market dominance.
UX as the Differentiator in Mature Markets
When all products in a market meet basic utility and usability standards, the last battleground for companies is desirability. This is where a well-crafted user experience becomes the differentiator. In a world of similar product features, UX alone has the power to create memorable, meaningful experiences that convert users into brand advocates.
For example, consider the fitness app market. Numerous apps offer similar core features: tracking activity, monitoring calories, or offering personalized workout plans. However, it’s the UX that sets each app apart. An app with smooth navigation, motivational design elements, and personalized feedback creates an enjoyable, engaging experience that users are more likely to revisit daily. For these apps, UX isn’t just a part of the design—it’s the brand’s competitive edge. It differentiates one app from another in ways that functionality alone cannot.
The AI Industry and the Role of UX as a Differentiator
Artificial intelligence (AI) provides a compelling example of this utility-to-usability-to-desirability progression. In the early days of AI, companies were focused on proving that the technology could function—training models to perform specific tasks like recognizing images, processing language, or predicting outcomes. Utility, at this stage, was the priority: could AI accurately identify objects, respond to basic queries, or analyze data?
As the technology matured, usability became the next focus. AI companies invested in making their tools accessible not only to engineers but to non-technical users. The rise of AI-powered assistants and no-code platforms reflects this shift. A UX design agency specializing in AI products focuses on usability, simplifying interactions, creating intuitive interfaces, and making AI tools accessible to a broader audience. This step opens the doors for new user segments and broadens AI’s applications.
Now, as the AI market grows even more competitive, the final stage is emerging: desirability. With many AI tools offering similar functionalities, it is the user experience that now sets one platform apart from another. Take, for example, AI writing tools. Many offer similar features—text generation, rephrasing, tone adjustment—but it is the UX that drives user loyalty. Tools with friendly interfaces, quick feedback, responsive customer support, and delightful design elements create an emotional appeal. This desirability makes users feel that they are using not just a powerful tool but a valuable partner in their creative or professional process.
For AI companies, prioritizing UX not only helps in user retention but also in trust-building. With AI technologies that handle sensitive data, clear and transparent UX builds trust and ensures compliance with privacy norms, thus enhancing desirability. A seamless UX designed with user transparency and control in mind is an invaluable differentiator that no feature list can replicate.
Conclusion
In any competitive market, utility, usability, and desirability form the three critical phases of product development. While utility and usability establish a product’s foundation, desirability represents its unique appeal. It is UX that enables companies to navigate these three stages, ultimately creating products that do more than meet functional needs—they leave lasting impressions and foster loyalty.
For businesses in highly competitive, rapidly evolving fields like AI, UX is no longer just a design consideration; it’s the primary means of standing out. As product offerings converge, UX alone provides the key to differentiating a brand in the minds and hearts of users. Embracing UX as the main differentiator is not only strategic but essential for any company aiming to build lasting connections and achieve sustained success in today’s dynamic markets.
