What is UX Design?
UX design is concerned with the interaction of real users with everyday products and services such as websites, mobile apps, and coffee machines. This very diverse discipline combines aspects of business, psychology, market research and design with technology. We've created a guide to help you explore these areas more deeply.
Donald Norman, a cognitive scientist at Apple and a former Apple employee, coined the term UX in the early 1990s. He coined the phrase "user experience" to encompass the many factors that affect how a customer feels when interacting with a particular product.
Our article about UX design will take you through the history of UX. This UX guide is an excellent resource for those who want to explore UX design projects in depth. Since its inception, UX design has been synonymous with success. Only products and services that provide a seamless user experience will be successful on the market.
UX Design in Action
We know UX designers are essential; we've got a working definition, but how does UX look in practice? It's fine once you realize that at least ten fields must be completed! You decide to look elsewhere because buying shoes from this website seems too easy. A bad user experience is not limited to websites. It can be any product or service that you interact with.
What does A UX Designer do?
What Is The Role Of A UX Designer?
UX designers make products, services and technology accessible, usable and enjoyable. UX designers are often part of a larger product team. They bridge the gap between users, developers, and business stakeholders. The UX designer should always consider the user's experience and what is best for them.
Your Job As A UX Designer Is To Advocate For The Customer Or End-User
You are also responsible for ensuring that the product meets the needs and requirements of the company. Does it match the vision of the CEO? Does it increase revenue or help retain customers? What kind of projects are you likely to be working on? What is your position within the company?
A UX designer's Day-To-Day
A UX designer's typical day will include designing software, mobile apps and websites. They may also design for voice-activated devices, AR and VR! Some UX designers are more focused on the service experience than the tangible product, for example, designing an overall experience when using public transportation or staying at a hotel.
It is essential to know that experienced designers are typically not responsible for the visual design of a product. They focus more on the user's journey and how to structure the product to facilitate this journey. The size of the team, the type of project, and the priorities will all vary from one company to another. The tasks you perform daily will vary depending on the role you play and the company that employs you.
UX includes research, testing, business analysis, project management, and psychology principles. It also involves more hands-on tasks like wireframing, prototyping, and other design tasks. We'll look more closely at the UX process in the next section and examine some of the main tasks a UX Designer will perform.
- UX designer tasks
- Researching users
The magic (research) occurs in the UX design's initial stages. UX designers are usually given a project brief by the client or manager, asking them to conduct some research. For example, let's take the fictional fast food chain "Foodies". Imagine Foodies approaching you to design an app.
The UX designer should combine desk and field research to gain a complete picture of the audience they are designing for. This could include a review of the website, interviews with existing users to identify pain points and opportunities, and competitor research.
The UX designer can use these tasks to identify the critical features for the Minimum Viable Product or the first version of the product you will release. They can also start to create some initial personas. Foodies' core features could include a menu, online bookings, and a local branch locator.
The user research phase is when you define the project's scope. You identify who you are designing for and their goals and challenges concerning your product. This guide will teach you more about user research, including how to conduct it. You can also explore this collection of free UX tutorials.
Creating User Personas
UX designers may create personas based on user research. You will now dig deeper into the tasks that each persona would like to accomplish and why. Personas play a vital role in the process. A typical task for Samantha's persona could be:
The mobile app allows Samantha to order the Moroccan Lamb Salad in advance, saving her time between meetings. Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) is another popular approach which can be used with user personas (or in place of them).
Information Architecture: Determining The Information Architecture
You'll then start to think about what kind of content is needed and how that will be organized across your website or app. Information architecture is the process of determining the best layout and organization for the content. A good information architecture ensures that users can quickly find the information they are looking for and navigate intuitively from one page to another without much thought.
Create User Flows And Wireframes
UX designers map the user journey using tools like wireframes and user flows. Basic flowcharts called user flows show a customer's entire path to use a product. This includes the initial interaction and the final interaction. This introductory guide on user flows will teach you more.
Prototyping & User Testing
After the UX designer has mapped out the product layout, he will create prototypes and conduct user testing. A prototype is a simplified version of your final product. It's a simulation which allows you to test out your design before it gets developed. The most uncomplicated paper prototypes and more complex interactive prototypes that closely resemble the final product are available.
Test your prototypes with real users to identify any design flaws. This will help you make the final product better. It may take several rounds of testing before the final design is perfect. When you are sure that the design meets the users' needs, it is time to start the development process. UX designers attend sprint meetings as well to ensure that there are no feature creeps. It's also essential to help make small changes to the design when needed.
Visual Design
Notice that these tasks are separate from the visual design. Visual design is a speciality of some UX designers, but it usually falls under the user interface (UI design) category. A UI designer will be responsible for the final images, color schemes and icons. You can read our guide to help you understand the differences between UI/UX design.
A final point is that the work of a UX designer is seldom finished once a product is launched. There will be small tweaks, new releases and feedback to collect. UX design is highly iterative. A career in UX involves as much collaboration and coordination as it does design.
What is a UX Designer, And Why Does Your Startup Need One?
The term user experience is becoming increasingly popular for the right reasons. User Experience team of Designers play a crucial role in the success of digital product businesses. They can do everything from fulfilling the needs and wants of the end users to defining the customer journeys for an app or platform.
What Exactly is UX?
UX is not a brand-new concept. UX has been around for a long time. It dates back to the early 1990s. Donald Normal, a cognitive scientist at Apple who was the first to use this term, introduced it. He wanted to explore the user experience from all angles, from graphics to industrial design classes and physical interaction to the interface.
Since then, this industry has grown in popularity. UX designers are now as crucial to an organization as software engineers, and for good reason. Every $1 invested in UX can return between $10 and $100. Adobe surveyed 501 critical decision-makers in August and September 2016. In August and September 2016, Adobe surveyed 501 key decision-makers in their organization. What exactly is it that makes them so popular? What are they doing?
Responsibilities as a UX Designer
A UX designer has many hats to wear and is responsible for the following:
Product Research
UX designers begin a UX project by thoroughly researching the market and products. Conducting product research to identify and understand the industry standards is crucial. This also helps a UX Designer understand the end users' needs: goals, preferences, and behaviors. In essence, product research involves collecting data through multiple channels. These include online surveys, focus group discussions, interviews with users and stakeholders and so on.
Read More: User Research and its Tip & Techniques
Information Architecture And Personas
How To Identify Your Audience And Adequately Target Them
Personas are the next step of the UX process. Personas are often fictional characters who mimic the behaviors of real audiences. Imagine that you run an online store that sells premium cosmetics. Your ideal customer can be a fictional character named Mary. She is 35 years old, a working woman who lives in New York and takes good care of her skin.
The end goal of creating personas is to understand users better and identify their behaviors and patterns. The UX designer will then write scenarios to analyze the user's interactions with the website or app.
Wireframes
Wireframing begins after a designer gathers all relevant information on the user. This stage is unique because every UX designer will have their preferred method of creating wireframes. The process usually starts with a simple black-and-white design and then gradually progresses to more complex designs to get a feel for the final product.
Prototyping
Wireframe and prototyping terms are used interchangeably. There is a big difference between them. Wireframes consist of nothing more than a blueprint for architecture. They are a visual representation of the future design. There are no navigational or interactive elements in these prototypes. A prototype, on the other hand, is a high-resolution representation of the finished product.
Wireframes can be developed relatively quickly and predictably. However, prototypes require a lot of work. A prototype gives a good idea of the final product and is more focused on navigation and usability.
What Industries Hire UX/UI Designers?
Computers, Software, and IT
UX/UI designers are often employed in the software and computing industries. In 2023, there will be 199,400 people working in website design or development. It makes sense because user experience design began in this industry. Designers develop software and websites for desktops, mobile devices and tablets. In the industry survey, 28% of respondents were involved in some tech.
Finance and Insurance
UX/UI designers are also employed in the insurance and finance industries, with 12% of respondents. It's not surprising that online banking is so popular, and there are many payment and banking apps for smartphones and tablets. These applications can have a different user experience because money is involved. UX Designers, for example, usually aim to make an app easy to use. Still, they must also ensure that strong safeguards are in place to minimize and correct errors.
Consultants
In this category, 10% of respondents said they worked for a consultancy. UX Design Consultants are focused on the business impact of improving user experience. Consultants assist businesses in identifying and solving issues using a design-based approach.
Education
The online education industry has been growing over the past few years, and this trend is expected to continue. UX Designers are involved in the education sector. They can be found on dedicated platforms for video lessons and testing, learning and study apps. 6% of the respondents said that they were in the education industry.
Military and Government
Government and military agencies employ 5% of those who participated in the study. Easy-to-navigate websites allow citizens to easily access services and provide feedback. The government website's role in disseminating information about emergencies is also essential.
Healthcare
4% of respondents work in the healthcare industry. The websites and applications are used for scheduling appointments, conducting telemedicine, maintaining medical records and controlling wearable devices such as heart monitors.
Buy it Now
UX Designers create websites and mobile applications to make shopping more convenient and accessible for customers as e-commerce takes over brick-and-mortar retail. These products include chat features and electronic carts. Retail companies employed 4% of respondents.
Printing, Media, and Publishing
UX Designers are most often involved in electronic documentation, such as e-readers. Customers can download magazines and books from Barnes and Noble and Amazon. UX Designers are also involved in self-publishing platforms such as Amazon's Kindle, where authors can upload their books and format them for sale.
Advertisement
UX Designers for advertising must be up-to-date on social media trends and digital design tools. Advertising has long been a source of consumer resentment, so designers in this field must use storytelling to convey their messages.
Telecommunications
Only 3% of respondents are employed in the telecoms industry. Smartphones are a prime example of UX design. UX design is a part of every process, including texting, checking emails, posting to social media and paying your monthly bill.
Businesses can Benefit From A Variety Of Business Opportunities
Professional services, such as lawyers, plumbers and carpenters, use websites to educate and schedule customers. Restaurants post their menus online and have created mobile apps that help diners make reservations or place take-out orders.
Enjoy the Entertainment
UX Designers are focused on retaining customers in the entertainment sector. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other streaming platforms strive to make their user experience enjoyable, easy and comfortable. UX Designers should include this level of personalization. They use AI to suggest offerings based on customers' content. These platforms are also heavily focused on consistency and accessibility. The users must be able to find and switch between different seasons and episodes and turn on closed captioning whenever required.
Aerospace and Automotive
In the past decade, dashboards with dials and gauges have been replaced by touch screens that offer GPS navigation. UX design becomes more important as computers are integrated into cars and planes.
Non-Profit Organizations
UX design can be used by any group that needs a website. Most non-profit organizations have small budgets, but they are an excellent place to start your UX design career.
Emerging Technologies
In recent years, there have been several new technological developments that will create jobs for UX Designers. These features, from smart homes with appliances connected to the cloud to artificial intelligence, which is always one step ahead of competitors, all require intuitive user interfaces. A user-centered approach can be beneficial for any interactive technology.
UX Designer Skills
UX designers must have a wide range of skills to handle various tasks. This includes:
Industry-Specific UX Designer Skills
- Wireframing & prototyping
- UX writing
- Visual communication and UI
- User Testing
Crossover Skills
- Business Acumen
- Research and Analytics
- Customer service
- Coding and Development
Soft Skills
- Adaptability
- Communication
- Empathy
- Problem-solving
- Teamwork
It's crucial that UX designers can work effectively with others, from clients and stakeholders to developers, fellow designers and even the end-user survey. In the UX industry, business knowledge is also essential. When designing solutions, it's crucial to consider both the company's and audience's goals and needs. Remember that to become a full-stack designer, you must train in other areas, such as web development and UX writing. This is particularly true if you are a UX Designer in a start-up.]
The Take-Away
UX design service that offers meaning, growth and many possibilities. It's also within reach. There is no better opportunity to pursue a career in UX design. This is an excellent option with the global shortage of UX designers, high salaries, low entry barriers, and freedom to work from anywhere. You don't need an information systems degree or a background in design.
