UX Design — Importance and Relevant Processes

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UX design is a term that has gotten the tech world buzzing. These days, people who have knowledge of UX and its processes have a higher chance of getting hired by companies.

In this article, you'd get to know what UX means, why it's important, what a UX designer does and some UX design processes.

Without further ado, let's get on with it!

What is UX?

To start with, UX which stands for "User Experience", is all about how a user feels while interacting with a product. This could be a website, web application, desktop software or any form of human — computer interaction.

User Experience design is the process of creating meaningful, flexible and relevant products for users.

Evolution of UX

The term "UX" was first coined in 1993 by the cognitive psychologist and designer, Don Norman, when he worked at Apple Computer. However, the most basic principles of UX can be traced as far back as 4000 BC to the ancient Chinese philosophy of Feng Shui.

4000 BC: Feng Shui

In practice, the philosophy of Feng Shui is all about arranging your surroundings in the most optimal, harmonious or user-friendly way and it concerns everything from layout and framework to materials and colors.

500 BC: The Ancient Greeks and Ergonomics

Ergonomics is a science discipline that considers how humans interacts with other elements of a system and the profession that applies principles, theories, data and methods in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance. Studies suggest that the Ancient Greeks were well aware of ergonomic principles.

Early 1900s: Frederick Winslow Taylor

Frederick Winslow Taylor, a mechanical engineer, conducted intensive research into the interactions between workers and their tools. His focus on optimizing the relationship between people and their tools is definitely evocative of basic UX principles.

1940s: Toyota and the value of human input

Toyota developed their famous human-centered production system. In order to increase workplace efficiency, human input was considered crucial and was actively encouraged.

1955: Henry Dreyfuss and the art of designing for people

Henry Dreyfuss, an industrial engineer was renowned for designing and improving the usability of some of the most customer iconic products like the Tabletop telephone and the Hoover vacuum cleaner.

1966: Walt Disney. Shocking?

Walt Disney is often brought up in conversations as one of the first UX designers. Disney was all about creating immersive, wonderful user experiences.

1970s: Xerox

Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), developed the GUI(Graphical User Interface), the mouse and other prominent inventions.

1980s: The PC revolution

This revolution put extra pressure on the computer industry to improve the usability of its products.

1993: Donald Norman

Norman invented the term 'UX' while he worked at Apple Computer. According to him, " I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with a system, including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction, and the manual.”

Present day

UX design has grown over time with most companies hiring more UX people as management recognizes that good UX substantially improves product quality.

Why is UX design important?

UX design tries to fulfill the user’s needs and enhances customer satisfaction.
It aims at providing positive user experiences that keeps a user loyal to the brand.
The user-focused design makes the product stand out from others.
UX helps define customer journeys on the product.
UX ensures users have a seamless experience that's appropriate to the goal they're trying to achieve at that time.
UX presents your product effectively and boosts customers' confidence in your brand.

What does a UX designer do?

The role of a UX designer varies among companies; since it’s prominent among different fields from visual design, information architecture, interaction design, usability, and human- computer interaction.

Generally, the role of a UX designer is to conduct research, find out goals and needs of users, carry out testing and present solutions to the company. A UX designer also advocates for the user’s needs and makes sure they -the users- have a seamless user experience when using the product.

Major phases of a UX design process using Design Thinking as a reference

Empathize

This phase is all about understanding the user and what their goals/needs are. An important step in the UX process is to understand the "problem" and how to solve it. The empathy mode helps you conduct relevant research on the subject.

Some methods in this phase include:

Interviews/surveys: interview potential or already existing users of the product to gain insight into what would be the most effective design. Conducting a survey is a quick way to gather user feedback on a product.
Questionnaires: these are similar to surveys but the user can remain anonymous.
Competitor Analysis: this is a research process that analyzes other brands that are trying to solve a similar problem in order to find out their strategies and how you can improve on them so as to provide the best experiences for your users.

Define

This phase is all about bringing clarity and focus to the design space. In this phase, you make sense of the research you've conducted and the information you have gathered.

User Personas: Personas are fictional characters which are created based on research in order to represent the different user types that might use your service, product, site or brand in a similar way.

Details your persona should have:

Demographics (name, age, location, education,etc)
Motivations(fear, goals/needs, interests, values, etc)
A personality quote
You could also include patterns of behavior and any other piece of information that would help you know your users better.

Storyboards: a storyboard is a visual representation of how the user would interact with the product. Common elements in storyboards are: scenarios, visuals(sketches, illustrations, animations), and a corresponding caption for each visual.

Journey maps: this is a diagram of the user's journey and what they experienced while using the product.

It contains details about the different steps of the journey, including the users' actions,thoughts and emotions.

HMW's(How might we's): these are actionable problem statements in question form to prompt potential solutions.

Ideate

After you're done defining the problem based on the research conducted, ideation begins.

This phase is all about exploring and generating as much ideas as possible. Ideation challenges assumptions and encourages outside-the-box thinking.

Some methods in the ideation phase are:

Brainstorming: this could be done individually or in a group to build ideas. Brainstorming could be done using: Crazy 8's, Powers of Ten, etc.

Challenging Assumptions: This is very crucial to breaking conventional thought patterns and coming up with fresh ideas.

Reverse Thinking: this method has to do with envisioning the opposite of the problem, which might lead you closer to the solution you need.

Design

This phase is the visual representation of your ideas; this is when they become actionable. This is when you work on the final graphics.

The results of this phase include:

Sketches: these are hand drawings done for the purpose of visualizing the concept, very handy for establishing the initial layout.

Wireframes: A wireframe is a visual structure that depicts the page hierarchy and the elements in a product.

Testing

This is the phase that determines the overall quality of the end product. The testers make notes of things to be improved on and send them back to the team for correcting the errors.

Some elements of the testing process include:

Prototyping: this is a technique for modelling the created design alternatives before a final version is produced. Prototypes are used for user testing before a product launch.

Usability Testing: this is a way of testing how easy it is to use the product with real users in order to identify roadblocks they might face while using it.

Conclusion

And there you have it - what you need to know to be able to create positive experiences for your users.

“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.” — Seth Godin, UX Designer.

Focus more on the users of your product in order to leave a lasting impression on them and keep them loyal to your brand.

I hope you liked this article; don't forget to tell me your thoughts in the comment section below.