What is UX design?
In this post, I want to share my point of view on what UX design is, in a few words, what to expect and what not to expect. I am going up to show up some practical examples of what I consider a good UX design and, in addition, what a bad UX design is.
I will also share what UX design is and what it looks like in the real world because I have worked as a UX designer for over ten years, I am going to share some ideas and personal stories, and real examples of good and bad UX design from my industry experience.
Before I start, if you have any questions about the terms or examples, please drop them in the comments below, and I’ll get back to them as soon as possible.
Let’s start by talking about what UX design is.
UX stands for User eXperience it should be UE, anyway. And, starting from the definition of design we found in Wikipedia, design is planning the construction of an object through the execution of an activity or process, basically how something looks and works. However, the UX design or user experience design is planning how something looks and works to make the activity of using it easy and enjoyable.
Three main factors in UX design and a bonus extra
There are some factors to take care of, to accomplish the exposed premise. The proposed object must satisfy the needs of the end-user, it must also be easy to use, easy to learn to use, also must give the end-user control, freedom, including as an added value must also surprise and delight. Let’s check it out in detail.
The first factor is meeting the needs of the user, I meant regardless of what the user has done with your product or service, you must ensure that the end-user can achieve that result. E.g., let’s think about a home food delivery service that works online and the end-user has decided to use. Fresh and hot food delivered within a time range. So we will use this first factor as a differential, and this means that the proposed service meets those needs and the customer receives the food at home on time.
The second factor is your product or service must be easy to use and easy to learn to use, coming back to the food delivery example, this means that the end-user will find it easy to navigate and find the food they want to buy, leave the address of delivery, specify the time they want to wait for receiving the food, and complete the order. And, the easy-to-learn part means that even if you’ve never used this service before, you know what to do and it’s just as easy as if you’ve done it 100 times before.
The third factor is that the user must always have control and freedom in the process. In the food delivery example again, this means the end-user could change his mind about the food, even cancel or reschedule the order during the process.
And, the fourth factor (bonus extra) is to surprise and delight. With the example of food delivery at home, this could mean getting a free coupon for your next order or having the delivery person greets you with a warm smile and a thank you for using their service, something that makes you feel special and you want to use that product again.
The core of UX design
When I refer to the core of UX design, I am talking about all those products and services that do not have a good UX and do not take care of end-user needs once designed and developed.
If you take care of the end-user needs and motivations providing an excellent UX leads us to more exciting products and valuable services.
The reason why companies realize the UX value is that it gives end-users a good experience. Now they feel likely to share their thoughts with others and come back to use company products or services over and over again.
We’ve been talking about good and bad UX, but what does that look like in the real world?
Putting this in a context that we are all familiar with, let’s think about microwaves. Now let’s remember when was the last time we were at someone else’s house trying to use their microwave and couldn’t get what we needed to do.
Think of all the different ways you can interact with a microwave, there are buttons, dials, knobs, and digital displays, and it could be difficult to figure out how to accomplish the simple task of heating food when you don’t know exactly how to use the device in front of you, this is what we are talking about when we say bad UX design in reverse.
Let’s check it out for an example of good UX.
Let’s take the humble toaster, its simple function is to heat cut bread the way the user likes it until it turns into toast, so far it is a simple activity, but it can become a problem for a keen eye when the bread is not toasted enough, and this usually leads us to guess how much extra time we need to put it back in to achieve our goal.
Here’s where good UX design comes in where an experienced designer has understood the frustrations and needs of the user and designed a button called “a little more” this simple button is enough to remove the element of guesswork for the end-user and creates a delightfully successful experience.
Don Norman is one of the most prominent figures in UX design, and for many years he has shared a great example of good versus bad UX. Think of how many times you had tried to open a door, only to find that you are pushing or pulling in the wrong direction.
Most people blame themselves when this happens thinking that they should have known which way to push or pull the door, but the UX design tells us this is no fault of the user.
It’s the fault of the person who designed the door, if a door has a handle you can grab, they are telling the user that it should be pulled, but what we found is some doors with a handle even when they are supposed to be pushed.
These doors are usually called ‘the Norman doors’ because Don Norman first coined the term when he used these doors as an example of bad UX design. If we’re going to apply a good UX design to a door, we would first assess whether the door was supposed to open inward or outward and then give the user the correct mechanism to act.
It is frustrating for people when we try to open a door and find that we are doing it the wrong way.
But, when companies have websites, applications, and other digital products and end-users don’t know what to do or how to achieve their goals, it can have a huge negative business impact, which is why UX design is such a lucrative and in-demand career path right now.
The steps of the UX
Let’s look at some of the steps involved in UX. Generally, there are five fundamental steps: understand, analyze, devise, validate and iterate.
We will cover these steps in more detail in future posts, but now we will quickly review them.
- Understand: It is about knowing and assimilating the needs, motivations, and objectives of the end-user.
- Analyze: Here, we try to interpret data and investigate in a clear direction
- Ideate: This step involves generating ideas and finding ways to solve user problems.
- Validate: This is the point where UX designers test their new ideas with real people.
- Iterate: At this step, the UX designer goes back through these stages and continually improves and develops a product or service over time.
Starting from this description, let’s look at some of the things that a UX designer does on a day-to-day basis to relate it to the five steps.
I just mentioned the understanding stage, in which a UX designer will conduct research and interviews to deepen and know the end-user behaviors, frustrations, and motivations, so there’s an important step based on observation and documentation.
At the analysis stage data is formulated, knowledge obtained, and patterns and trends are evaluated based on the information obtained in the previous step. All happens based on the end-user behavior.
In the ideation stage, the UX design team begins to turn that knowledge into concepts and often invites other people to work with it to generate ideas.
At the validation stage, prototypes are created to test ideas also conduct experiments with real users and customers.
The iteration stage, it’s more of a mindset where the UX designer will go back and repeat these stages in a cycle to have continuous improvement.
I hope I have given you a better understanding of what UX design is, it is an incredibly creative and rewarding profession that allows you to enhance the lives and experiences of real people.
If you have questions or doubts about the definitions, terms, or stories I had shared. I look forward to your questions in the comments below and will respond as soon as possible.
Finally, if you want to jump into UX, you can enroll in CareerFoundry’s free short course. You will receive six daily lessons that will take around 15 minutes to complete, and you will have a better understanding of whether UX is the right choice for you.
