A README for UX
If you have little to no design background and are interested in figuring out what UX design is about, that makes two of us. I recently got my college degree on Software Engineering and I’ve been working on a software development company for two years now. I’ve always believed technology should be at the service of people, so when I first heard of User Experience (UX) it resonated with me. I finally decided to stop tip-toeing and properly learn UX design.
I chose Designlab’s UX academy, an online UX bootcamp, to acquire the skills. This has been an exciting and challenging experience. For my first assignment I created some inspiration boards for different design terms. My thought process assigning a pin to a board would go like “this is layout so it goes to Graphic Design!… wait, since it’s for a web page, this is a wireframe… a high level wireframe?… then better pin it on UI Design. Wait…”. This kind of rambling would go on for several minutes each pin.
So here I am, a developer that can barely tell different design terms apart, attempting to give you an overview of the UX field. Whether you’re a fellow developer looking to dive into UX or are just trying to learn about it enough to communicate with your team, I hope that sharing a similar background will help in explaining UX as a whole.
What is UX, anyway?
Before we get to how UX works, we first need to agree on what it is. Many believe it’s a buzzword designers are using lately to talk about creating cool UI, however, that’s not all UX is. Others think of it as a synonym of usability, but that’s not quite right either. A definition we can work with is the one provided by the Nielsen Norman Group:
“‘User experience’ encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”
Lets put this on practical terms. Say you build an application. The experience your user has is influenced beyond the use of the app; the experience will include the application’s landing page, its app store listing, user support, documentation, trying to contribute to development, bug reporting, integration with other services and even — if it comes to that — migrating information from the application to another service to close an account.
This list is non-exhaustive and already seems overwhelming! As with software projects, not everything needs to be covered at the same time. Just keep in mind how every interaction the user has with your product and its context counts towards the overall experience.
The UX process
Now we can start talking about what UX entails. An easy-ish way to do that is by explaining the UX process. If you google it right now, you’ll come across lots of different models. Here’s the one we’ll work with:
User research
One of the first questions to ask is “who are my users going to be?”. Get to know and understand them. This is important because otherwise we end up designing for ourselves. Rarely are we the sole user of what we build. User research is generally accomplished by interviews, surveys, and observation techniques (such as shadowing).
Analysis
This phase is where we construct an educated hypothesis of what the problem is, based on the user research. Our hypothesis answers the question “what are the users’ needs?”.
Design
This is where we start coming up with concepts and ideas on how to solve the problem defined by the Analysis phase. Note that the design phase is not necessarily about coming up with mock-ups, but could also refer to coming up with the content priority, task flow, among other things (remember we mentioned we’re not just taking care of the UI).
Prototype
The next step is to materialize the solution. I know that most of us are wired to look at code as our go-to solution but before opening the text editor, think if there are other tools you can use to build your prototype. Pen and paper perhaps? Explore different approaches. In the words of Bill Moggridge:
“It’s always wise to remember to use the dirtiest method you possibly can at the time. Use the quickest thing and the simplest thing at the stage you’re at”.
User testing
You wouldn’t release code directly to production without testing it first, right? Right? This is the stage in which we test our hypothesis with the prototype created. It is extremely important to try to validate as many design decisions as the budget and schedule allow. Learn as much about what is and isn’t working with your design.
This is a simplified view of the process. What’s important is to understand what each phase is trying to accomplish. Also, remember that the UX design process is a cycle with several iterations (just like many software development methodologies!).
Why is UX important?
Now that you have more of an idea of UX, I hope you’ll be inspired to help implement it in the projects you participate in. There’s not much point in creating software that doesn’t serve the needs of who’s using it. If that’s not motivating enough, think about how each day there are more options available to users. If yours provides the best experience, you’ll win them over.
To learn more
If I did my job right, now you have a clue of what UX is beyond a buzzword. However, there’s no way I covered everything you need to know. To get more in-depth knowledge on the topics discussed here or the UX field in general, check these out:
About UX
- Nielsen Norman Group (User Experience resources)
- What is design? (Video)
- What is User Experience Design? (Article)
- Don’t make me think (Book)
- UX is not UI (Article)
- UX for developers (Video)
- UX Magazine (Publications and UX resources)
- UX Mastery (Publications and UX resources)
- UX Myths (Blog)
- Usability Geek (Blog)
- UX lady (Blog)
- Creating Passionate Users (Blog)
- Serious pony (Blog)
About the UX process
- The UX design process: what clients need to know (Article)
- UX process (Article)
- UX Techniques (Techniques resource)
- Design research techniques (Techniques resource)
- Pretotype It (eBook)
I’d love to hear about your experiences as a developer related to UX! Or let me know of your thoughts and concerns on this piece.
Just shoot me a tweet at @VerobotLeon.
