User Experience and its Significance today

All along, you have heard a lot about User Interface. Whenever you are talking about an Application over the Web or Mobile, the first thing that comes into your mind is, User Interface. But, with the changing mindset of your online visitors and the extensive reach of your visitors to the Global Internet, User Experience is proved to be taking a dominant place. However, it is an adhesive to User Interface only, but the idea of User Experience starts much before that, which is called the Prototyping phase.

User Experience is something that gives a great mileage to a Business or a Brand. When you choose a career in UX design, it becomes fast-paced and challenging too. Let’s take a closer look at User Experience.

User Experience is something that provides a visualization of a User’s journey throughout an Application and the interaction-based reaction on different screens. It defines how the user will navigate, what all elements he/she wants to quickly access, what all items he/she wants to frequently use, what all to be put forward promptly, and so on & so forth. The purpose of User Experience is to set a comfortable, efficient, relevant, and pleasant experience for the user. UX designers are just not the web designers or the front-end developers; they are market researchers as well. They research many Applications and analyze the trend based on specific age groups or demography. UX designers create exceptional products that combine the latest trends, latest styling, interactivity inside the applications, and thus create a seamless experience in the products, processes, and services. They can build and set the expectations of the businesses out of their online visitors or users. Due to UX developers, your online visitors are converted into your potential customers and potentially become your actual customers.

Let’s look at some fundamental differences between UI & UX Design.

UI refers to the actual interface of the Application or the Product. It is the visual design of the App, with all the design elements like buttons, links, text boxes, active window toolkit, menu items, navigational touch-points, etc. UX refers to how interactive they can be made to reach the actual purpose of the Application to the business. Front End development tools are significant for creating User Experience. If you talk about React framework or Angular, intuitive User Experience can be designed. UX starts with the prototyping layout. There are a few online platforms where clickable Demo of the Applications can be created. Once those are made and presented to the businesses, it creates not only a visual experience but the cycle of conversion from an online visitor to a buying client. Especially for Social Networking, eCommerce, and Marketplace applications, User Experience plays a significant role.

UX Design Disciplines

UX can be divided into four major disciplines — Experience Strategy, Interaction Design, User Research, and Information Architecture.

Following are the details about each of these disciplines below:

Experience Strategy: UX brings enormous value to the business. ES talks about devising that strategy holistically. It bridges between the customers’ preference and the business need.

Interaction Design: It emphasizes how the users interact with the Application considering all elements of the design like buttons, text boxes, page transitions, animations, etc. Interaction Designers create intuitive designs for which your online users find less effort to accomplish the core task while on your Web or Mobile App.

User Research: UX is identifying the core aspects of the business, along with the most urgent expectations out of the Applications made live. Hence, User Research plays a very significant role in a successful UX throughput. During this research phase, UX designers will launch surveys; they will conduct interviews, they will use a lot of similar apps, they will go through all the latest styling and browsing trends and then create a plan for the UX development for the Application. They produce both qualitative and quantitative data to devise the right decision.

Information Architecture: It is the practice of information-organization and content in a meaningful & accessible way. It results in a pleasant journey for your Application users. IA defines the interdependencies and data interactivity between different design contents. It also pays close attention to the language in use and ensures whether the output is both convincing and consistent.

Role of a UX Designer

• During the inspiration stage, a UX developer (or designer, as you term it) understands and observes the customer and business needs. They do a lot of research and prepare a report and highlight the problem areas which they are trying to resolve with the output. This process can involve the interview process too, which is both toward the customer and the business ends. The developer/designer uses this feedback to set the goal and behavior. After this step, the User Flow is prepared. Once the flow is finalized, the developer knows precisely what all levels are required to complete a desired task. The tasks of a UX developer depend on the size and the specific needs of the business. In large companies, the tasks are divided into sub-teams, but in smaller companies, UX designers and developers need to do multitasking. Overall, UX is a great career opportunity these days for the developers. With the introduction of a lot of front-end tools, it is becoming more exciting as it also carries a unique business aspect too.