Week 1: What is UX?

“You cannot not communicate. Every behaviour is a kind of communication. Because behaviour does not have a counterpart (there is no anti-behaviour), it is not possible not to communicate.” — Paul Watzlawick’s First Axiom of Communication

As I have been reading through Joshua Porter’s “52 Weeks of UX”, I decided that I wanted to write quick reflections on each lesson, every day.

Apparently the first rule of UX design is: everything that a designer does affects the user experience.

So how do we make sure that the decisions that we implement are communicating the intended message? We need to continually ask this question — “Does this element (ex. copywriting, color, alignment, layout, typography, etc.) support or contradict what I am trying to communicate to the user?”

By being this detail oriented and purposeful, you will improve the “little things.” And these little things make a big difference.

But wait … what is user experience? When I first heard of this term, I thought it had to do solely with product experiences. I didn’t understand that user experience is actually all the interactions a person has with your brand, company, or organization.

The interaction designer plans for all of these moments. All of these touch-points are important parts of the larger system.