From Architecture to User Experience Design
How my architecture experience helped me become a UX designer
I am a User Experience (UX) designer by profession and an architect by training. After graduating from architecture school, I worked as an architect (Alberta Association of Architects intern) for a couple of years. While architecture is a form of human-centered design, the user is bound by walls and the path is set in concrete. Based on my love for human-centered design and looking for a medium where users have the freedom to find their own path; I found UX design and made the career change. I’ve been working as a UX Designer for a couple of years now and, I find myself borrowing more and more from the principles of architecture. In this post, I would like to outline the 5 traits of architecture that helped me in my UX practice.
Top 5 traits:
5. Working in a Cross-Functional Team
4. Client Service Industry
3. Design Process
2. Navigation & Wayfinding
- User-Centered Design
5. Working in a Cross-Functional Team
As an architect, you are constantly working with Planners, Drafts-people, Structural Engineers, Site Inspectors, Interior Designers and more to fit all the pieces of a puzzle. For example, you have to make sure your air ducts don’t run into hot water pipelines and can be concealed for esthetics. It starts from the drawing board to the construction site.
While transitioning to UX design, the experience of working with a multi-disciplinary team came in handy. To design a holistic product experience, the ability to form cross-functional partnerships with Interface Designers, Researchers, Copy Writers, and Developers and many others, is indispensable.
To simplify the experience, one must completely understand the product. To do so, everyone involved in designing and building the product needs to come together. It is up to the designer to make sure the intent of the product isn’t lost while maintaining the aesthetics of it. Making the experience coherent and seamless. Or in some cases a logical one!
4. Client Service Industry
Architecture is a client service industry. Understanding that client needs are different from end-user needs, is important. Most times, a client may not know why their existing design doesn’t work and what goes behind-the-scene to make a product successful. Guiding them to the right design which meets clients’ needs without compromising user experience is never easy.
Some of the questions to ask yourself are:
a. What is the underlying problem here?
b. Is this the right experience for the users of the product?
c. Does the solution meet clients’ needs without sacrificing good user experience?
Identifying client needs is a skill set that should be in every designer’s tool-belt.
3. Design Process
This is my favorite one!
(Disclaimer: process in both disciplines have been over-simplified for this post. In both cases, the process is usually cyclical and often chaotic.)
The timelines between the two disciplines vary drastically but the essence of a good product, be it physical or digital, doesn’t change.
Every good product:
a. Has a meaningful purpose
b. Solves the real problem
c. Provides seamless experience
To arrive at the real problem, to deliver a seamless experience; a deep foundation that will stand the test of time, one has to dig deep into the problem. This is where my background as an architect helped me develop my:
a. Analytical thinking
b. Logical questioning
c. Research methodologies
Before sketching (wireframing), or even formulating the needs of the product, you need to do a few important things:
a. Interview the user and identify user groups and the goals for each; map out the path currently taken.
b. Decipher stakeholder needs.
c. Identify & understand the root of the problem that needs a solution.
d. Conduct research, collect data and plan the right experience.
Then you can sketch mock-ups and involve users as often. UX design gave me the ability to see it through the lens of a user before it gets built so I can fail faster and succeed sooner. An opportunity to iterate on your design- improve it until it solves the problem you identified. Because when you solve the real problem, the solution will always be beautiful and seamless.
“Good design is invisible” — Dieter Rams
“Less is more” — Mies van der Rohe
An architecture design process
A UX design process
Mockups in any design profession always start with sketches and (ugly) grey box.
Problem-solving and a purposeful idea lead to a strong concept for a design. Combine that with a beautiful and smooth experience, it will results in a delightful product.
2. Navigation & Wayfinding
When designing architectural places, navigation of people will always be the way to experience designer’s creation. Wayfinding is how people get to their destination, in the quickest way possible. If the design doesn’t provide for the shortest path, the user will create one.
UX design, in a similar fashion, opens doors to entries from unusual paths where sometimes the users may end up feeling unsure, and sometimes they might be entirely lost.
Some of the questions to ask yourself are:
a. What is the task at hand for the user and the shortest path to every task?
b. Where are users coming from and where are they going?
c. What information do the users have/ can see to get to where they are going?
Here’s an example from architecture:
Say you arrive at a new location, looking to meet your friend over lunch. You get to their building of business, enter through a lobby, look for the reception (hoping to find quick answers). If reception doesn’t exist, an information board with business names listed will suffice. You look for the business they work at and take the elevator to the floor it is on. You meet your friend at work.
Let’s do a mental mapping from physical to digital world.
Building = Website
Lobby/ reception = Home page
Levels listed = Menu
Individual business/ level = Landing page
It’s human nature to be aware of our surroundings. The easier and quicker we make it for the users to get from point A to B, the less cognitive load design will impose. The experience will eventually result in more satisfied users.
1. User-Centered Design
The user is the heart & soul of any human-centered design. As UX designers, we are designing for the screen but in reality, we are designing for the user behind the screen. Users will always behave the same to choices and hurdles, no matter the medium!
In and around buildings, people navigate physical spaces. Being something we have interacted with most of our lives, it has created a mental map of expectation in our minds. E.g, when we see a door, we expect to experience a different environment on the other side of it; when we see a corner, we anticipate a turn coming.
In the digital world, a user may run into a virtual wall, which cannot be perceived from a distance or unable to find what they’re looking for. The frustration is real. One bad experience and the user is out.
The following qualities in a product will always provide the best experience for the users:
a. It anticipates user’s needs
b. It doesn’t make a user think! A.K.A it is simple
A physical object has a clear advantage in its affordance. E.g, a child still learning to walk, knows how to interact with a chair right away- climb it, either to sit or stand on it. It doesn’t make you think!
A digital object can attempt to imply affordance by being simple. When a product/ task has only one way of approaching it, it will be straightforward. Just like a chair. There is no (or minimal) learning involved, it does not require picking up new habits. The process becomes natural, the task becomes easier!
Understand the user, the task, and design in a way that will always set them up for success.
Conclusion
UX design is relatively newer than some of the other, more established design professions. It has attracted people from a variety of roles and diverse backgrounds, which is now its strength. Many disciplines can contribute to it, so it can live within each discipline. The diverse minds we design for, need diverse minds to be designed by.
“To create, one must first question everything.” — Eileen Gray