User Experience, simplified.

There has never been a better time for me to write about this today. A quick browse over any job site or forum reveals a profusion of User Experience positions. One needn’t be a genius to notice the demand is there, and it is huge! But where has this all come from?

“User Experience” is such a nebulous term. People often misunderstand, misuse and a number of people don’t even know such a term even exists. What is User Experience or UX, as it is called sometimes? Why is that we call it User Experience Design?

There are numerous definitions as to what “User Experience” is and what does a User Experience Designer actually do. User Experience in simple terms is a User’s “overall experience” when interacting with a certain product or service. How they feel, respond, react, interact, execute their task on the product, what issues they face, etc; there can be multiple such questions when it comes to studying the users. Studying those traits of your user, in technical terms -

Studying your user’s behaviour and designing a flawless experience with respect to your user’s needs is what’s called “User Experience Design”.

The main purpose of UX Design is to create such a seamless user experience for the product that, the moment a user is to perform a certain task for the very first time on it, they should be able to find their way around within no time without thinking twice. That’s called great user experience design. The basic motive of UXD is to solve problems, it makes people’s lives easier in ways we don’t even know or can think of. In my opinion, it is spread everywhere and in each and everything has a little bit of user experience in it.

When as a UX Designer you are working on a product or providing any service, you are designing, developing and working on it for a generic or a specific audience. So, when you are doing so, you need to know your audience well — The USER.

1. Who is your user?
2. Why does he need your product/service?
3. How will your user use the app?
4. How often will your user use the app?
5. What’s the quickest way around the app for the user?
6. What’s the existing method being used by the user to get his task done?
7. What issue is the user facing?
8. How can we make the user’s task easier?

These are just a couple of questions which revolve around the mind of UX Designer, there are hundreds more. User Experience Designers are able to offer great marketability, branding and usability through visual design. UX and Web design inhabit the same space. UX is a form of web design. A pure web designer — who doesn’t develop — requires the same skills as any good UX Designer should have. Of course, roles differ from job to job. Sometimes they compliment each other, sometimes they don’t.

One thing is for sure, UX Design as a field is on the rise and is one of the most sought after and well paid jobs around world which for sure is going to be for a very long time!