What is UX, and what does a UX designer do?
UX design is a booming industry, job opportunities are rapidly increasing for UX designers, with an estimate of 13% from 2010–2020.
User Experience Design can feel like an intimidating field. There are a lot of terms that might look very unfamiliar like interaction design, information architecture…just to name a few. So let’s break that down and help us understand what UX really is, and what does a UX design actually do.
“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
What is UX?
User experience design, as its name suggest, is about designing the ideal experience of using a service or a product. However the term user experience is often used in relation to websites, web applications, mobile applications and other software applications.
You can add all the features and functionality that you like to a site or application, but the success of the project rides on a single factor: how the users feel about it.
“Humans have always been emotional and have always reacted to the artifacts in their world emotionally.” — Alan Cooper, President of Cooper
What is a UX Designer?
A UX design is the person who investigates and analyzes how users feel about the product that “x” company offers, therefore they can apply this knowledge and data to product development in order to ensure that the user has the best and “easiest” experience interacting with the product.
UX designers conduct research, analyze that date, inform other members of the dev team, monitor development projects to ensure those findings are implemented and much more.
He/she, makes sure the product meets the users needs and expected behaviors in mind.
Why does it matter, why its important for me to hire a UX designer after all?
The appropriate use of UX design offers a much higher chance that a product will be successful for your users, rather than failing. That being said, sometimes that is the exact reason why start-ups fail to achieve this and tend to skip hiring a UX designer for their project.
