UX — What User Experience Design Is, & Isn’t, and Why It’s Important? (Part 1)
What User Experience Design Is, & Isn’t, and Why It’s Important?
This is a long series of tutorials. We are going cover:
What User Experience Design Is
As technology increases, the information increases and there are a lot of choices out there. So, having a product, an application, a website or whatever that doesn’t deliver a real value to the users and back the to business, then people won’t stick around and product will fail. This is because people have infinite number of choices, and there are many other applications that do the same thing.
User Experience Design (UXD) is becoming a critical part in our life, It’s actually built in everything we touch or interact with.
Here are 10 Answers to “What UXD Is?” ….
1. What Wikipedia says
User Experience Design (UXD or UED or XD) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the product.
2. UXD is actually the process
UXD isn’t a step in a process, UXD in fact it’s the process, starting from requirements elicitation to having a tangible product, that’s all part of UXD.
3. UXD is about studying user experience
When we experience a website, maybe to buy something, we make some decision while surfing this website. UXD is about studying that experience(considering all actions user can make) while interacting with the product, enhancing that experience, satisfying their needs, and making sure we are providing a real value.
4. UXD is about knowing your users
UXD is about understand people and how they will react, their need, what do they love, hate, what’s appropriate for them, their technical limitations, …etc.
5. It’s a value loop
UXD goal is to provide a value to target users, and also meet business goals. If there is no value to users, there is no value coming back to the business.
6. UXD isn’t a checklist
UXD is an ongoing effort, learning about users, and responding to their behaviors to evolve the product.
7. How product behaves and used
UXD simply refers to the way a product behaves and used in the real world, which has to meet the goals of both the user and the organization.
8. UXD equation
UXD is a combination of business goals, user goals, user interface, and back-end process(which will enable the interface to do it’s job).
9. UXD attributes
UXD attributes are useful, desirable, accessible, credible, findable, and usable. These attributes can make the biggest impact and create the most value for customers, and they should be considered in every project.
10. UXD is a problem solving process
UXD is problem solving process, it’s all about identify the right problems to solve, their priorities, impact, & the value will be delivered. It uncover the business and user goals, and areas where two overlap.
What User Experience Design Isn’t
UXD isn’t User Interface Design (UID)
UID is part of UXD. UID is applies to what people see on the screen, their arrangements, styles, fonts, colors and so on. If UID is not appropriate, not effective, then people won’t stick around.
UXD isn’t only about technology
It’s not only about websites and mobile applications, it’s also about any product, any artifact, such as microwaves, kitchen faucet, doorknob, and so on. Everything we contact with has some aspects of UXD built into it.
UXD isn’t just about usability
It doesn’t mean the product is usable, people will use it. What users feel when they use the product, considering different situations is also part of having a good UXD.
UXD is not just about users
There are business goals that need to be met as well, and can’t be ignored. We just can’t always do what’s best for the users, like when the product doesn’t sell. So, we need to consider both, the user’s needs and business goals.
Why User Experience Design Is Important
There a lot, even endless, reasons for Why should We Care About UXD, and Why User Experience Design Is Important?
Your product is used by people
Everything we create will be used by people, unless you are creating something for yourself!.
Better Experience
Because what we want is a better, more fulfilling, more valuable experience. We user needs, and business goals to be met.
Respect by giving back value
We want to respect the time users spent on using our product by giving back what they are looking for. Even if we don’t have what the user is looking for, we can still add a value by providing external resources or references to get more information.
Same across different channels
Users have expectation that whatever the device they use(mobile, tablet, PC, …), it behaves the same way across all devices.
In fact, the majority of users choose good design over the brand loyalty, meaning if the user has been an Apple user, buying Apple products, the moment Apple disappoints the user, the user will look elsewhere.
Different situations and preferences
Because methods and devices we use to access information is based on the situation and preference, like when we at the supermarket and we want to check the price of something, we will pick up the mobile phone, and good UXD makes the experience the same across all methods and devices.
Task completion doesn’t mean success
Because we need to meet our success goals or metrics, and not only concerned about if a user completed a specific task or not.
A person who got the desired results from our product(i.e. purchased an item, downloaded a movie, …), mightn’t come back if our product is not easy to use, maybe he was forced to use that product for a specific reason.
Good UXD makes things enjoyable
UXD make things enjoyable! UXD has the power to make the emotional need of a user satisfied along with the functional need.
