How can you design engaging and delightful user experiences that are still functional and easy to use?

It's important to evaluate our own solutions in order to create a desirable user experience. Evaluating solutions through critic groups, and beta users can help us understand the extent to which we have understood our users. Involving beta users and critical evaluators at this stage aids in discovering many insights about our solution and also familiarizing ourselves more with the mindset and expectations of our target audience. Critical evaluators are individuals for whom our solution addresses their main problem, and they have sufficient information and a precise understanding of the issue at hand. Moreover, based on the experiences they have gained from different experiences and solutions, they can more easily critique our solution.

Understanding future users is critical and usually a big challenge in UX research. Empathy is a key ingredient, but the term itself is often ill-defined and hard to operationalize. In my experience it is worth asking open-ended questions that reveal inner belief systems, motivations, coping mechanism and frustrations with existing products or services. Using the 5-why questioning technique can be a great tool to dig deeper into user’s minds. But often small things that may be cast aside during the interview can make a huge difference. So, it’s imperative to have a transcript of the interviews and to read it carefully afterwards. AI can help you create transcripts and make sense of vast amounts of transcript data.

Lifehack that I call - two birds with one stone Don't forget about competitors. Their users are your direct audience, you can learn more about competitors and you will learn more about your users and the weaknesses of your competitors

The best way I have found to understand my users, is to first interview them, running through a list of discovery questions about their wants and needs, in the systems they are currently using. This along with surveys and contextual inquiry make up the three-pronged approach, great ways to learn and verify their experience. Once analyzing what I heard, I draw journey maps for each role, noting specific pain points and if possible review with them or others in the same role to be sure I have all the data. From there, I work with the design team to further analyze these results, review initial prototypes and set up time with participants to gather needed feedback, before any development begins.

The most important and yet undervalued technique is observation (or contextual inquiries). This technique will give you the most rich data and is also usually the cheapest way to uncover and understand your user, the tasks they perform and how they overcome obstacles. Often users do not know how to explain how they complete tasks or they may not even be aware that they are doing (not doing) something. Always consider including one or two of these in your user research

Value proposition is important but needs to be embedded in a broader vision of what the product or service should accomplish and how. In my view using a more comprehensive canvas to define an MVP is often more helpful. Because the MVP canvas forces you to name not only the value for one customer, but for at least three stakeholders. It also lets you think about business models, product vision and product features. But also how the added value can be measured and tested. This is all very important to reflect before start building a product.

Ask "Who w?ll pay for this?" We never do it as designers yet it's super important. When someone is willing to invest in the product, it's a clear indication of genuine need. It's essential to remember that a paying customer is a committed user. This ensures that what we're crafting not only stands out in its value but also resonates deeply with those it's designed for. It's a powerful validation that what we're creating genuinely matters and addresses a real need in the market. This perspective sharpens our focus, ensuring that every design choice is geared towards creating something that users truly value and are willing to invest in.

In reality, all markets overloaded and your company wouldn't be unique, so better to focus on improving user experience than create a new feature. Like reducing the steps of checkout or instant login to the app with Face ID

Creating a great user experience starts by figuring out what makes your product special. Understand how it solves user problems, meets their needs, and stands out from the rest. Use tools like a value proposition canvas to express and test your ideas, making sure your design goes above and beyond expectations. By defining your value proposition, you're not just offering a solution but a way for users to reach their goals and fulfill their desires.

I once received valuable advice on value from a mentor who transitioned from academia to the tech industry, working for companies like Meta. Their research initially revolved around tracing the journey of crystals mined in the global south to new age spiritual shops in North America, seemingly unrelated to tech user research. However, it showcased a deep understanding of how to perceive value. Value, as my mentor emphasized, is the core of what makes research significant. The skill of studying, comprehending, and conceptualizing what people value is highly versatile, applicable across various contexts. It's a skill that proves invaluable, whether you're exploring the origins of crystals or deciphering user needs in the tech world.

This is usually overdone. People's emotional lives are so busy and cluttered they come to a software solution to take care of a task quickly. If the app's feature is user-friendly, then you are good to go!

I've experienced firsthand the transformative impact of associating specific colors with user actions and emotions. The simplicity of linking green to "confirmation" and red to "rejection" creates a visual language that transcends cultural and language barriers, promoting instant user comprehension. This approach not only streamlines the user journey but taps into the psychological impact of colors, fostering user confidence and reinforcing a positive emotional interaction loop. This case is a nuanced yet powerful design strategy that elevates the overall user experience by making interactions more intuitive and meaningful.

Emotions from a UX standpoint are not just the result of good or bad UI elements. It’s more complex than that. The user’s aspirations and the concrete usage situation is often more influential then we like to admit as designers. Ask yourself: How does the product feature fit into the overall user journey? How does a user’s intent at any given situation translate into information architecture that gives the user to best experience? How can the user find the information she looks for in the simplest way? How can this also be a delight and fun to do? How much cognitive load does the user have to invest to achieve goals? Of course a confusing UI is a huge hinderance, but it’s not just red or green buttons.

In 2023 the best way is animation. I strongly recommend you focus on animated interactions and humor. You will reach success with emotions by using a proper balance for these too

IIn order to design for emotion, you must understand how to elicit a certain type of emotion. I recommend reading the "emotional design" by Don Norman and "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" by Nir Eyal. these two books help you with understanding how to start emotional design.

Aesthetics seem like a separate step that you add in order to create a product, but they should really be just the logical step after knowing your users’ journey, aspirations and the way they’ll use your product. Aesthetics should be the consequence of fitting information architecture, great usability and delightful features that make sense for a user. Keep in mind, that the brand aesthetics are important, but sometimes need to be adapted in order to make a product truly recognizable from a brand point of view.

Striking a balance between aesthetics and usability is crucial in design. While creating visually stunning designs can be rewarding, it's essential to ensure that they don't introduce unconventional UX patterns or accessibility issues. Such design flaws can confuse, frustrate and even exclude users, preventing them from accomplishing their goals. If aesthetics ever compromise usability, and prevent users from performing an action, the design has failed.

Explore Apple's products. They are PROs in this question. Moreover, they dictate the rules on the market, so your design should be done in the way how users got used to see

When creating usable products it’s important to consider accessibility as well. People with disabilities are very common, it’s not just those who are blind, deaf or in a wheelchair. Anybody who has broken an arm might appreciate being able to use the keyboard instead of the mouse. There are a lot of other factors to this of course, but generally the WCAG standard should be your primary source for measuring and evaluating if your products are accessible. As the saying goes, accessibility is “necessary for some, helpful for all”.

In my experience, finding the sweet spot between aesthetics and usability is a crucial aspect of user experience design. Aesthetics contributes to the visual appeal, while usability ensures efficiency. Striking a balance is key for crafting engaging experiences. Leveraging design principles like contrast, alignment, and consistency allows you to create designs that are not just visually pleasing but also highly usable.

How many perfectly designed products are totally ignored by users? User experience is a living thing! Actively seeking user input throughout the process, not just in testing phases, helps ensure that their needs and preferences are consistently integrated into the design. It's not just about fixing what's broken, but about continually honing and refining, even in areas that are already performing well. This approach ensures that the end result isn't just functional and engaging, but also deeply resonates with users on a personal level.

Testing is super important and it shouldn’t be the last step in your product development. Testing should be integrated into the entire design process from the start. Lo-fi prototypes are a great way to test product ideas early on. You can even co-create with your users. Users love to get involved early and have a say in creating great things. Later in the process, designers need hypotheses for testing. At the latest when you start testing your UI. Lean UX provides a great way to conduct hypothesis-driven testing. Don’t start before you don’t know what you’re testing for. In this regard, also come up with metrics for success or failure.

Set clear performance metrics before testing, allowing you to gauge success objectively. Whether it's conversion rates, bounce rates, or user engagement, having measurable goals keeps your iterations focused. One last thing encourage a culture of continuous improvement within your design team. Embrace the mindset that every iteration is an opportunity to enhance the user experience, and celebrate the small wins that contribute to the overall success. Good luck :)

Feedback as a survey would really help you to understand the issues in your app, which will provide you with one of the cheapest and most effective results

In every case, at the end of the project, it’s necessary to test the product as much as possible before putting it into production. Test within your team, test with people in your circle, test with beta testers - however you can, just test. And analyze the feedback you receive to ensure that nothing else needs to be changed and that your product is crafted the way it should be.

In my experience, to craft compelling user experiences, focus on user-centric design by thoroughly understanding user needs and preferences through research and personas. Simplify the interface, ensuring clarity and ease of use. Prioritize responsiveness and accessibility, guaranteeing a seamless experience across devices and inclusive accessibility for all users. Embrace a culture of continuous improvement by iterating based on user feedback, ensuring the design evolves to meet evolving user expectations and preferences.

Read widely about UX design to expand your knowledge and understand experience and how colors, and sounds affect it. Extra tip: If you find yourself curious enough, read about psychology, neurology, and philosophy these topics give you broader view of the essence of experience design.

Artificial intelligence is a great way to support and enhance UX design. AI can support the research and ideation process, crafting transcripts from user research, comb through vast amounts of user reviews to find problems or give you new insights. AI helps creating and running personas (silicon sampling). There are more and more tools out there that automate the design process for UX designers. And AI augments designers’ abilities to understand massive amounts of data, giving inspiration and hands-on support. It’s worthwile to incorporate AI into UX.

Simple is better. Intuitive products don't need complex UX or flashy UI. User tasks and goals should be the focus. Simplify processes and ask what's essential. Create engaging and functional designs by prioritizing simplicity.

The incorporation of emerging technologies such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and immersive experiences will play a key role in shaping the future of user experience design. Striking a balance between preserving functionality and cultivating aesthetic and emotional connections will be crucial in capturing user preference. The ability to seamlessly integrate these futuristic elements into the user interface will distinguish exceptional design from the ordinary.