A Definitive Guide To User Experience

If you have started reading this guide, chances are that you have heard about the term UX and how UX plays an important role in your day to day life. Many of us have the misconception that user experience is all about making the aesthetics (Look and feel) of a website but that's not the case. There are also a few common myths surrounding user experience which will be unraveled in this UX guide. 

If you have started reading this guide, chances are that you have heard about the term UX and how UX plays an important role in your day to day life. Many of us have the misconception that user experience is all about making the aesthetics (Look and feel) of a website but that's not the case. There are also a few common myths surrounding user experience which will be unraveled in this UX guide. 

Myths About User Experience 

• UX design is all about the look and feel of the website
• UX design is a step in the process 
• UXD is about the digital product 
• UXD is about the user & usability

After you have finished reading through our short UX guide, you will have a fair understanding of all of the covered topics and also the Myths surrounding UX are no longer myths but demystified knowledge points. 

• What is the user experience? 
• What does user experience design mean? 
• What is a good user experience?
• What is a user experience designer job? 
• How do you create a good user experience?
• What are UX best practices? 

What is the user experience?

User Experience most commonly referred to as UX.

According to Don Norman who is considered as the father of user experience  “User Experience encompasses all aspects of the end-users interaction with the company, its services, and it’s products.”

As per ISO standards, the definition of user experience is a person's perception and responses resulting from the use and/or anticipated use of a product, system or service.

User Experience focuses on the end-user’s overall experience, including their perception, emotion, and actions towards a company, or it’s product or service or brand as a whole.

In Today’s digital world, customers neither have time nor patience to find something which suits their needs, they want quick and simple ways to meet their needs and solve their pain points. It doesn't matter whether you are a tech company or a niche business, Customers will bounce back if they do not find your website useful and easy to use, That is why UX matters very much for any company or brand.

What does user experience design mean?

According to Interaction design.org, the user experience design is defined as User experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. This involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability, and function.

Or 

According to Wikipedia, User experience design (UXD) is the process of manipulating user behavior through usability, usefulness, and desirability provided in the interaction with a product. User experience design encompasses traditional human-computer interaction (HCI) design and extends it by addressing all aspects of a product or service as perceived by users. 

In layman terms, the user experience design is all about making the experience for the user the best it can be while interacting with the system. The system here can be a website, mobile application, digital product, any legacy application, any community, etc. User Experience Design is a discipline followed by user experience designers. The three main aspects of a user experience design are ease of use, efficiency, and utility. The user experience is a convergence of business, technology, and users and will often bridge the gaps between these three disciplines.

What is a good user experience?

Design is everything, A designer should not only be concerned when a product/service is being used but also before it has been purchased and also after it has been used. Take an example of the smartphone, A designer not only cares about making the software easy to use, but they also care about the right marketing campaign, about creating a great on box experience and making troubleshooting as painless as possible. The good user experience should always address the actual problem of the real user who actually uses that product or service.  A good user experience design should fulfill the qualities of durability, usefulness, and aesthetics. From the age of 1980 and 1990s to these days, the designer still asks the same question which is how can they make the interaction with the computer or mobile or tablet or any product or service intuitive, smooth and pleasant as possible.

So let’s understand what good UX Design looks like through some concrete examples. The 10 websites that are handpicked to illustrate the specific principles of good UX Design, from simplicity to gamification.

What is a user experience designer job? 

A person responsible for user experience is a user experience designer, A user experience designer is a multi-talented and multi-skilled person who possess knowledge in the areas of cognitive psychology, design, and technology. These designers have a thorough understanding of the user goals, along with the business goals while designing a system (be it a website, mobile application, digital product) so as to make these systems intuitive, simple to use and easy to understand in fulfilling the user as well as business goals.

A good user experience designer will always be empathetic with the end-user while designing a system. The designer will use data qualitatively and quantitatively to validate their design hypothesis to build a solution that will impact the end-user life to a great extent.

When it comes to the everyday job of a user experience designer, it varies from company and company and to the specialization this designer is falling in to. We have explained in detail about various specialized roles of a user experience designer in the article.

But broadly the user experience designer is classified as follows.

1. Agency Side Designer

2. In House Designer

The user experience designer is involved in every step of the design process right from discovery to validation. However, the general function of the user experience design involves all of the following.

1. Conducting user research

2. Creating personas 

3. Information Architecture

4. Designing user flows and wireframes 

5. Designs prototypes 

6. Validating prototypes

It is worth noting that the user experience designers are not accountable for the visual aspects of the system. Rather their focus is on developing the information flow/logic in the form of wireframes and prototypes. They do so in solving functional problems, planning content and organizing system data

How do you create a good user experience?

The goal of good user experience is to help users do what they are doing while interacting with your business. This is a very interaction that your business has with people to interact with your website, mobile application, your product or service or (through any of online channels). And so when the user experience of your online channel is good, the chances of people engaging on your online channels increase as a result there are good chances engaged users can become a potential customer.

So, the question remains: How do you ensure good user experience and what are the principles to keep in mind while creating this good user experience? There are 10 usability heuristics that should be kept always remember while designing a user experience of any system.

1. Visibility of system status 

2. Match between the system and the real world 

3. User control and freedom

4. Consistency and standard

5. Error prevention

6. Recognition rather than recall

7. Flexibility and efficiency of use

8. Aesthetic and minimalist design

9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

10. Help and documentation 

Alongside the listed usability heuristics, the UX process is also very important in the creation of good user experience. Although there are different kinds of UX processes followed and may vary from industry to industry and company to company. The most popular one is the double design process introduced by the Design Council which classifies the whole design process into four steps and is detailed out below.

1. Discover: The first diamond helps people understand, rather than simply assume, what the problem is. It involves speaking to and spending time with people who are affected by the issues.

E.g: At this phase, the problem may not be clear, A percentage dip in sales can be attributed to customers who are not interested in your brand or there can be a PR issue. 

2. Define: The insights gathered from the discovery phase helps you to define the problem/challenge in a different way.

E.g: At this phase, you will have to define a problem that you are interested in solving 

3. Develop: The second diamond encourages people to give different answers to the clearly defined problems, seeking inspiration from elsewhere and co-designing with a range of different people.

E.g: At this phase, you may create wireframes or prototypes while exploring different things. 

4. Deliver : Deliver involves testing out different solutions at small-scale, rejecting those that will not work and improving the ones that will. 

E.g: There may be several options but here you will implement one best solution.

As illustrated in the figure, the design approach is not a linear one but an iterative process to learn, adapt and improve from the feedback. In the digital era, no idea is ever finished. It is a constant endeavor in making the product or service better by iteratively improving it.

What are UX best practices?

As new technologies are imagined and developed, the designers are given more complex problems to solve that have never been solved before. In order to stand the testament of time, the designer should follow best practices of the past which still be relevant, hone up new skills that set them apart. Here are the few best UX practices that might be helpful for a designer while designing a solution.

Useful – Content should be original and fulfill a need

Usable – Site must be easy to find

Desirable – Design elements bring about emotion and appreciation

Findable – Content needs to be locatable and navigable offsite and onsite

Accessible – Content needs to be accessible to people with disabilities

Credible – Users must believe and trust what you tell them.

Summary

UX Design is about enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty by delivering a positive experience at all of the touch-points customer experiences while interacting with a company or a brand.

UX Design Helps Your Business Grow Better

Whether you are Healthcare, Ecommerce, Retail, shipping, Banking, Hospitality or any other niche, UX design can help you and your company grows. A happy customer is a key to success in any business, and without well-crafted UX design, this would be impossible to achieve.

According to a study done by Forrester Research show that a well-designed user interface could raise a website’s conversion rate by up to 200%, and better UX design could yield conversion rate up to 400%. The metrics speak for themselves and with no further argument, it would be better to say UX should be integrated into everything your company does.

Does it seems interesting, Check out The Definite UX Guide curated by our in-house user experience experts.