User Experience Design (UXD) - Getting Started.

User Experience Design (UXD) - Getting Started.

To a couple of beginners out there looking to start a career in UX Design, or perhaps you have little to no knowledge about UX design, you're on the right article. Together, we will walk through the basics of User Experience Design. Shall we begin?

What exactly is UX Design?

On the basic level, we can define UX Design (which is short for User Experience Design) as studying user behaviors and understanding user needs, wants, and motivations, the ultimate goal being to design better digital experiences for the users.

In our day-to-day lives, we all come across diverse systems or processes, some quite enjoyable, others quite the opposite. Now and then, we hope that life gets better - maybe it does get better, but some processes make it all get better. UX Design is one of these. UX Design seeks to understand the users' pain points and improve the product for ease of user interaction.

Photo by Alvaro Reyes on Unsplash

Who is a UX Designer?

In simple terms, a UX designer does UX Design. A UX designer works to optimize the interaction between humans and products. You are in charge of ensuring that people are satisfied with a product in general as a user experience designer. Consider yourself the customer's champion, constantly seeking methods to enhance the client's experience.

The UX designer's job would be to mix desk-based and field research to acquire a complete understanding of the audience they are designing for. This might involve examining the features of the present website, speaking with current users to determine opportunities and pain spots, and conducting competitive research to find out what more is available.

Other duties of a UX designer range from creating user personas to determining information architecture, creating user flows and wireframes, prototyping, testing, and creating visual designs.

The UX Design Process

Here are six (6) steps of an effective design process.

  1. Learn to understand

  2. Do your research

  3. Sketch, analyze, repeat

  4. Design + test

  5. Develop + implement

  6. Evaluate

How do you tell when you're done and, more significantly, when you've been successful? In UX design, you're never finished. There are methods to improve the UX for increased performance with every new version.

The easiest approach to determine whether a product is successful is by asking its consumers whether they use and interact with it. What are people saying about it on social media and in reviews? Does the product seem to be taking off in the market? Tracking your product is a crucial, continuing step in this process and these are all critical topics to think about. Your responses will define the best course of action as your product develops, whether that be further study, analysis, or redesign.

What makes a Good UX?

Here are a few highlights of the primary characteristics of a good UX.

  • Usable: When a product is usable, it indicates that its structure, design, and function are all obvious and simple to understand.

  • Equitable: Equitable design benefits users of all backgrounds and abilities.

  • Enjoyable: If a product is enjoyable, it means that the design delights the user.

  • Useful: A product's design must purposefully address a user issue that the designer has identified if it is to be considered useful.

Different Kinds of UX Design Roles

  • Interaction Designers: They focus on designing the experience of a product and how it functions.

  • Visual Designers: They focus on how the product or technology looks. They are responsible for designing logos, illustrations, and icons.

  • Motion Designers: They think about what it feels like for a user to move through a product and how to create smooth transitions between pages on an app or website.

  • UX Designers: They focus on how users interact with a product

  • UX Writers: They think about how to make the language within a product clearer so that the user experience is more intuitive.

  • UX Researchers: They conduct studies or interviews that examine how people use a product.

Why pursue a career in UX Design?

You may use your creative and analytical abilities in a variety of sectors as a UX designer, depending on what interests you. Because your job will change from day to day and project to project, you'll have the chance to acquire and develop new skills throughout your career.