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Foundations of UXD

User Experience Design

Get to know user experience design.

The user experience is how a person, the user, feels about interacting with or experiencing a product.

A product is a good, service, or feature.

It might be a physical product, like a video game controller or a bag of potato chips, or a technology product, like an app, website, or smartwatch.

For a user to have a good experience, the product needs to be usable,

equitable, enjoyable, and useful.

User experience is about improving usability or making something easier to use.

User experience is also about making things enjoyable to use, which creates a positive connection between the user and the product.

UX designers foster that positive connection by taking a user's thoughts and feelings into account when making products.

Considering the unique needs of many different people is important work and thinking about equitable design is key.

Being equitable means your designs are useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities and backgrounds.

So, how do we figure out what makes a user happy with the product?

That's where research comes in.

To know how users feel, we have to collect evidence on how they're experiencing that product in real time and ask them about it, too.

UX designers tend to be curious about people and like thinking about how people's minds work.

They also enjoy figuring out how people use products and how to make those products easier to use.

UX designers are empathetic too. Empathy is the ability to understand someone else's feelings or thoughts in a situation, and it's a major part of UX.

Jobs in the field of user experience:

In fact, there are many different kinds of UX designers: interaction designers, visual designers, and motion designers.

Let's start with interaction designers,

who focus on designing the experience of a product and how it functions.

They figure out how to connect the users' needs and the

business's goals with what's actually feasible to build.

Interaction designers focus on designing the experience of a product and how it functions.

They strive to understand the user flow, or the path, that a typical user takes to complete a task on an app, website, or other platform.

An interaction designer's work answers questions like: What should happen if a user taps on this button? How do we make this action easier for users to complete? And, how are the design elements within the website laid out? Interaction designers focus less on how the product looks and instead strive to make the product easy to navigate and simple for users to interact with.

There are also visual designers who focus on how a product or technology looks.

They might be responsible for designing

logos, illustrations, or icons.

They may also decide font color and size, or work on product layouts.

The goal of a visual designer is to delight users with designs that inspire, engage, and excite them.

Motion designers are another common type of UX designer.

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 a website.

Motion designers focus on design elements that move, rather than traditional static designs.

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

UX researchers often identify pain points that users are experiencing and explore how products can help solve those problems. They also explore the usability of existing products, by asking users to complete tasks in an app or website. The goal of UX researchers is often to understand how a product can provide a solution to a real problem users are having.

UX writers think about how to make the language within a product clearer so that the user experience is more intuitive. UX writers also help define a brand’s voice and personality. The work of UX writers often includes writing labels for buttons and determining the tone of language used within an app or website.

UX writers often become subject matter experts in order to present content that’s easy to understand for all users.

UX program managers ensure clear and timely communication, so that the process of building a useful product moves smoothly from start to finish. This might include setting goals, writing project plans, and allocating team resources.

UX program managers answer questions like: What are the overall goals for this project, and what’s the plan to achieve them? And, how can we create and improve processes within the team? UX program managers work across departments to make sure that UX is involved throughout a project lifecycle.

UX engineers translate the design’s intent into a functioning experience, like an app or a website. They help UX teams figure out if designs are intuitive and technically feasible.

UX engineers answer questions like: How do we implement each interaction? How do we build this design in a way that stays true to its original intent? And, how might we explore alternatives to determine the best user experience? UX engineers synthesize design and development, bringing product concepts to life.

Conversational interfaces are everywhere, from intelligent virtual assistants like Google Assistant and Siri, to interactive voice response systems like customer service systems you can talk to. Conversational interfaces even include automobile navigation systems and chatbots! Conversation design incorporates natural, real-world conversational behaviors into the interactions between users and these systems.

Conversation designers make it possible for users to have natural conversations to get things done. They leverage user research, psychology, technical knowledge, and linguistics to create user experiences that are intuitive and engaging. Conversation designers develop the “persona” or personality of the voice, as well as the flow and dialog of the interaction.

The product development life cycle:

The product development lifecycle is the process used to take a product from an idea to reality.

Every task you carry out during a project will be linked to one of the stages of this lifecycle.

A project starts out with a team trying to solve some sort of problem.

The problem usually covers how to develop a product that provides the best user experience.

There are five stages in the product development lifecycle.

The first stage is brainstorm. It's an active discovery stage that's all about generating

ideas about the user and potential needs or challenges the user might have.

During the brainstorm stage, the team generates ideas to solve a problem, understands the audience they're designing for, and identifies needs or challenges the audience may have.

Research plays a key role in this first stage because you're exploring different ways to get to know the audience you're designing for.

UX researchers and writers are often heavily involved in this stage, where the team might conduct interviews with potential users or conduct other research.

The second stage is define. Define is all about using the insights from the brainstorm stage and starting to narrow the focus.

During the define stage, the team determines concrete ways that

the product being developed will impact the user.

As a UX designer, you'll begin to think more about specific details related to the product,

who the product is for, what the product will do, and what features need to be

included for the product to be successful.

Statements that outline the goals or outline any problems you want to answer with the product design

are the focus in the define stage.

The third stage is design. In the design stage, UX designers begin to actively develop ideas,

and they also check that all specifications from the define stage are realistic.

The first two stages are more about preparation and planning.

They give you a clear understanding of who the user is, what the user wants, and which problems or

challenges you want to address in your design.

Using the insights from the first two stages, UX designers generate designs that keep the user top of mind.

You'll create many different assets, including storyboards, which are sketches that help

explore the user's experience, or wireframes, which

provide outlines of the content layout.

Or you might create prototypes, which are models that allow UX designers to test the functionality of a design.

The fourth stage is test. In the test stage, the team evaluates the product design

based on feedback from potential users.

Testing designs with users is really important because it helps the team focus on the user first and

foremost and the designs second.

Testing helps identify areas to refine or improve the designs.

It also helps UX designers consider the interactivity of the design.

This is a stage that involves lots of interaction between UX designers and front-end engineers

as they figure out ways to create an end product that satisfies users' needs and is practical and functional.

They discuss things like how the color or font can fit the company's brand or whether

the prototype designs are easily understandable.

Finally, the last stage of the product development lifecycle is launch or sharing a finished version

of the product with the public.

Launching can be very satisfying for you and your team because you

have the chance to understand how your designs will be received in the real world.

However, the work on a product isn't quite finished after launch.

You may still identify opportunities to improve on the designs or learn even more about

the user experience based on feedback.

This could involve going back to the design or testing stages and figuring out ways to

produce a more enhanced version of the product.

Now you've been introduced to the five stages in the product development lifecycle: brainstorm,

define, design, test, and launch.

Characteristics of a good user experience:

Good design is easy to spot but often hard to pin down. What exactly makes a product effective to its users? Is it a matter of simplicity, structure, or functionality? The answer depends on the product in question.

Primary characteristics of good UX are—usable, equitable, enjoyable, and useful—and can help you evaluate a product’s design.

If a product is usable, it means the design, structure, and purpose of the product is clear and easy to use.

If a product is equitable, it means a design is helpful to people with diverse abilities and backgrounds. In other words, the product’s design addresses the needs of a diverse audience and ensures a high-quality experience is delivered to all users regardless of background, gender, race, or ability. Equity means providing people with the tools they need to accomplish their goals and support improved quality of life.

If a product is enjoyable, it means the design delights the user. The design reflects what the user may be thinking or feeling and creates a positive connection with them. A product’s design doesn’t have to be enjoyable for it to function properly. But, an enjoyable design adds to an already functional product and can enhance the user’s feelings about the experience.

If a product is useful, that means it solves user problems. In other words, the design intentionally solves a user problem that the designer has identified.

Does the design add value to the user’s experience? Does the design solve a problem for the user? Does the design help the user achieve a specific goal? These questions can help you determine whether the design delivers a useful experience.

Examples of good design and good user experience:

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https://design.google/library/good-design/⁠

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Explore jobs in user experience:

Some typical responsibilities of entry-level UX designers:

Researching, wireframing, prototyping, creating information architecture, and communicating effectively.

UX designers use research to understand audiences and learn about their backgrounds; demographics, like age and location; motivations; pain points; emotions; and life goals.

An entry-level designer also creates wireframes. A wireframe is an outline or a sketch of a product or a screen.

It helps the designer figure out how a page is arranged, where each piece of a product fits in with the others, and how users will likely interact with the product. We can wireframe by drawing on

paper or digitally on a computer.

A UX designer will also create prototypes. A prototype is an early model of a product that demonstrates functionality, like a wireframe, but a lot more advanced.

While a wireframe gives you a general idea of where things go and how the product will function,

a prototype illustrates a progression from one screen to the next.

We can draw our prototypes on paper, create a physical prototype, or build a digital prototype.

Specialist designers are typically more common at larger companies where the organization can afford to have a large team of UX designers.

A T-shaped designer is a specialist who also has a lot of capabilities in other areas. T-shaped designers get their name because the stem (or vertical line) of a T represents their expertise in one area, while the top (or horizontal line) symbolizes their related skills in a broad number of areas. T-shaped designers are great to have on your team, since they come with the benefits of both specialists and generalists.

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