UX design is an emerging area for most digital start-up companies, the focus is enhancing the user experience. This chapter focuses on the strategies and principles applied to UX design.
Big Picture
User Experience (UX)
User Experience (UX) has been very popular since the advance of digital technology, particularly mobile app development. The process objective is to enhance the user experience to meet the needs and provide value to the customer. From a customer perspective the primary goal would be based on ease of use, usability and interaction with the product.
There are various phases within the UX domain, but at the highest level it is split into two main areas and both are important as each other UX Design and UI Design, the differences between these disciplines will be highlighted later in the section.
UX Design
UX Design is a process which is primarily driven from product developed in the view for the customer journey. Understanding the needs of the customer and improving the customer experience provides more thought around the holistic approaches to app design. UX is split into 4 main areas:
1. User Research
User research is a systematic process geared towards the analysis of the user experience with the objective of meeting their needs. This is achieved by the analysis and research of the product to be created. The User researcher will build and collate the market insights, the customers needs and expectations of what the requirements will achieve as a user.
2. Content Design and Strategy
Content design and strategy is an important part of UX Design, for UX there is a direct correllation between design and content, its not about the layout of the page, but whether the page address the user questions about it and provides the necessary answers. Is the product customer-centric and focused to improve the user-experience.
Most UX designers have a Content strategy that enables them to plan out the deliverables for this stage.
Once the content structure is understood, the design is prototyped with a series of mockups, techniques such as story boards or sketches are used to map out the style, interactivity for the proposed design, these techniques are vital to get the customer journey very clear. Finally a prototype design is created called Wire frames this can be done using tools like Balsamic.
Wireframes are a powerful techniques where a simple black and and white canvas features are used to help the UX Designer map the layout structure for an app or website without the bells and whistles. Think of it like a template. The UX designer will be able to setup up the hierarchy and the user flow, this will give a lot more insight on how the app will look and feel.
The hierarchy will allow the user to understand the navigation aspects of the app, which pages it will re-direct to once a button is clicked. Often the visualisation for wireframes allows the communication to go into great detail and depth. Factors such as what colour, images and types of buttons are not in scope at this stage.
A route map is then created to help the UX developers to understand the hierarchy and navigation aspects of the flow. The content strategy is to generate the idea, collaborate the approach and validate the design. Face to face Communication is imperative in this process and transparency of ideas needs to be shared to the wider team.
3. Usability Testing
Usability testing is the most vital part of the testing process this is not just about the unit tests, but more aligned to how the user experience unfolds, whether the user understands the content, the ability to navigate seamlessly when using the app or website. Observations are recorded in terms of questionnaires or feedback, this helps to validate the product to meet the user expectations.
Most UX designers have a Content strategy that enables them to plan out the deliverables for this stage.
Usability testing methods are structured in UX into a handful of disciplines. The common disciplines are highlighted below:
These are supervised test that are carried out by a User researcher, this is an interative approach to testing where feedback and questions are gathered.
This is un-supervised usability tests this can be in both a lab or home.
In Person tests are a one to one approach between a UX researcher and tester.
This is where the tester is being asked questions over the phone or on the internet. There may not be a UX researcher present.
These are tests where there are high engagement of ideas and conversation. Its focus is to get into the mindset of the user.
These provide an assessment of the users feedback and confidence in the product.