In User(experience), we trust
UX… also known as User Experience.
It means “the overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use”. User Experience can be defined in multiple synonyms with heavy jargon but its core meaning lies within the two words ie “User” & “Experience”.
The “User” is the most important component while creating a UX. He browses your website & downloads your app. He would buy clothes from your fashion website, receive online consultation from a doctor or pick a ride from your app. A user takes 30–60 sec to delete an app due to a bad UX. To emphasize more, lets say you visit an e-commerce website, browsing some products, finalized your cart & boom…. Just when you feel you are nearly done with the shopping experience your checkout flow has multiple steps to complete your purchase which involves login creation, poor layout of billing information & shipping information, hard to find coupon benefits etc. To top it off — No progress bar. The user bids good bye.
To know your user, you most know your target audience along with having a well-researched product.
An app like snapchat or periscope will have a selective audience mostly within the age group of 18–30 in contrast to gmail users which could vary from a 13 year old school boy to a 87 year old nanny. A product like this multiplies your research by many folds.
Yes… Research is a good thing.
It does involve a lot of time management but understanding your users is a good practice. It will help you know your mistakes much before you would go into development. It’s a matter of finding that thin line which can lead an “Ok” idea into a good product or a pretty good idea into an irretrievable blunder. To know or to understand your user requires empathy. It requires the ability to understand & share the feelings of others. In fact UX designers must be humble enough to connect with their users. Here is a 4 quadrant diagram which shows how compassion & understanding help achieve empathy towards the user:-
The UX designer needs to have these set of qualities in order to achieve a good product. Along with these, their research must consist user interviews, usability plan, data gathering, persona creation, prototyping which ultimately leads to UI designing. Yet for some matter, the designer visualizes his design as he hears the one liner requirement.
We know everything
Many a times, the designer gets deeply involved with his work that he/ she completely ignores the real users. Fancy colors, slim fonts & pretty icons are his/ her priority or we might say his “good-to-go toolkit”. It just doesn’t involve designing a beautiful screen with subtle pastels & soft shadows where most of your users are above 50 years old with a probability of poor vision. To add to this, the UX designer tends to ignore the clients sensibilities. He believes that the client is not aware of the current design trends(which many times is true). Keeping this in mind, he must convey to the client what’s good for the product along with a thorough user-research. To consider the core requirements moving parallel with the current trends is for the designer to convey & for the client take what he/ she feels.
Customer is the King
The customer/ client is always right. It is his idea.. his baby.. his seed & his product. He has worked hard, gained experience & earned enough money to build his own product. All the decisions would finally go through him. Though in this case, the User is the King. They are in massive numbers & comprised of multiple demographics which ought to be considered. A product is not built for one person or for one’s self-esteem.
It is for the client to consider the UX research & value their inputs & the UX designer to cater to the requirements till a point of fruitful debate with the client.
