Methods of the UX Process
UX (User Experience) is very important for most of the company, in almost every market, whether you’re launching an app or highly interactive website, UX could also be a key aspect of providing flawless user experiences. UX, once a distinct segment concern, has officially gone mainstream.
User Experience (UX) is an approach that allows your users to interface your website or app without confusion and with ease, providing a smooth experience of your brand. It combines elements of design, psychology, research, technology and business to supply the simplest experience for the user.
The importance of UX shouldn’t be underestimated. Around 30% of individuals won’t return to a site after a nasty User Experience which number will only go up as UX becomes more prevalent. Whether you’re a multinational organisation with a long-time presence or a startup creating your first website, User Experience must be a crucial thing about your design process.
Let’s differentiate between UX and UI-
UX vs UI are often misunderstood, even by industry professionals and thus the lines are often blurred. Then, how can we differentiate between User Experience (UX) and interface (UI)? To be more elaborate, UX is how someone feels about your design, their thoughts and emotions whereas UI is how they interact with it, its features and functions.
Many people view it as UX vs UI but in reality, it’s UX & UI. They are related, not opposing. UX is described as a folks-first way of designing whereas UI is feature-first.
UI includes the look, feel, responsiveness and interactivity of a brand. A recent UX trend you’d possibly not even notice is UX and UI centric is dark mode or themes, which are designed both for look and functionality (UX and UI).
Methods of the UX Process
There are a variety of steps to travel through when developing user experience. Here are 7 basic steps to start with:
1. User Profiles and Personas
The first step within the process is going to know your audience. This allows you to evolve experiences that relate to the voice and feelings of your users. To start this, you’ll want to make a user persona, which may be a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer supported marketing research and data on your existing audience.
When you finish developing your user persona (or personas), you’ll have the profile of the person(s) your site entertains. Creating a persona consists of diving into your site’s statistics and other customer data while also conducting internal and external interviews and surveys. You can even ask “look-alike” audiences that reflect an equivalent trait as your current users.
2. Interface Testing
When you’re building an interface, the more data you’ll collect, the higher. Arrange a study to match the effectiveness and quality of experience between different user interfaces, including your current site. Something as minor as changing one word could impact the effectiveness of your page.
One most powerful tool for interface testing is Google’s Optimize platform. With Optimize, you’ll split your website impressions into two groups and show each of those groups a special version of pages on your site. Once you’ve got a statistically significant sample size, you’ll see which version is outperforming the opposite and make adjustments accordingly.
3. User Surveys
Interview existing and potential users of the system to realize insight into what would be the foremost effective design. Because the user’s experience is subjective, the simplest way to directly obtain information is by studying and interacting with users. An element on the page that you simply thought was working might sound completely invisible to the user, so a first-hand view of the way they interact with the web site can provide valuable insights.
4. User Flow Diagram
Make a flowchart revealing how users should move through a system. Start by deciding how you expect them to maneuverer through the location, then compare it to how they really interact with it. User personas will assist you here — once you understand the profile of the user on your site, you’ll better plan the optimal experience for them.
5. Sitemaps
Once you’ve studied the user flow visitors expect on your site, thorough planning is important. Start by building a sitemap for the pages you’d wish to create. A sitemap could also be a clearly organized hierarchy of all the pages and subpages within your site.
Creating a sitemap makes it easier to imagine how a user will get from point A to point B on the online site, and therefore the way many clicks it’ll fancy roll in the hay. Rather than implementing structural changes once the location is made, a sitemap helps your team eliminate bad ideas early while simultaneously showing you all the pages you’ll eventually need to design and write content for. It is an efficient tool for adding efficiency to the web site building process.6. Wireframes and prototypes
The visuals on each page matter whilst considerably just like the location structure, so invest time into creating wireframes, which are visual guides that represent the skeletal framework of web pages and supply a preview of your site’s look and feel. With a visible website framework in situ, you’ll eliminate usability issues before any page hits a display screen. This can save your company development time for necessary adjustments down the road.
6. Design Patterns
Patterns provide consistency and how of finding the foremost effective design for the work. With interface design patterns, for instance, picking the proper interface (UI) elements (e.g., module tabs, breadcrumbs, slideshows) surely supports their effectiveness results in better and more familiar experiences.
One tool that helps us manage UI consistency is style tiles. Style tiles are deliverables that show the planning of all modules on a site, right down to font sizes and colours. This document includes things like buttons, layout type, and even interactivity. Style tiles ensure a user will have a smooth experience across the whole site so they’ll be ready to better recognize the way to interact with the site’s elements.
7. Style Guides
Consistency is condemned to designing a memorable user experience through a brand. Style guides give writers and designers a framework during which to figure when creating content and building a design, and that they also make sure that the brand and style elements align with the owner’s goals.
Making your style guide is definitely accessible to anyone performing on a replacement website. One element on a page that doesn’t match up together with your brand’s image or voice can stick out as a sore thumb. If you don’t have a method guide, considering building one. You will get surprise how useful it’ll be, even beyond designing your site’s UX!
Conclusion
The world of UX design is vast and sophisticated, but with the proper expert’s assistance you can revolutionize your website, design and business. Smart designers know the importance of developing winning UX and UI.
Also Read Blog – The Principles of Website Usability