The UX Design Process
The concept of User Experience (UX)has been in the design industry ever since the early 1990s when a cognitive psychologist, a designer, a father of the field and usability consultant named Don Norman, coined the term. Since that time the UX design process have been a topic of interest among designers and developers. Even though it has been quite long, the UX design process is still finding it roots in the design industry.
User Experience (UX) is any interaction a user has with a company, including its website, services and products.
If you are a UX designer your focus should be on making the user experience the best it can be. It starts by understanding what the user needs or his pain points using some laid down methods (will be discussed in the subsequent chapters). The UX designers design a website or a product and optimize it to ensure users have easy, efficient, pleasant experiences.
The UX Design process can be divided into 5 key phases and each phase plays a pivotal role in the design process. These phases are;
- o
- User Research phase
- o
- Analysis phase
- o
- Design phase
- o
- Validation phase
- o
- Implementation phase
In bigger companies each phase can be assign to separate units but in the case of start-ups or smaller companies, a UX design might be tasked to handle all the 5 phases. While the UX design process steps typically take place in that order, it is an iterative workflow. You will revisit the steps periodically during product development to optimize and refine your designs.
USER RESEARCH PHASE
The first step of every UX design process is user research. i.e. gathering the necessary information (needs, wants, goals, motivations, and behaviors) about the problem you want to solve in that particular space.
This step includes user research and market research, so UX designers can understand industry standards and find opportunities to create products that solve real user problems. Remember that the UX design process is a multidisciplinary field encompassing element of psychology, design, research, and technology, so therefore the designer must really understand that task at hand.
The following are some of the UX research methods you can deploy at the research stage;
- o
- Usability testing -This involves confining users and letting then test the product, it can be both internal and external. Internal in a sense that only the people in the company or around you test the product and external including demographics of a particular place.
- o
- User Interviews and Surveys – This can be done both remotely (google forms, etc) or physically.
- o
- Card Sorting – a research technique that helps users discover how people understand and group information and ensures you create an information architecture that matches users’ expectations
- o
- Benchmark Testing – a comparative performance evaluation measured against a standard (competitor, industry or past performances)
ANALYSIS PHASE
After the research phase, a large chunk of data is been collected by the UX designer and then enters the stage called the analysis phase for the data to be well scrutinized into important elements that will help you optimize your designs.
The data is compiled into two elements; user persona and user flows.
- o
- User Persona
oUser personas are fictional but realistic representations of your typical users. Each user persona typically includes characteristics like demographics, personality, pain points, motivations, and challenges. To be effective, they need to represent real people, provide an accurate picture of expectations, and provide insight into how users interact with a website or product.
oIn building a user person, demographics should cover at list a wide range to have different users’ opinion about the app or product to enhance diversity.
o - o
- User Flows
oThe UX designers create a user flow to map out the user’s journey and interactions with the product, identifying the steps they take to achieve their goals.
oAn accurate and detailed journey map helps you tell the story of your customer’s experience, so you can align your website or app with the things users are doing and thinking.
DESIGN PHASE
Once the research and the analysis phase is completed and the UX designer feels like they have a good understand understanding of the product or app at hand then they move to the design phase where they bring out the idea on paper (be it a sketch of the app of website and processes). During this phase, UX and UI designers work together to create the website or app.
The following are some methods that takes place in the design phase;
- o
- Sketching - The first step of the design process is sketching, or visualizing the ideas. Sketches are fast and often minimalistic drawings that designers typically do digitally. Sketches help designers get creative and propose early stage ideas to get feedback and collaboratively make decisions about the designs to move forward with. Sketches do not need to be visually appealing since is just the initial idea
- o
- Wireframing - Wireframing is an iterative process of creating low-fidelity visual representations of the product’s interface. It focuses on the layout, structure, and placement of elements without delving into visual details. In wireframing attention should be on low, mid and high-fidelity visual representations
- o
- Prototyping - Prototyping involves building interactive, medium- to high-fidelity representations of the product to simulate user interactions and test usability.
- o
- Visual design – This phase is dedicated to crafting the aesthetic and visual elements of the product's user interface, encompassing elements such as the color scheme, typography, imagery, and the overall visual identity. Its primary objective is to develop an attractive and harmonious design that is in sync with both the brand's identity and user preferences.
VALIDATION PHASE (UNIT TESTING)
During this stage the UX designers try to check whether their apps or products works fine for its intended purpose by engaging the users. It starts with the internal teams which later migrate to real users. This stage is crucial because it makes both the designers and the developers to identify the necessary flaws in the app or product so that they can rectify it before post-production. This helps to refine the UI and make it easier for users
IMPLEMENTATION PHASE
After all of the research, testing, and refinement, it's time for the big moment:
Releasing your product or app.
After the app is finally released, developers will continue to fine-tune minor issues. In addition, UX designers will collect data about how users interact with the site in the real world. They will use this information to improve the site during future iterations or during a UX audit
NB: Not all methods or processes have been outlined in this blog, this is a concise piece of writing, you are free to explore!
