UX (User Experience) or User Experience is not a new concept, but it is more important than ever.
For almost every business, in almost every market, whether you're launching an app or a highly interactive website, UX is a key aspect of delivering seamless user experiences.
UX, once a niche concern, has officially become the hotshot.
Simplified, UX is an approach that allows your users to navigate your website or app seamlessly and with ease, providing a smooth experience of your brand.
It combines elements of design, psychology, research, technology and business to deliver the best user experience.
The importance of UX should not be underestimated. About 30% of people will not return to a site after a bad user experience and that number will only increase.
Whether you are a large, medium or small company, User Experience should be an important factor in your design process.
What is UX: a definition
UX is the user's ability to navigate your website, app, or devices — and it considers the thoughts, feelings, and emotions they have during the experience.
It's a human-focused way of designing, led by the question: How will people interact with my website or app? Is it easy to navigate? Can I find what I want? Does it load fast? Is the language digestible?
The term UX has been around since the XNUMXs, coined by Apple cognitive scientist Don Norman. Norman says the main purpose of UX is to meet the exact needs of the customer.
UX is at the sweet spot between technology, people and business. Understanding the end user, building empathy through user research, understanding business objectives, highlighting the value and use of each resource, and understanding technology, to use the best tools to create effective and efficient designs for your end users.
Why Design UX Matters
Simply put, UX saves your organization time, money, but also effort at every step of the design process, and brings long-term value to your business.
While UX is often assigned to websites, it can also apply to apps, or any type of product or service that evokes a particular experience.
What are the factors that affect the user experience? Simply put, UX addresses four key questions:
- Is it easy to use?
- Do you have a small learning curve?
- Is it efficient?
- Is it intuitive?
Answering these questions can help you discover what's most important to your business.
Whatever your reason for looking at UX whether it's lower maintenance costs, a great return on investment, or a user-centric mindset, there are a number of benefits.
Getting design and UX right is critical to business success, but companies don't always value its importance and neglect graphic design to focus on business tasks. Regardless of how your company optimizes UX, there's no doubt that it matters in all of your projects.
Humanization
Emotional connection is another powerful tool in the UX arsenal, even the most logical and rational people can have impulses for emotions, it's what makes us human.
Emotions are used in UX all the time and incredibly influence good design when used correctly. Understanding how to use emotional design in UX is important to stand out.
A lot of people tend to think that the design is how something looks, the flooring, the exterior, but in fact, it's just as important that it works well.
Design is also about how it works, not just what it looks like.
Understanding UX is definitely an important skill to have within your company, so even if you don't hire an expert, it's always good to have someone on your team who has received UX design training who will have the skills, experience and confidence to immerse yourself in the difficult tasks of this demanding field.
A good UX design can have a range of features, but some of the basics that are always present are:
- Reliable (does it work as it should?)
- Conversational (is the tone of voice correct?)
- Encouraging (is it an improvement on something that already exists?)
- Fluid (is it intuitive and easy to use?)
- Utility (does it work quickly and effectively?)
- Shareable (can you share it easily?)
The difference between UX and UI
UX vs UI are often confused, even by industry professionals and. So what's the difference between User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI)?
To oversimplify, UX is how someone feels about their design, their thoughts and feelings, while UI is how they interact with it, its features and functions.
Many people see it as UX vs UI, but it's actually UX & UI. They are related, not opposed.
The UX is defined as a human first way of designing, while the user interface is the first resource. UX is a journey, while ui is the travel destination.
UX and UI should be part of a successful design process as they meet different needs and desires, so understanding the importance of both is vital to designing the best product for your users.
UX application
A designer's UX implementation can sometimes be overlooked, and not everyone adheres to UX design principles, so it's essential to understand the kind of tasks a designer conducts. Obviously, every designer and company is unique, but let's look at some general examples of what tasks a UX designer does.
- Conducting user surveys: This will help the UX designer to learn about users, their goals, as well as their needs, motivations and behaviors.
Based on the research, the designer creates personas to identify the main user groups, which will help the product design.
- Information Architecture (AI): Using persona search, information architecture is the structure of design — it comes in the form of navigation, categorizations, and information hierarchies.
- Wireframes: These are then made from the above stages and used to get some initial feedback, to create, as the name suggests, a skeleton or wireframe of the finished product.
- Prototyping: if wireframes are equivalent to blueprints, then prototypes are 3d models; they will give a much more accurate representation of the final product.
- Product testing: This helps designers find and fix any potential issues during user interaction with the design. Which is usually done in person to help measure behavior.
Putting UX into practice and applying it to a website doesn't have to be a difficult task. In fact, many website building platforms incorporate a UX level into their tools. But if you have the budget, hiring a UX expert is always a good idea.
Get expert help for a UX design
UX can make or break a deal, especially with such competitive and saturated markets. It's never been more important to ensure you get this design aspect right.
The world of UX design is vast and complex, but with the help of the right expert you can revolutionize your website, design and business. Smart designers understand the importance of developing winning UX and UI.
It is the responsibility of a UX expert to come up with ideas that increase the usability of a website. It is that professional's job to ensure that all available content is pertinent, relevant, as well as valuable – otherwise, what reason would users have for interacting with it?
With Colors Agency, we guarantee much more than just an attractive look and a modern layout for your website.
Our main focus is to offer companies around the world effective solutions, that is, to generate visibility on the internet.
Our agency develops SEO strategies as well as brand positioning for multinational companies, large, medium and small, all projects are important to us.
