Interface is a part of User Experience Swapping UX with UI design,
as if the two are the same, is a common mistake among many designers.
It’s essential to understand the difference between the two disciplines,
and we’ve covered the topic of UX design in detail in the article What
You Should Know About User Experience. In short, User Interface the
space where interactions between humans and a product occur, while User
Experience is an emotional outcome after interactions with a product.
2. Know your audience
User research is a natural first step in the design process It should
come as no surprise that one of the most important factors you should
consider when designing a product is the audience. If you plan to design
a product your users will love, you must have an idea of what your
audience actually wants and needs. And this means user research should
be an essential part of the UX design process. It’s critical to keep
your users top of mind before you start designing! This will allow you
to provide value for people who’ll use your product and focus on
benefits instead of features.
“People don’t buy products, they buy better versions of themselves.”
Designers should be able to recognize when to stop adding features and
keep constant what people love about an experience. Image by
useronboard.
3. You are not the user
Testing with real users is an essential part of the design process
Designers often assume that people who will use their interfaces are
like them. As a result, designers project their behaviors and reactions
onto users. But thinking that you are your user is a fallacy. This
effect in psychology is called the false-consensus — a tendency to
assume that others share our beliefs and will behave similarly in a
given context. Most probable, the people who’ll use your product have
different backgrounds, different mindsets, different mental models, and
different goals. In other words, they are not you. There is a technique
the helps designers overcome false-consensus bias, called usability
testing. If you want to build products that users love, then you have to
focus on testing. Testing with real users (not your teammates, friends,
or family) allows designers to learn how to create products that are
right for those who will use them. This may be time-consuming, but it’s
the only way to be sure that you’re moving in the right direction.
UX design is about making assumptions and then validating them through
testing.
4. Adapt design for short attention spans
Don’t overwhelm users with too much information An attention span is
defined as the amount of time someone concentrates on a task without
becoming distracted. A 2015 study conducted by Microsoft found that the
average human attention span has declined from 12 seconds to 8 seconds.
This means that we now have a shorter attention span than goldfish.
Designers need to adjust to cope with this behavior, with the goal of
getting people the information they need as quickly as possible.
Modern apps and websites need to provide meaningful content that users
can digest. Image by safertech.
Designers should simplify interfaces by removing unnecessary elements or
content that does not support user tasks. One technique that allows
designers to achieve that is functional minimalism. At the same time,
this doesn’t mean that experiences should be limited. All information
should be valuable and relevant.
5. The UX process isn’t set in stone
your design process for the product you design UX process is a
make-it-or-break-it aspect of UX design. Without a solid UX process, a
designer could be completely moving in the dark. A clear and concise ux
development process, on the other hand, makes it possible to craft
amazing experiences for users.
General UX design flow. The UX process depends heavily on the project.
Many designers believe that there’s one universal UX process that can be
applied to all projects. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as
one-size-fits-all UX design. While it’s possible to define individual
steps for each project, a precise UX process should always be selected
based on project requirements — each project is unique and has its own
needs. This means that to create the best possible user experience a
designer should be ready to adapt their design process based on project
specifics. For example, if you are designing a new product you might
need to spend more time on user research and requirement clarification.
But if you’re redesigning an existing product then you might need to
spend more time on design validation (conducting usability and A/B
testing, or working with analytics reports).
5. The UX process isn’t set in stone
An app or website should always keep users informed about what is going
on As one of the original 10 of
Jakob Nielsen’s heuristics for usability
visibility of system status remains among the most important principles
in user-interface design. Users want to know their current context in a
system at any given time and apps shouldn’t keep them guessing — they
should tell the user what’s happening via appropriate visual feedback.
Providing instant visual feedback, such as an animated indicator when a
user initiates an operation, is a great way to inform users that an
interface is working.
You can use a simple animation, such as a loading spinner, as a feedback message to inform your users that the system is processing a request. Image by Tumblr.
