The user experience is how a person, a user feels about interacting with or experiencing a product.
UX is also about making things enjoyable to use, which creates positive connections between a user and a product.
The goal of UX design is to create easy, efficient, relevant, and all-around pleasant experiences for the user.
According to Laura Klein:
“If UX is the experience that a user has while interacting with your product, then UX Design is, by definition, the process by which we determine what that experience will be.
UX Design always happens. Whether it’s intentional or not, somebody makes the decisions about how the human and the product will interact. Good UX Design happens when we make these decisions in a way that understands and fulfills the needs of both our users and our business.”
Anytime you interact with a product or service, you have a user experience. This might entail navigating a mobile app, browsing a website, interacting with a physical product (like trying out a new running shoe), or taking advantage of a service (checking into a hotel or using public transportation for example). The term user experience (UX) refers to all aspects of this interaction.
Why is Ux design important?
From a user perspective, good UX design ultimately enables us to go about our daily lives as effortlessly as possible. From setting an alarm to chatting with friends online, listening to music, or using a calendar app, the ease with which we complete these actions is the result of good design.
When designing these experiences, UX designers must consider how they can bring value to all kinds of users.
Below are some points you should know why UX is so important:
UX tries to fulfill the user’s needs and builds a better customer satisfaction–conversion–retention journey.
UX aims to provide positive experiences to the user that keeps them loyal to the product or brand.
UX defines customer journeys on your product and establishes a two-way relationship between the maker and the user.
UX reduces costs for development/bug fixing/marketing and so on.
UX provides improved return on investment (ROI)
Sometimes the product doesn’t need to be innovative. It simply takes the usual idea and represents it differently. The user-focused design makes the product stand out.
UX helps provide intuitive experience, coherence & continuity, and platform-specific designs.
What does a UX designer do?
As a UX designer, it’s your job first and foremost to advocate for the end-user or customer. Whether you’re designing a brand new product, coming up with a new feature, or making changes to an existing product or service—the UX designer must consider what’s best for the user and the overall user experience.
At the same time, you are also responsible for making sure that the product or service meets the needs of the business. Does it align with the CEO’s vision? Will it help to increase revenue or retain loyal customers?
UX designers are responsible for more than just the product experience and product lifecycle—they’re key players in the entire customer lifecycle.
As for the kinds of projects you’ll work on, this will vary dramatically from company to company, as will the size of your team, and your priorities.
Despite the variety the role offers, there are some general functions that a UX designer can be expected to perform, including:
Conducting user research
Creating user personas
Determining the information architecture of a digital product
Designing user flows and wireframes
Creating prototypes
Conducting user testing
It is important to be aware that UX designers are not typically responsible for the visual design of a product. Rather, they focus on the journey that the user takes and how the product is structured to facilitate this journey.
What skills do UX designers need?
UX designer needs to practice certain soft skills and hard skills to become successful UX designer. Below are mentioned some:
Hard skills :
UX Research
Wireframing & prototyping
Visual communication
Interactive design
Design thinking
User flows
Interaction design
Testing designs
Decision mapping
Information architecture
Visual & UI design
Soft skills :
Empathy
Organization
Curiosity
Do user experience designers need to code?
In short, no. User experience designers don’t need to code, although it’s definitely a nice skill to have. Even if UX designer doesn’t code themselves, they’ll be working with engineers and developers that code for them, so it’s useful to understand coding capabilities.
Tools for UX designers
No matter how long you’ve been in the business, there will always be tools to help you get your work done more efficiently and accurately.
A few of them I am mentioning below:
Figma: a collaborative, web-based, vector graphic edit and interface design tool
Adobe XD: a vector-based experience design platform
Maze: a rapid user-testing platform for user experience prototypes—gathering user feedback from real humans
Sketch: a collaborative digital design app for Mac
InVision: a digital product design platform
Webflow: a no-code, visual canvas website builder.
Wrapping up
Whether you're building a digital product or showcasing a service, you'll need some talented user interface designers and user experience designers on your product team from day one.
No matter what you're building, the end-users are human users, and it's the designers' prerogative to lead with that notion in mind.
UX design is all about the experience. If you’re not building a positive product and brand experience for your customers, you’re not building a business. Your end-user needs to be your first user, and you can do this by hypothesizing, testing, and building people-conscious products from day one.
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