The User Experience & User Experience Design
The terms User Experience & User Experience Design have been widely promoted during recent decades, especially, when astonishing products and various successful companies are referenced to. But the majority still don’t understand what UX means and the differences between UX design and other design fields. In this article, we will go through related keywords and common questions.
What is a User?
We will start defining the first keyword - USER. The users include all the individuals who are affected by the system, product, or service. The system incorporates ordinary websites, APPs, ATMs, vending machines, ticket machines, and so forth. The product can be the common objects in our daily life, like doors, light switchers, kettles, or bottles. And the services, in economics, indicate the intangible acts or uses that help people achieve their goals, examples include the activities done by banking, barbers, and lawyers.
With a comprehensive consideration, we will be surprised to discover how many parties will be affected by the systems in addition to the end-users. In the book: Information Technology And Organisational Change, authored by Ken Eason, three categories of users are identified due to the different types of human-system-interaction:
Primary Users: Those who interact with the system/product/ service directly and frequently, usually are referred to as the end-users.
Secondary Users: Those who interact with the system occasionally. Or who might interact with the system/ product/service indirectly, but receive output from it. It might be the support or service providers of the primary users or the individuals who receive messages or bookings from the primary users.
Tertiary Users: Those who have no access to the system/ product/ service, but be affected directly. For example, the company owners and investors are categorized as tertiary users.
What is User Experience?
After we understand what a user is, the next question will be: What is User Experience?
User Experience is also named UX or UE. The common explanation is that the User Experience is how users interact with a system/product/service.
To be more specific, the User Experience includes the end-users’ emotions, attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors before, during, and after using a particular system/ technology/product/ service to accomplish a task. The UX designers consider all stages of the experience and take care of how users feel, think, need, and behave in each step.
“You have 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) to make a good first impression!”
The User Experience is everywhere in our day-to-day life, from switching on or off lights, pouring tea out of kettles, to changing channels with a TV remote. And in the digital world, the entire User Experience of websites/ Apps starts before users enter the site (or open the Apps) and continues with users visiting, browsing, purchasing, and exiting. And after users left the site, the User Experience continues with users' post-experience or even offline behaviors.
Why pre-visits and post-visit of users are also essential stages for a good User Experience? By understanding the emotions, thoughts, and behaviors of users' pre-visits, UX designers could come up with better strategies and solutions to address users' needs and underlying struggles, and further, help companies to attract more site visitors through better UX and leave stronger impressions toward users' visits.
During the visits, a good User Experience enables users to find the information they are looking for, and complete the form or order smoothly without distraction or interruption. And even after users leave the websites, the good User Experience will continually bring positive feelings, thoughts, and memories that make users revisit the websites repeatedly and share their good experiences with other users.
In the following video, Don Norman, the co-founder and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group, shares the origin and his thoughts about the term User Experience:
What is User Experience Design?
Most people view Design as the pretty appearances, good-looking interfaces, or stylish products. However, those understandings are only the surface or the outcome of Designs.
Design implies a rational, constructed, logical method of problem-solving, the entire process includes understanding, in-depth research, analysis, defining problems, finding solutions, development, and testing. And the design process is an ongoing journey.
The design persists to improve, adapt and adjust, not only to look for better solutions but also accommodate according to the new technology, human behaviors, and expectations.
As belongs to one of the Design fields, the Basic Design Principles and Design Thinking method apply to the User Experience Design. User Experience Design (also named UXD, UED, or XD) is a rational and logical process of creating a meaningful experience to meet end-users needs and help them achieve their goals.
Furthermore, as the human has multiple senses to experience and interacts with the systems/ products/ services, and with the technology innovation, the User Experience Design has extended beyond the traditional Product Design and overlaps with other design fields, such as Interactions Design, Visual Design, Sound Design, and more.
What makes a good User Experience?
The User Experience Design is all about Users. The goal of User Experience Design is to assist users to achieve their goals as smoothly and simply as possible.
The User's Goals can be opening the door, filling the water in their cups, finding the information online, or purchasing flight tickets through an App. However, if users encounter unpleasant experiences during their process, this experience is still seen as a bad UX even if they complete their goal.
The most famous example is the Norman Door, which refers to the poorly designed doors that confused users. The experience starts before users encounter a door and continues when they stand in front of the door and don't know whether to push, pull, or even slide to open it. During the experience, users try to open the door through failed attempts, for example, pushing.
Even in the end, users successfully open the door and pass through, the confusion and failed endeavors still cause negative emotions in users, thus, it is a bad User Experience.
So what does a Good User Experience look like? According to the Fundations of UX design offered by Google, the basic evaluations for Good UX are:
Usable: the design, structure, and purpose should be easy to understand, users could use it or learn how to use it with minimum effort.
Equitable: the systems, products, or services are designed for individuals with various backgrounds and abilities under different circumstances.
Enjoyable: the entire experience delights users and creates a positive connection, as it reflects users' emotions, thoughts, and needs.
Useful: the purpose of design is to solve users' problem, thus, one of the important indicators of good UX design is if the design services users' need and solve the problem.
“Good design, when it’s done well, becomes invisible. It’s only when it’s done poorly that we notice it.”