What is User Experience Design (UX Design)

By Roman Berezhnoi May 20, 2019 5.36K views

What is User Experience Design (UX Design)

What is UX Design? In short, this is a comprehensive approach to user interaction with the interface, be it a website, a mobile application, or any other program.

Web apps and mobile apps continue to grow in number each day. The methodologies and technologies that power these web applications also become more advanced and complex with each waking day. User Experience Design takes advantage of these tremendous advancements to develop systems and products that are efficient and user-friendly.

Professional UX designers, Web Development Agencies or studios look at the changes in technology, trends and methodologies and tweak them to work together in giving users the best possible digital experiences.

If you want to hire the right UX design agency, you should read the article 7 Interview Questions to Ask Any UX Design Agency

A brief history of UX Design

In the earlier days of Web Design, building a website paid little attention to what we call today “user-oriented design”, “web accessibility”, and  “usability”. So web development was solely based on what the creators thought was cool and what they wanted their clients to see.

However, as the early 1990’s saw computers proliferate in workplaces, the game started to change. Gradually, Designers came to realize the need to develop interfaces that interact with their users. Thus, a famous user experience architect, Donald Norman came up with the concept of making design decisions based on user needs and wants. This was termed as user-centred design and later christened as User Experience Design.

Nowadays UX design has significantly moved the focus of web development. The right UX design is a part of business success, especially for startups.

How User Experience works

Every website, software, or web application has an important component of HCI – Human Computer Interaction. Thus, the success of such systems is primarily pegged on how the users perceive it in terms of usability, accessibility, and performance among a myriad of other factors. That is why UX design is a vital part of the professional web development.

UX designers therefore study, analyze and evaluate a website and enhance it in terms of performance, ease of use, perceived value to users, utility, and efficiency and so forth, creating a great User Interface Design as per your business goals and consumer needs by:

  • Formulating a strategy that matches your goals to the needs of the users
  • Developing web-systems that are perfectly matched to the functional specifications of your business and content preferences for the target consumers
  • Creating a unique web structure based on the desired information architecture as well as the trends and flow of users on your website.
  • Relying on a bedrock of highly-responsive and interactive web designs to create inspiring user interfaces.
  • Employing the very best in creativity to build aesthetically-pleasing visual displays.

How UX Design works

8 Principles of the immaculate User Experience

The visual hierarchy directs the visitor’s view.

The Visual Hierarchy is an important principle of web design and user experience (UX), and should not be overlooked. it should always give immediate answers to the users’ following questions, regarding your product:

  • What is it? (Knowledge of the product)
  • How to use it? (ease of use)
  • Why do I need this? (How important or beneficial it is for the user)

When properly applied, the visual hierarchy tells you where to go next and what to do.
It enables the user to distinguish the most important points from the less important ones without wasting them a great deal of time.  

Empty space for concentration.

Empty spaces or white spaces are spaces in-between graphics blocks, columns and text fragments. They are important because they emphasize on the clarity and help the user distinguish easily all components of your site. Empty spaces are not necessarily white, they can be of any colour as long as they fulfil the intended purpose.

Navigation should reflect the user’s path. 

A user shouldn’t feel like hunting a treasure while browsing your landing page. Just imagine how frustrating it is, when you spend much time on a page without being able to get what you want. The next thing you would probably do is to close and never open it again. Remember, your aim is to drive more traffic to your page in order to turn a potential visitor into a buyer. To achieve this, you should highlight the main areas of interest such as consultation request, registration for a trial, demo etc. In other words, make sure that the navigation of your site is as easy as possible for an average user.

Adaptability, responsiveness and mobile friendliness are a prerequisite.

If your site is not optimised for mobile devices, there is no better idea than to start doing it now. Studies show that the number of people using smartphones to connect to the internet keeps increasing significantly and according to Statista, in 2019 the number of mobile phone users is forecast to reach 4.68 billion. In addition, some smartphone users, admit that mobile experience has a great influence on their decision to buy a product. As a result, a poor User experience can leave a bad impression on the users and lead them to shy away from your services. That’s why, you should always provide the best experience regardless of the web browser and the device used, by making responsive design.

Some elements should not be changed. 

In this ever-changing world of web technology and web design, every marketer wants not only to keep up but also to be ahead of others. There is nothing bad in this desire as long as innovations attract the audience. But users have expectations about which elements should be on a page of business website or application and you should make sure you meet those expectations.

For example, when you click on the logo in the upper left corner, people expect to get to the main page. Do not deviate from such patterns and expectations in the design. Otherwise, you will confuse visitors and create a negative experience.

Realistic expectations build confidence.

The last thing we want is to mislead our potential clients. Be honest in the description of the products or services so you can increase the credibility of your site.

If you are selling software, then add screenshots. If this is a physical product, download high-quality, detailed photos and videos. According to researchers, video content motivates 73% of users to buy.

Tests – the constant assistant

When designing a landing page,  put yourself in your visitors’ shoe, and try to imagine how they would interact with the resource. Unfortunately, many digital marketers take this for granted and your business loses a profit (read F5 Studio’s study  how hidden website menus hurt revenue).

Tools like Google Analytics will show what your users are looking for, and in general will improve the experience on the landing page.

Keep it simple!

Make sure your landing page is simple enough and does not make users think too much. Remember: the ultimate goal is to turn into them into customers. Therefore, users should easily find the answer to basic questions. From the UX point of view, follow these guidelines:

Colours – for a harmonious design, we recommend using 3 colours (up to 5 if needed but not more)  in the proportion of 60:30:10

Fonts – we recommend using no more than 2 fonts per page: one for the main text, the other for headings. Just make sure the fonts are easy to read.

If you want to introduce a new element to the landing, ask yourself: “How will it increase the efficiency of the resource?”. 

5 EXAMPLES OF A GREAT USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

We made a selection of 5 great User Experience below to give you a better understanding of what a good User Experience Design looks like.

Starbucks: User-oriented

Starbucks ux design example

Starbucks makes it easier for their customers to choose items from their purchase history. They use smart personalization in their mobile application to understand the users’ purchase histories and provide them with a good User Experience The Starbucks app also allows users to add items to their favourite list so that.

Duolingo: simplicity

Duolingo ux design example

This is one of the language learning applications that provide the best User Experience. With Duolingo learning languages has never been easier. A new user has to answer just 3 simple questions and get started. Users can set their goals, monitor their progress, and have fun learning. This approach is much better compared to Rosetta Stone where users have to go through a  lengthy process(sign up, and pay) before they get started effectively.

Google: speed

Google ux design example

Users have very busy schedules and they wouldn’t like an app or a website that has a slow loading speed. Google store website is a good example of websites that provide a good User  Experience through speed. The website doesn’t just load in a fraction of second, it is also efficient.

Graze: Let your design speak for itself

graze ux design example

Graze is a perfect example of websites that use wording and design with personality. As you can see, there is no need to click on a link to be directed to a different page to check the price or have additional information. The image alone tells you all you need to know.

Yelp: find what you need

Yelp ux design example

Yelp helps people find businesses or events based on their location. The search result page of yelp displays review and filters that help users the perfect events, destinations or businesses. In order to offer more effective services, Yelp uses Google maps to display information such as hours, directions, top reviews, tips etc.

You can find examples of UX design in our portfolio.

If you need the best corporate website for you company, you can read this article.

How Is UX Important?

All systems benefit from a solid design of their user experience. As a matter of fact, almost every product offered by any Web Development Agency in the market today features one form of User Experience Design or another.

Any UX/UI Design Agency must ensure that every website as a minimum is:

  • Functional in that it works as it was programmed to and just as users expect it to.
  • Reliable to users by being always available, accessible and offering accurate information.
  • Useable and user-friendly 
  • Convenient to the user in terms of ease of use and performance
  • Leaves the users with a pleasurable and memorable experience that compels them to spread the word
  • Offers a meaningful and personal significant experience to the user.
  • From recent Google updates we know that UX is the important part of SEO

Why do you need UX?

  1. Increase brand loyalty

People interact with you to solve some of their problems. If they are satisfied with the experience of interacting with your product, they are more likely to continue using it and will recommend it to their friends. Thanks to the good UX design, users become the “advocates” of your brand.

  1. Increase profits

One of the best ways to get people to buy your product is to make the process as simple as possible. UX helps to achieve the ultimate goal of the user, and if your product is able to meet this goal, then, without a doubt, you should invest in a positive experience. In the case of an eCommerce site, a good UX provides the visitor with smooth browsing and a quick ordering process, which leads to more transactions and, consequently, an increase in profits. 

  1. Save time, money and resources

A good UX prevents endless error correction, meaningless waste of time and money on reworking the site. In addition, if your product is intuitive to use, it does not need any user documentation or user manual, which saves you money.

Examples of Some Ideal Beneficiaries of UX Design

  • Complex websites such as e-commerce sites that are multifaceted and involved interaction-rich applications which need UX design since their success is hinged on users finding them as being valuable, efficient and pleasant. F5 Studio web agency top-rated UX desiners (by DesignRush) can help you fo any copmlexity tasks.
  • Small enterprises and startups may lack the manpower and resources to hire full-time
    employees to interact directly with every user. Hence UX will not only helps the company stand but will also enhance customer satisfaction even without direct interaction.
  • UX designers are an excellent choice when trying to cut both cost and time simply because they do most of the tasks traditionally done by web designers and web developers.

When talking about the importance of UX Design in web systems, Susan Dray said that if a user isn’t able to use a system, then that system doesn’t work and is bound to fail.

The best way to create a positive user experience is to engage your users in a dialogue. Let them tell you what works, and – more importantly – does not work, so you can always provide the best experience for them. To achieve business goals with right UX design you can contact experts from F5 Studio.

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