ux misconceptions
Having been a developer for many years, I wanted to evolve into something more. There was a disconnect between what I was developing, my client’s requests, and then the user’s actual feedback — which would often go ignored. Thus began my process of following the user-centric principles which I have been doing now for over a decade.
For years I referred to myself as a data-driven designer/developer. I have many disciplines that I had cultivated over the years to make sure my client’s websites, products, and services exceeded their expectations in addition to making sure that the consumer’s experience went beyond just creating a great design.
Now, as the User Experience labeled profession has been growing its community exponentially, and as ecstatic as I am about how ‘popular’ this area of expertise is now becoming, the problem is that many people still don’t know exactly what it is we do. With the increase in popularity over the years, it has quantifiably exploded the misconceptions about this industry amongst the population.
The plus side to this growth is that many individuals and companies now more than ever genuinely recognize the value and importance that proper UX planning has on products. Although the popularity has caused an influx for UX services, companies are attempting to ‘plug in’ UX methodologies without actually understanding why and how it should impact their product.
Having said that let’s dig deeper.
What exactly is User Experience?
User Experience (UX) is an adjective that describes an individual’s subjective perception and response as a result of interacting with a product, software or type of system. Whereas User Experience Design (UXD) is the creation of architecture and interaction models that affect all aspects of the users interaction with the product. How it’s perceived, learned and used.
Most people tend to confuse the two, and or think that a person who is in the UX field does UXD, however, this isn’t always the case.
The principal behind ‘user experience’ was introduced by Dr. Donald Norman and Jakob Nielsen, who championed the ideology that design decisions should be based on the needs and wants of the user. Segments of the UX profession encompass many different disciplines. It’s not just about creating beautiful wireframes, nor just Interface Design.
It is often stated that UX isn’t just a one-size fits all approach, which is indeed correct; however many people still fail to realize there is a larger depth to the field.
Below are other positions held within the UX community:
Researcher / Human Factors Engineer: Researching and providing a deep understanding and insight into user behavior, their needs, and motivations to then apply in the designs of products and systems.
Information Architects: Building expressive models or concepts of complex systems and information which is then organized and presented to others.
User Interface / Interaction Designers:
Focusing on the user data and research, they design interaction concepts that should effortlessly and seamlessly accomplish the user’s required or suggested goal.
Visual / Data-Driven Designers:
Relying on a fervent knowledge of graphic style guidelines, and design systems they turn their wireframes/prototypes into visual designs that evoke specific emotions and flow patterns.
What UX is not
Now that we know that there isn’t just one position for a ‘UX role’, hopefully, you can now see that UX isn’t just about design.
The visual design component is an integral part of your product and service, however, with regards to proper UX management — it’s discounting so many other steps. In a brief summary, there are the user’s needs, product/service objectives, actual functionality specs, requirements, organization of information (IA), wire-framing interaction design, information design THEN the visual and interface design process.
It’s not just a layer or checkbox that you apply to your system while building your product or service. Upon having a genuine understanding, UXD is really about being integrated throughout the entire process — not something to be tacked on at the end.
Another misconception is that ‘usability’ is paramount and king. True it is important and vital, however often times the amount of focus put into this one segment skews other important factors. Encompassing a good experience will cover the usefulness and usable nature, however, other key areas like desirability, sustainability, and social functions are considered to complete the blocks for a great experience.
Why UX is invaluable
Everyone will always have a reaction and response to how they perceive your website, application, product, or service. If they have a great experience, they’re more willing to forgive some mistakes if there are any, and if the experience doesn't captivate their attention and emotions they are likely to bail.
Embracing the UX methodology is an ideal way to help reduce risk in ensuring your product connects to consumers’ expectations in addition to meeting your business goals.
This ensures that happy users become happy customers and happy customers become loyal customers. By deepening the users’ engagement it helps keep competition at bay and users interested in your product/service at a cognitive and sub-conscience level.
Every business, large or small should be making a cognitive decision to make UX an important part of their process. A successful user & customer experience strategy aligns your business goals with your target audience and is monitored not by vanity metrics, but by actual data that will produce measurable results.
An example of fully executing a great UX strategy would result in fewer confused users. Having fewer users not knowing what, where, or how to do something with your product or service means fewer support calls and emails. This easily translates into either having fewer people fill those seats or freeing up time for other personnel to become more productive and actually work on making the product even better to increase sales!
Increase productivity, reduce costs, and increase sales; all by allowing the user to make intuitive decisions while using your product!
Check out (at least the first 2:30s) of this great video which explains some of the return on investment that companies receive by interconnecting UX principals into their products with Dr. Susan Weinschenk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O94kYyzqvTc&feature
Wrap up
I hope this helps those of you not familiar with this discipline, as well as for those of us finding our way within the UX field.
I’m sure there are a plethora of areas I’ve oversimplified, and some I’ve just flat missed. This isn’t an exhaustive list nor explanation — just my view on the industry and thoughts to help others have a better understanding.
