What is User Experience Design
User experience design (UX, UXD, UED or XD) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a product by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction with the product.
Elements of User Experience
User experience design includes elements of interaction design, information architecture, user research, and other disciplines, and is concerned with all facets of the overall experience delivered to users. Following is a short analysis of its constituent parts.
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Structuring, organization, and labeling
Structuring is reducing information to its basic building units and then relating them to each other. Organization involves grouping these units in a distinctive and meaningful manner. Labeling means using appropriate wording to support easy navigation and findability.
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Defining interaction patterns best suited in the context
Incorporating user needs collected during user research into the designs
Features and information that are important to the user
Interface behavior like drag-drop, selections, and mouse-over actions
Effectively communicating strengths of the system
Making the interface intuitive by building affordances
Maintaining consistency throughout the system.
In the last few years, the role of interaction designer has shifted from being just focused on specifying UI components and communicating them to the engineers to a situation now where designers have more freedom to design contextual interfaces which are based on helping meet the user needs.Therefore, User Experience Design evolved into a multidisciplinary design branch that involves multiple technical aspects from motion graphics design and animation to programming.
Usability
Usability is the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.Usability is attached with all tools used by humans and is extended to both digital and non-digital devices. Thus, it is a subset of user experience but not wholly contained. The section of usability that intersects with user experience design is related to humans' ability to use a system or application. Good usability is essential to a positive user experience but does not alone guarantee it.
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Human–computer interaction
Human–computer interaction is concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them.Human–computer interaction is the main contributor to user experience design because of its emphasis on human performance rather than mere usability. It provides key research findings which inform the improvement of systems for the people. Human-computer interaction extends its study towards more integrated interactions, such as tangible interactions, which is generally not covered in the practice of user experience. User experience cannot be manufactured or designed; it has to be incorporated in the design. Understanding the user's emotional quotient plays a key role while designing a user experience. The first step while designing the user experience is determining the reason a visitor will be visiting the website or use the application in question. Then the user experience can be designed accordingly.
Design
User experience design incorporates most or all of the above disciplines to positively impact the overall experience a person has with a particular interactive system and its provider. User experience design most frequently defines a sequence of interactions between a user (individual person) and a system, virtual or physical, designed to meet or support user needs and goals, primarily, while also satisfying systems requirements and organizational objectives.
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Persona (an archetypal user for whom the product or service is being designed)
Wireframes (screen blueprints or storyboards)
Prototypes (for interactive or in-the-mind simulation)
Written specifications (describing the behavior or design), e.g. use cases
Site audit (usability study of existing assets)
Flows and navigation maps
User stories or scenarios
Sitemaps and content inventory
High-fidelity visual mockups (precise visual layout and design of the expected product or interface)
General design process
UX design is a process which needs to be done with utmost care for which UX Design Experts are required.