UX in a Nutshell and What User Experience Designers Do
The context of our online interactions has dramatically changed
lately, and in the recent years we have encountered a significant
shift in the field of technology;
Information Age has been replaced by the Experience Age.
In terms of web development, the most remarkable manifestation of
this shift is the emergence of a new field—user experience (UX) design.
User experience design grew out of web design, and while still too many
people thinks it’s just a new shiny name for the same old thing,
UX design does indeed need a different mindset, a broader methodology,
and a handful of new tools. As there’s a high demand for talented UX designers,
in this article we’ll have a look at what UX design is, and what you need
to know if you want to become one.
What’s UX? There are three concepts that are frequently used
interchangeably: user interface, usability, and user experience—
however they’re not the same thing. Probably the most important thing
to know is that UX is not UI;
on this websiteyou can download a “UX is not UI” poster in different
sizes, just to keep a reminder for yourself. Let’s quickly see a mini-glossary
of these three terms. User Interface (UI) A set
of visual elements that allow users to interact with a website or an
application, such as buttons, icons, navigation elements, tooltips, user profiles, etc.
Usability A qualitative measure of a UI that estimates its effectiveness.
According to the Nielsen Norman Group it’s defined by 5 components:
learnability, efficiency, memorability, user errors, and user satisfaction.
User Experience The sum of the postive and negative emotions and
attitudes a product invokes in a user. The goal of UX design is to create
as good experience in users as it’s possible by making simultaneous use
of multiple fields, such as visual design (UI design), business analysis,
marketing, content strategy, user testing, engineering, and others.