User experience design is the process of enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty by improving
the usability, ease of use, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the customer and
the product. User experience design encompasses traditional human-computer interaction design,
and extends it by addressing all aspects of a product or service as perceived by users.
User experience is any aspect of a person's interaction with a given IT system, including
the interface, graphics, industrial design, physical interaction, and the manual.
History The field of user experience design has roots
in human factors and ergonomics, a field that, since the late 1940s, has focused on the interaction
between human users, machines, and the contextual environments to design systems that address
the user's experience. With the proliferation of workplace computers in the early 1990s,
user experience became an important concern for designers. It was Donald Norman, a user
experience architect, who coined and brought the term user experience to wider knowledge.
The term also has a more recent connection to user-centered design, human-computer interaction,
and also incorporates elements from similar user-centered design fields.
Elements of user experience design With the rise of the information age, many
generalizations of the components have been based on the building blocks of the user experience
design of digital systems. User experience design is primarily defined as encompassing
broader topics that include talk of user's emotions, the appeal of a UI, and visual design.
Visual design Visual design, also commonly known as graphic
design, communication design, or visual communication, represents the aesthetics or look-and-feel
of the front end of any user interface. Graphic treatment of interface elements is often perceived
as the visual design. The purpose of visual design is to use visual elements like colors,
images, and symbols to convey a message to its audience. Fundamentals of Gestalt psychology
and visual perception give a cognitive perspective on how to create effective visual communication.
Information architecture Information architecture is the art and science
of structuring and organizing the information in products and services, supporting usability
and findability. More basic concepts that are attached with information architecture
are described below. Information
In the context of information architecture, information is separate from knowledge and
data, but lies indefinitely in the middle. It is information of all shapes and sizes:
websites, documents, software applications, images, and more. It is also concerned with
metadata: terms used to describe and represent content objects such as documents, people,
process, and organizations. 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.
Finding and managing Findability is the most critical success factor
for information architecture. If users are not able to find required information without
browsing, searching or asking, then the findability of the information architecture fails. Navigation
needs to be clearly conveyed to ease finding of the contents.
Interaction design There are many key factors to understanding
interaction design and how it can enable a pleasurable end user experience. It is well
recognized that building great user experience requires interaction design to play a pivotal
role in helping define what works best for the users. High demand for improved user experiences
and strong focus on the end-users have made Interaction Designers critical in conceptualizing
design that matches user expectations and standards of latest UI patterns and components.
While working, Interaction Designers take several things in consideration. A few of
them are: Create the layout of the interface
Define Interaction patterns best suited in the context
Incorporate user needs collected during User Research, into the designs
Features and Information that are important to the user
Interface behavior like drag-drop, selections, mouse over actions, and so on
Effectively communicate strengths of the system Make the interface intuitive by building affordances
Maintain 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 human’s
ability to use a system or application. Good usability is essential to a positive user
experience but does not alone guarantee it. Accessibility
Accessibility of a system describes its ease of reach, use and understanding. In terms
of user experience design it can also be related to the overall comprehensibility of the information
and features. It contributes to shorten the learning curve attached with the system. Accessibility
in many contexts can be related to the ease of use for people with disabilities and comes
under Usability. 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.
HCI 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 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 and a system, virtual or physical, designed to meet or support user needs and
goals, primarily, while also satisfying systems requirements and organizational objectives.
Typical outputs include: Site Audit
Flows and Navigation Maps User stories or Scenarios
User segmentations and Persona Site Maps and Content Inventory
Wireframes Prototypes
Written specifications Graphic mockups
Designers As with the fields mentioned above, user experience
design is a highly multi-disciplinary field, incorporating aspects of psychology, anthropology,
architecture, sociology, computer science, graphic design, industrial design and cognitive
science. Depending on the purpose of the product, UX may also involve content design disciplines
such as communication design, instructional design, or game design. The subject matter
of the content may also warrant collaboration with a subject-matter expert on planning the
UX from various backgrounds in business, government, or private groups. More recently, content
strategy has come to represent a sub-field of UX.
Benefits User experience design is integrated into
software development and other forms of application development to inform feature requirements
and interaction plans based upon the user's goals. New introduction of software must keep
in mind the dynamic pace of technology advancement and the need for change. The benefits associated
with integration of these design principles include:
Avoiding unnecessary product features Simplifying design documentation and customer-facing
technical publications Improving the usability of the system and
therefore its acceptance by customers Expediting design and development through
detailed and properly conceived guidelines Incorporating business and marketing goals
while protecting the user's freedom of choice Criticism
The discipline of user experience design, though still in its infancy and without a
universally recognized definition, remains subject to criticism. Critics of user experience
design argue that: User Experience Design is a buzzword for an
existing best practice, therefore bringing no additional value
A user experience cannot be fully "designed", therefore questioning the validity of the
entire practice A user experience cannot be fully measured,
therefore questioning the ROI of the practice See also
Chief experience officer Customer experience
Usability engineering User experience evaluation
User interface design References
Further reading Norman, Donald. The Design of Everyday Things.
ISBN 9780465067107. Cooper, Alan. The Inmates Are Running the
Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity. ISBN 9780672316494.
Buxton, Bill. Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design.
ISBN 9780123740373. Cooper, Alan. About Face 3: The Essentials
of Interaction Design. ISBN 9780470084113. Tidwell, Jenifer. Designing Interfaces. ISBN 9781449379704.
Moser, Christian. User Experience Design: Mit erlebniszentrierter Softwareentwicklung
zu Produkten, die begeistern. ISBN 9783642133626. Moggridge, Bill. Designing Interactions. ISBN 9780262134743.