UX or User Experience design is trending these days. It is crucial expertise, especially since most products and businesses are now moving online. Whether digital or physical, if a product is hard to use, you cannot pin the user for not getting it.
The bulk of the responsibility falls on the UX designer to ensure that the product is accessible, usable, and promotes positive consumer experiences. User Experience is the user’s perceptions and responses from using, even the anticipated use of a product, system, or service.
UX design is about providing the best possible customer experience. It aims to draw users’ interest so much that they dwell on your homepage and proceed to buy your product or service without any glitch or issues.
As a designer, you need to practice the best UX design practices to make your mark in the UX design scene.
5 Best Practices for UX Design
1. Define Business Goals
Defining your business or website goals is the first step to a successful UX type of design best suits your eCommerce needs. Identify the type of journey you want your leads and possible consumers to make, from the time they hear about your product and service to the point that they are using it.
Your goal is to provide the best possible experience, but how? Determine the technicalities of that journey, the tools you’ll need like plugins, the best web design tools, and the like. When you spot issues, analyze and assess them right away.
Also, project possible problems by conducting dry runs or testing before fully launching your product or service.
Also, determine the marketing strategies you will employ to promote your product or service and connect with users from start to finish.
2.Business Requirements
If you have sponsors or doing UX design for another company, determine what the company is trying to achieve and have everything indicated in black-and-white. Make sure you have a contract that clearly defines your work scope and whatever is expected of you from your UX design.
It cannot be avoided that you will have issues along the way, so make sure it is included in your agreement that there is leeway for testing and resolving problems.
Generally, more prominent companies will have more criteria. Big businesses come complete with market analysts and product managers. Ensure accountability by clarifying demands from the beginning and addressing any concerns early on.
3. User Requirements
The consumer is the goal of UX design. Therefore, the needs of the consumer are vital. Practice empathy and think of the consumer when you are designing a product or service.
You also need to gather substantial data about your consumer. Conduct assessments like user interviews, surveys, or field studies, forums, and feedback.
You need to include different data in your decision process. Data can be interpreted in various ways, and bias in interpretation cannot be totally eliminated, especially since companies or businesses have target markets.
It is better to gather an appropriatebalance of data, both qualitative and quantitative, to make accurate and profitable decisions as much as possible.
4. Optimize Ideas
Teams have limited resources to spend on a single project, personnel, and time. Instead of segmenting your efforts in multiple directions, it may be easier to put it down to your best idea. This is a practical approach to the design process.
While exploration is needed at the beginning of a project, keeping up with time can be challenging to keep the efforts separate from many different potential ideas.
It can result in multiple ideas, all poorly executed and checked with mediocre results. Instead of spreading the team too thinly, invest in the best possible alternative to give the idea the best chance to succeed.
In a letter to shareholders in 2016, Jeff Bezos recommended the phrase “Disagree and commit” to pursue excellence at work. It means people are entitled to disagree when a decision is made, but that everyone must stick to it once a decision is made.
Disagreement and commitment is a way to escape a compromise trap where lack of agreement contributes to lack of progress.
5. Always Welcome a Fresh Perspective
It is easy to be familiar with what you are doing, especially if it’s routine. There are times you can also get stuck with a project.
When you are looking at the same shortcomings of the project, dealing with the same partners, and running against even more challenges than when you first began, you might miss essential factors in the UX design. This is when it is important to welcome a fresh set of eyes or perspective.
When you are feeling stuck or some issues keep recurring, you need to welcome a different strategy or include another UX designer at this stage. You can tap peers through forums and the like to get different viewpoints as well.
Consider whether you’re part of a systemic failure, whether it’s from system defects. Debriefing within the team is vital to determine the cause of issues, resolve them, and prevent them from happening again. Try all possible solutions and viewpoints to better the system or resolve problems.
Conclusion: Best Practices Produce Positive UX Experiences
Best practices must be observed in UX design, not just in the design process but also within the team.
Honesty within the team is essential so UX designers can be open with developers about end goals and tasks. Transparency is also crucial. Every designer and developer need a standard tracking system, so the whole team knows if targets are met and if efficiency is maintained.
Transparency is crucial, especially in the presence of issues. It avoids blame games and fosters unity in the design or developer team in resolving problems together.
As a UX designer, keep communication constant with the development team at the onset. If you are communicating only when there is a problem, then you are poorly communicating. That way, they have a much clearer idea of what might or might not work early on.
There is much less chance of miscommunication or disagreement when you are freely communicating all the time.
Goals are important, but the whole UX process cannot be accomplished single-handedly. The team handling UX needs to keep things clear, open, and seamless. Favorable team experiences will naturally produce favorable consumer experiences as well.
MAYLEEN MEÑEZ
Mayleen Meñez used to work in media before finding her true passion in NGO work, traveling the Philippines and Asia doing so. She homeschools 3 kids and loves reinventing Filipino dishes. She is a resident SEO Writer for Softvire Australia and Softvire New Zealand.
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