Designing simple, intuitive experiences can be difficult. We must learn UX fundamentals before starting our user design or user experience journey. That is why, I have started a complete series of articles that will cover the basics of user experience, user research, user journeys and scenarios, wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing. This article is the second part of several parts that are about to be published. Follow me on this journey and dive into the world of UX.

Good Experience vs. Bad Experience

Now you can love or hate Apple, but there is no denying that lately, the most successful companies have differentiated themselves through a good user experience. Good user experience is about how it works, not just about what it looks like, and that is why I chose this quote by Steve Jobs.

Good UX vs. Bad UX

Let's play an imagination exercise. Think about the websites and apps that you use most often, and why you use them so often. Is it because they are easy to use, they allow you to do what you set out to do? Now think about frustrating websites. What is the last site you visited where you were frustrated? Or think about an app you downloaded that did not live up to its promise. The difference between the good experience and the bad experience was probably due to whether the designers followed a user-centered process or not.

UX != UI

People confuse UX and UI all the time. Think about the sites that are easy to use. You probably did not like them because they had a beautiful interface. Similarly, thinking about the bad user experience you had, it was not due to an ugly interface, it was because you could not find something, or it was hard to complete a task. So that illustrates that a great or a poor user experience is not about the UI, it is about the fact that you were able to easily complete a task, and you felt pretty good about doing it.

User Experience: Designing Great Experiences for Users

User experience or UX, is designing great experiences for users. It does not matter what device. It could be a mobile device, a smartwatch, a kiosk; the principles of user-centered design, considering the user, their needs and goals, fully understanding the problem you're trying to solve, and improving your designs based on user feedback, can apply to any device.

Impacts to UX

Now before I show you how to create great user experiences through user-centered design, let's talk about what contributes to bad UX, some impact on user experience. Number one: designing for yourself, not considering how others would use the design. That is also known as design-centered design, and it is the opposite of user-centered design. Another impact of user experience: thinking that the user experience is merely an interface. A pretty UI does not always result in a great experience.

Now, user-centered designs are based on an understanding of your users. Here is a very common model that we use in user experience design to illustrate why we should not focus on the user interface – the iceberg model. Basically what it means is the user interface is like the visible part of an iceberg. Everybody can see it, but there is a great deal of depth below the surface that people may not be aware of, but it certainly impacts the user experience. And, so all of these disciplines and activities go on underneath the surface.

UX in the Development Cycle

UX is a crucial part of the development life cycle. Let’s look at where it fits in this cycle. During the first stage: planning, user experience can help you define the problem by understanding the user's needs, goals, and motivations. It will help you design the right thing instead of just designing the thing right. Secondly, during analysis, understanding your users will help you prioritize features based on what users want instead of wasting time developing something that nobody needs.

Furthermore, during the design phase, the ideating, prototyping, and iterating, all are based on user feedback. It is the hallmark of UX design. It is a low-cost way to see what works and again could save you money in development. Finally, during the implementation and maintenance phase, user testing: analyzing user feedback to improve the product will help you create great experiences.

In conclusion, user experience constitutes a great experience and solves the user problems. It is a crucial part of the entire development cycle, and designing user-centric designs requires a great depth of understanding. If you like this article, feel free to share it around. :)