UI and UX are abbreviations thrown around the world of digital design often, but it is important to break these down to truly understand them.
UI = User Interface
UX = User Experience
User Experience originated as a more human-centred approach. It suggests that design should start with having a good understanding of people and their needs. Fully understanding this allows it to be incorporated into the design process, producing more user-friendly results.
The principles of human-centred design are as follows:
The key to following these principles is truly understanding who you are building something for. It is vital to understand that although the client commissions a design, they do not have the same understanding of design as the designers.
Therefore, communication is key to understanding their needs and producing a valuable outcome. Sometimes, this involved directly asking clients what they want. This avoids the ‘false-consensus effect’ that occurs when designers work of assumptions rather than facts.
Contextual inquiry involved observing clients to understand what they need. This helps designers to understand their process, needs, goals and issues that a design can assist with.
I found it very interesting when covering the following: not every problem exists on its own. Problems are like dominoes— there is a knock on effect. There is often a system that leads to a problem. Understanding this can see how a solution can impact other operations and identify a root cause which may be easy to overlook.
It is vital for a designer to validate their decisions. Simply asking what looks the best isn’t the ideal approach as you don’t gain rich insight into the pros and cons this way. Clients arent designers, so they will likely just choose what looks best without thinking about how it will function. Although appearance is an appealing factor in design, as a general rule of thumb functionality > aesthetics. For example, for an app that helps doctors administer emergency treatments, are aesthetics really more important than being able to use the app?
Usability testing can help combat this. This involves observing users attempting to use the app, which will show if it is usable. Through this, designers will be able to tell if the app serves its purpose regardless of how it looks. If they can complete task/use the app, the design serves its purpose.
We watched a video from NNgroup titled ‘Don’t listen to the customers’. This statement is blunt and seems quite harsh. However, the speaker describes that the only thing USERs can do is USE. If the target audience can’t use a design with their pre-existing skills to use a product, it is too difficult.