What is the Process of UX Design?

This blog will focus on the process of UX design. Once you’ve finished reading, you’ll have come to realize that UX design is an extremely varied, multifaceted field, which makes it both challenging and exciting for the budding UX designer. You’ll also have learned to recognize UX as a process of distinct steps—from research to design to testing—that have been defined and refined over the past few decades, and continue to evolve as the field matures and solidifies.  

Introduction To User Experience (UX) Design  

1. What Is UX Design?  

The official definition of User Experience (UX) is: “A person’s perceptions and responses resulting from the use and/or anticipated use of a product, system or service.” (ISO 9241-210:2010, subsection 2.15)  

In the simplest terms, UX design is about making the user’s experience with the product the best it can be. It aims to attract people to a site they are interested in; then, once they are there, to make their journey from the homepage to purchasing the product as easy and fun as possible.  

The “design” aspect of UX focuses on how the utility, ease of use, and efficiency for a user’s interaction with a product or service can be improved.  Visual design is how a product looks, whereas UX design is, essentially, how it feels. But there is more…  

UX encompasses all aspects of the user’s interaction with the company, from its customer service right through to the quality of its products. Bear in mind that some UX designers use the terms ‘product’ and ‘service’ interchangeably.  

Every time you interact with a product, a software, or an object, you are experiencing that as a user of that product. A UX designer’s job is to be the glue that holds the entire product team together, handing designs over to developers who will then implement them.  

Just as important in the UX design process is meeting the business goals of the product and aligning the business goals with the goals of the user.  

2. Why Do We Use UX Design?  

The benefits of UX design are two-fold:  

UX design improves the experience for the user of that product.  

Good user experience increases the adoption of that product.  

The goals of UX design include:  

1. To understand the goals and context-of-use of potential users or customers.  

2. To use that understanding to design a product, service, or app within the constraints of business and technology.  

We use UX design because of the benefits (outlined above) that it generates—happy customers and increased sales. We experience these benefits when the goals of UX design are met.  

The first thing a UX designer thinks about is how to align the goals of the user with the goals of the business. E.g.: if a user’s goal is to buy a product, then the business goal needs to be making that purchase a useful, usable and delightful action.  

Useful: You need to solve a user’s need; a problem that users actually have.  

Usable: Usability needs to be clear so that users understand your product/service.  

Delightful: It’s no bad thing if a user enjoys using your product.  

If a user’s goal is to get more information, then the business goal is to provide quality information which instills trust in the user as well as friendly, helpful sales staff to explain things to the user over the phone. A happy, well-informed user will return; a frustrated one will not. In summary:  

1. If the goal of the user is met, then they have a great experience of that product. They find what they are looking for quickly and easily.  

2. When a user has a great experience, they are more likely to buy or return to a product as well as recommend it to their friends.  

3. When a user buys the product, returns to the site, or recommends it to their friends, the traffic and conversion rate for that site are both increased.  

3. A Brief History of User Experience Design  

In recent years, the term ‘user experience design’ has become synonymous with technology and software, but this wasn’t always the case. Despite how we use the terminology now, user experience was a term that simply applied to how a person feels about using a system.  The term ‘user experience design’ was first coined by Don Norman in 1995 while he was the vice president of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple. He said:  

“I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with the system including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction, and the manual.”  

Norman also authored the book ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ which pioneered the prioritization of usability and function over aesthetics and remains highly influential in design circles today.  

As interest in the field has grown, “UX” has become more of an umbrella term for a number of different fields, such as User Research, Information Architecture, Usability Engineering, Service Design, and so on.  

4. What Is Usability?  

Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object.  

This concept ties in directly with part one of why we use UX design—because it improves the experience a user has with a product. The easier a product is to use and learn, the better the user’s experience with it. However, before a product is easy to use, it has to actually solve a user’s problem. More often than not, this is also the job of the UX designer: to figure out what users actually need.  

5. How Does A UX Designer See the World?  

When learning about the core principles of UX design, it can help to get into the head of a working UX designer and understand how they see the world.  

UX design is primarily a people-orientated profession, and therefore a key UX design skill is the ability to understand the needs and behaviors of the user of the site, application, or product. The UX designer then seeks to align those needs and desires to the business goals of the company they are working for. And, as we mentioned earlier, the UX designer is always seeking to make each action useful, usable, and delightful for the user.  

6. Qualities Essential to Becoming A UX Designer  

Empathy: the ability to understand why people behave the way they do. This is perhaps the most important attribute in the field. Putting yourself in other people’s shoes is essential to working in UX design, and it is something you might have to learn when you are just starting out. Contrary to popular belief, it does not come naturally to everyone!  

Curiosity: the desire to know why people behave the way they do.  

Clarity of expression: the ability to express complicated concepts clearly to those with little or no prior knowledge in the field.  

The UX Design Process Step-by-Step  

In this blog post, we want to show you how to start a UX project; to give you a taste of the UX methods used by UX designers when working on designing or redesigning a product, and show you the order in which specific UX steps should be taken.  

What steps make up the UX design process?  

The UX design process can be divided into four key phases: user research, design, testing, and implementation. While the UX design process does typically take place in that order, it’s important to note that UX is an iterative process. As a UX designer, you’ll often hear the phrase “Design is never finished!” This is because, throughout the UX design process, you’ll uncover new insights that may lead you to rethink your design decisions so far. Expect to revisit and repeat certain steps in the UX design process as you continuously optimize and improve your designs.  

Within each of these main phases of the UX design process, there are several individual steps that you’ll take to improve the user’s experience with a product, app, service, or website. We’ll discuss each of these in more detail now before we dive into how the goals of the user and the goals of the business are aligned.  

1. UX Processes Explained: User Research  

User research is integral to the UX design process. It is every UX designer’s starting point for a UX design project. Research teaches us about the users, their behavior, goals, motivations, and needs. It also shows us how they currently navigate our system, where they come up against problems and, most importantly, how they feel when interacting with our product.  

User research is a fundamental part of learning how to become a UX designer, and whether you are working in a large corporation and have a team to conduct research for you, or you are the sole UXer at a start-up, it’s a part of the UX design process you cannot afford to skip. As the UX designer, you are by definition an expert for your product. However, what you think is intuitive might not work for your users, which is why conducting research with actual users is so important to the success of your design.  

As a beginner training in UX design, it’s important to start flexing your empathy muscles as often as you can, at every given opportunity.  

2. Why Is User Research So Important to the UX Design Process?  

When we work based on assumptions or just our own experiences, we often fail to notice what the user experience could be like for other people; specifically our users. This means we can easily miss opportunities to improve our service or product to meet their needs. Additionally, we might find our system easy and obvious to navigate, but we already have a history with that system—not to mention a great deal of prior knowledge of it.  Put simply, our users don’t have the benefit of this experience and knowledge.  

Mastering the UX design process means always thinking from the perspective of the user; learning what that perspective is can only come about through working with real users when performing in-depth user research.  

User research helps us find out exactly how our target customers feel when interacting with a product that is designed to meet their goals and whether it actually does a good job of this. During user research, a UX designer will collate information through a variety of means and sources to better inform the ultimate design.  

3. Why Do We Conduct User Research First?  

User research has to come first in the UX design process because without it, our work can only be based on our own experiences and assumptions; which are neither objective nor from our target customers. User research gives us the data we need to begin building the product. We can’t proceed without that information—it’s a fundamental part of any UX design project.  

By researching first, we save ourselves a lot of work, time, money, and resources further down the line, as fewer adjustments will need to be made. If we designed first and then researched after, we would have to incorporate huge changes into our designs to meet the needs of the users whom we have spoken to.  

The same is true of a redesign. For those working on a redesign of an already existing product, they have the benefit of directly seeing how users respond to an existing system.  

4. What Is Involved in User Research?  

It’s important to mark the distinction between listening to users and observing users. Both methods have their place in research, and both will provide you with valuable data. The mistake many beginners make is to focus too heavily on listening, whereas observing users can uncover a lot more in less time.  

Interviews

A user interview is an in-depth one-on-one discussion between an interviewer and a user from the target demographic. It is designed to discover the underlying needs and requirements of the user when using your product.  

A user interview can also be conducted while a user interacts with your product; the interviewer can ask questions which reveal precisely what the user is thinking as they navigate. Ask your users about the problems they generally have with this kind of service and where their greatest pain points are. You could even let them describe what their ideal product would look like if there were no limitations!  

Online Surveys

An online survey is a questionnaire consisting of a set of very precise questions sent to a sample of your target audience over the internet—usually via a form. The length and format of an online survey can vary from project to project, but irrespective of the length or design of the form, the data is compiled in a database to be reviewed at a later date by the UX designer or the UX design team. Before you start writing your online survey, take the time to conduct a few persona interviews beforehand to fully understand the user’s problem space. This will help inform your survey questions.  

Persona (Creation)

Personas are not the customers you want, but the customers you actually have or that are already out there. These personas are fictional but represent a selection of this real audience and their behaviors. We build user personas from qualitative and some quantitative user research as well as web analytics that we have already performed on an online platform.  

Personas are effective if they:  

• Are truly representative of real people, their motivations, goals, and needs  
• Reveal universal features and functionality  
• Give us an accurate picture of what users’ expectations are  
• Show us how users will interact with a site  
• Represent a large portion of users of the site  

User Testing

Bear in mind that if you are improving a pre-existing product (rather than researching for a new design), user testing can be a valuable research resource to uncover where users are struggling with that product.  

5. Design: Wireframing and Prototyping  

The next step in the UX design process is to create wireframes and prototypes. This gives you something tangible to test on real and potential users, which is crucial in making sure that your designs are usable.  

When thinking about the design of a product, this truism is one that is often forgotten. Everybody recognizes Apple products because of their sleek and unique appearance. The designs of iPhones and Macs are so successful that they have been copied by tech companies worldwide. But it is not the aesthetic of Apple products that brought them international acclaim. Although the designs of Apple products are immediately identifiable and effortlessly functional, it was the user experience and usability of the products that differentiated Apple from its competitors, ennobling Apple as the iconic brand it still is today.  

When training in UX design, you’ll quickly conclude that although the aesthetics of a product make a huge difference to its appeal, if it doesn’t work well, how it looks is of little consequence to the user. However, bear in mind that the ultimate success of a product depends not just on your design, but on the implementation of it by developers and the management of the project. This is where another key UX design skill—communication within the team—comes to the fore, but we’ll talk more about that in finer detail in the last section.  

Designing a satisfying user experience involves meticulously planning a customer journey for the users and helping them find what they are looking for through an intuitive process. Customers will follow a certain process/journey anyway when they are performing an action based on their previous experiences with other products. Your job as a UX designer is to think about how your product/service can accommodate how the customer already behaves.  

The design of your product revolves around functionality and usability, rather than colors or pictures (these are established later by a visual designer). Having established during your user research what your users expect from your product or site, what their goals are and how they like to operate a system, it is functionality and usability that always come first.  

Information Architecture

A user who is overwhelmed by too much information or gets ‘lost’ navigating through a site is going to have a bad experience of that product, brand, or service. To avoid these scenarios, a process called Information Architecture is carried out by the UX team as part of the UX design process.  

The purpose of Information Architecture (IA) is to structure, label, and organize the content on a site so that users can find exactly what they need to perform the task they want and to reach their goal. Through the information architecture, a UX designer finds out not only how each piece of the site fits together, but also how each item relates to all the other items within this structure.  

This process helps the user understand what to expect when they navigate the site, as items that they logically (and from experience) expect to come together can and will.  

Benefits of Information Architecture:  

• Increased customer self-sufficiency and therefore more satisfied customers  
• Effective page navigation  
• Reduced support costs  
• Decreased drop-off rates  

How Is It Done?

Organizing the hierarchy of the content on your site can be done in multiple ways. This leads us to another important UX method: Card Sorting. In a card sorting session, users organize topics from content within your website into groups that make sense to them. They then need to label each group in a way they feel accurately describes the content. This can be done using actual cards, pieces of paper, or one of several online card sorting software tools.  

Wireframing

Wireframing in UX design refers to an illustration or diagram of a website, software, or app page that looks at:  

• The allocation of space on that page  
• The distribution of images and content  
• How content is prioritized  
• What functions are available  
• What behavior is intended and accommodated.  

Wireframes rarely contain color, images, or styling because their job is to help the UX team understand and establish relationships among a website’s different templates. These templates need to be determined before any aesthetic considerations are taken into account. By focusing first on the navigation and structure of the site or product, a UX designer is far less likely to become distracted by the visual layer.  

Wireframes can be as simple as a pencil sketch on a piece of paper, which you could later digitize to create a prototype or to add more detailed specifications.  

Prototyping

A prototype is a draft version of your site or product that takes you as close as possible to a good representation of your website and its user interface before any coding has begun. This allows UX designers to explore and experiment with ideas as well as check functionality and usability before any money is spent on full-blown development.  

With the use of the prototype, the intention behind different features becomes clear, and the UX team is able to see how the overall design will work together and repair any inconsistencies or errors. By building a prototype of your design before further development, the UX team make a number of savings, in terms of both cost and time.  

Additional benefits of prototyping:  

• You can quickly try out your ideas and test them with users.  
• They can be created with just a pen and some paper.  
• Once the prototype has been put together, it can then be used to gather even more user feedback and reactions from potential customers, so you can continue to develop and improve upon the original idea.  
• Changes can be made quickly and easily to a prototype, incurring minimal costs.  
• It can be used to demonstrate your product to management, clients, and other stakeholders so they have a clear idea of your intentions with the design.  
• Interaction is something that happens over time, not in freeze frames or still images. Prototypes allow you to experience and interact with the design for yourself in real time.  

6. User Testing  

Like User Research, Testing is a fundamental part of the UX designer’s job and a core part of the overall UX design process. UX designers test because it allows them to improve upon the original product or site design and to see if the changes they made during the ‘design’ phase stand up to scrutiny. It’s a great way to eliminate problems or user difficulties that were unforeseen in the design phase before getting started on the implementation phase, and can also be carried out once the product is live as part of a UX audit.  

Ensure you test with real users who are not friends or family!  

Testing is a misunderstood art, and start-ups and entrepreneurs are often put off by it because of concerns regarding cost and time. Some are just afraid to talk to real users. However, testing is not something you can afford to bypass, as even a simple round of testing could make or break your product idea. The time and money a company spends on testing at this stage will save infinite amounts of both later on. Despite what you may think, testing need not be either time consuming nor expensive. Not only that, but research has found that testing with 5 users generally unveils 85% of usability problems.  

Testing can provide great results with very little effort.  

Starting Simple

Testing your product need not be a complicated process. User testing can be as simple as making paper prototypes or drawing whiteboard sketches to demonstrate your product to your potential users. You can repeatedly test using these simple methods until an acceptable solution to an obstacle has been found. You can also use your prototypes to test out more interactive elements on users.  

Remember the earlier you test, the easier it is to make changes and thus the greater impact the testing has on the eventual quality of the product. While user testing, in the above sense, can give you the deepest understanding of problems, and thus also the most valuable solutions, there are also other modes of testing, such as remote user testing and A/B testing, that have their own places in a given project. We will go into these two types of testing in more detail later.  

Usability Testing

In-person usability testing is usually a one-to-one, moderated usability session. The idea is for participants (preferably in your target demographic or representative of your personas) to perform tasks using your product, site, app, or SAAS while the UX designer or the UX design team observes. The purpose of in-person usability testing is to identify problems or issues the user has with the interface and why these issues arise. The advantage of this type of testing over remote user testing is that the very actions the user takes, not just his or her opinions on a product, can be noted.  

When training in UX design, it’s crucial you observe the actions the user takes without intruding on or influencing their actions or decisions. Some UX designers conduct usability testing by asking the participants to talk through their actions out loud as they are making them, which gives the UX team an even greater insight into what is going on in the user’s mind while they are using the product.  

7. How Does User Testing Work?  

User testing is conducted through a variety of means:  

• Simple observations  
• Questionnaires  
• Surveys  
• Interviews  

Practically speaking, to run an effective usability test, you’ll need a solid test plan in which you outline your objectives for the test and have real users on hand to perform an action, give their opinion, or answer questions. Before the users have even entered the building, you’ll need to ask yourself: “What do I need to know from this test?” and then, once you’ve pinpointed what you need to know, you can write your questionnaire or survey with that objective in mind. If you’re not performing an interview or writing a questionnaire, but simply observing a user’s response or behavior to your site or product, your objective remains the same.  

It might be worth inviting the whole team to user testing to observe how the user responds to the product. Having the opportunity to observe the user will help the whole team understand the usability problems and to empathize (that word again!) with the user. So as not to distract the user, webcams, screen sharing, and microphones can be used.  

Remote User Testing  

Remote user testing is an option for a UX design team when it’s not possible to reach users from the product’s target audience in a real-life setting. For example, they might be in a place (a tropical island for example) that is hard or expensive for the UX team to reach, or the participants are difficult to accommodate or schedule.  

The participants, facilitators, and observers are all located separately but connected online. Although this can be a convenient way to perform user testing, this method dilutes the value of the results because the ability to interact with users face-to-face creates a higher quality and more accurate result. It is also harder to analyze the data.  

The benefit of remote user testing is that users are interacting with your product in an environment that is already familiar to them (e.g. their home or office). This takes away the potential layer of anxiety or uncertainty when visiting somewhere new, which might otherwise affect results.  

A/B Testing  

A/B testing is a form of quantitative analysis comparing two live versions of a site, application, or email message. It attempts to make focused changes that produce a statistically significant difference in some well-defined user action. It requires a good understanding of statistics to correctly design the test and interpret the results. Experience is also required to pick targets for testing that are likely to produce valuable results.  

Remember: A/B testing helps if you already have a product/service and need to improve it. But don’t start with A/B tests when you are still designing a product; perform user tests instead. Also, be aware that although A/B tests are great at producing “hard data”—great for convincing management, for example—not everything you design can be verified by an A/B test.  

A/B testing (also known as split testing) is a method of comparing two versions of a web page, product, email, or system, and seeing which performs better. By creating and testing an A and B version, you can try new design changes, test hypotheses, and improve your user’s responses. The goal of a split test is to look at differences in the behavior of two groups and measure the impact of each version on an actionable metric.  

Although A/B testing will tell you which of two designs performs better, it won’t tell you why. This is why qualitative testing is so important.  

8. Implementation of the UX Design Process  

As a UX designer, it is your responsibility to implement, and advocate for, the UX design process. With that said, the role of the UX designer can vary greatly from company to company. Let’s consider where UX designers fit into the wider team in different types of companies.  

The UX Designer’s Place in the Team

The job of a UX designer depends heavily on the nature of the company they are working for, and the difference between one UX designer role and another can be dramatic. In this final section, we’re going to discuss the role of the UX designer at both small and large companies and the UX design skills needed for each.  

Keep in mind that there are pros and cons to both.  

Within a start-up, a UX designer can be responsible for every part of every process, due to small budgets, small teams, and limited resources. At a start-up, a UXer (you can call yourself that) is likely to oversee a project from beginning to end and actively take on separate processes including user research, testing, and design all by themselves. However, within a larger corporation, a UX designer could be heading up a team of user researchers, overseeing testing, and acting in more of a managerial role. In this way, the UX designer is still overseeing the process from beginning to end, but they are much less hands-on.  

When sifting through job advertisements for UX designers, it’s important to read the small print. Due to the relatively new nature of the field and the ambiguity that still surrounds the term, recruiters are not always well-informed about what a UX designer is or what they actually do.  

For example, a company might advertise for a UX designer when they are really looking for someone to join a team of researchers or someone to undertake testing. If this is the case, then the UX designer is not involved in the entire process, but is simply responsible for one part of the process. This is because UX has become an umbrella term for many different fields.  

• If you are someone who wants to be heavily involved in every aspect of the UX design process, then a start-up could be a good fit, but remember at a start-up you will be shouldering the responsibility for each mistake you make and learning from scratch.  
• If you are someone who particularly enjoys one aspect of UX design, then a job at a larger company in a particular team, for example the research team, would be more suitable and you’d likely be in a more UX-supported environment.  
• If you enjoy managing teams and looking at the whole process without being too hands-on, a more managerial role in a UX team at a larger corporation could be more up your street.  

UX Designer at a Startup

There are a number of benefits to getting your first experience as a UX designer at a startup:

Pros:

• You are more likely to see the whole picture  
• You’ll get to experience decision-making firsthand  
• You’ll have a significant influence on the end product  
• Your work environment will likely to be more experimental. If the startup succeeds, you’ll likely receive not only financial remuneration but also recognition for your part in its success.  

Cons:  

• Less time to spend getting a feel for what you’re doing  
• Many fast changes in a short period of time  
• Pressure to deliver results quickly  
• Job security isn’t always guaranteed  
• Wages will not be as high as at a big corporation  
• Many startups fail in the first year  

UX Designer at a Big Corporation

There are a number of benefits to of working for a big corporation  

Pros:

• Job security, competitive salary, benefits, and other perks  
• You get to see long-range plans realized  
• Regular access to latest technology and a broad range of resources and experts  
• Knowledge that your work directly affects a large number of people  
• Clearer expectations  

Cons:

• Less personal working environment  
• Larger teams and more bureaucracy to contend with  
• Seeing the results of your labor can be a long and frustrating process  
• Generally less flexible to try new strategies or ideas  

UX Designer’s Role Within the Team

The UX designer’s role within the team is to steer the team through the process we have outlined in this post and generally in this order, too (with plenty more testing):  

• Research  
• Design  
• Testing  
• Implementation  

You’ll start with the research, then try things out with wireframes and prototypes, and test everything as you go along—much to the chagrin of your team. You’ll be the creator, the advocate, the moderator, and the cheerleader. If you do your job well, you will not get any recognition for your work because it will have been a seamless process for all involved. Despite the lack of recognition, you will still get the rewarding feeling of having created such a Useful, Usable, Delightful product for your users while meeting the goals of your business.  

Working With Developers

Throughout the UX design process, you’ll work closely with developers—the people who will code your designs into fully functional products! If you’ve not had much experience working with web developers in your previous jobs, then before you start pursuing a career as a UX designer, it’s important to consider this crucial aspect of the role. Whether at a startup or large corporation, you will be working intimately with developers to reach your end goal for a project. The developers will be working to transform your design ideas into a real, working website; how you approach this relationship will determine the success or failure of your project.