Guest post by Hollie Hoadley

Do you know what UX is? We do, and we know how to use it!

You may have been hearing the term UX being tossed around, especially if you’re in the online world. UX stands for User Experience and it commonly goes with design and all of the workings of how a user might interact with your app, webpage, product, or anything you create.

It’s no secret that UX design is growing in popularity and importance. Rather than just making something and hoping it works, UX design ensures that you take a step back and plan out your design. It requires you to think about how a user is going to see the whole experience and determine what that experience will ultimately be like when they interact with your creation.

Taking the time to invest in #UX design, you can ensure you don’t “miss the mark”... Click To Tweet

Taking the time to invest in UX design, you can ensure you don’t “miss the mark” with the design of your final output. The process of UX can go many ways, but often times it includes user research, design mock ups, and testing. Through UX testing, you then see how users interact with your creation and head back to the drawing board to tweak any pain points or maximize on opportunities.

Cool, but how do I use it?

Whether you’re designing a new product, such as new state-of-the art dog harness or a brand new website for your company, UX design is key to making sure you get it right the first time. This will save you time and money in the long term and help you correct mistakes before you make them.

Let’s say you’re about to launch a new website to sell your services. The goal here is to ensure people click the “Contact Us” button to schedule an appointment with you, right? But, do you know if people will actually click the button? UX design will design your website in a way that makes sense to your targeted user, based off of research on where to place the button, where eyes naturally fall on a page, and how to guide customers to action. Then, you test the page. Are people finding the “Contact Us” button or are they clicking on the blog and dropping off? UX testing will highlight what’s happening and identify why in order to make changes before you launch and spend a ton of marketing or resource dollars on something that isn’t working right in the first place.

Deep dives into the “why”

A lot of the time, designing something for people can be a complete shot in the dark. However, the process of UX design helps illuminate a lot of the reasons why and how users interact with products, online sites, and apps.

The process of #UX design helps illuminate a lot of the reasons why and how users interact... Click To Tweet

This knowledge is so valuable, and it can be used at any point in your process. Why aren’t people clicking on your page? Why are people frustrated with the lack of available support on your app, when you HAVE a support button and a support team ready to help? How come people say your product is hard to use? UX can help you reach your goals by investigating these problems and solving them beforehand.

Deep dives into the “who”

UX can help you really, really identify your ideal user. While we think we know who wants to engage with us, it’s worthwhile to actually think about this long and hard before investing a lot of money and resources into a project that’s working for the wrong kinds of people.

UX designers use personas to create a fictional user group for your product and then they design for this specific group. Let’s say your app is for women like Molly: Age 26 from Toronto who is always on the go, scrolling through Facebook, and interested in getting a good deal on exercise classes. What matters to her? UX designers dive deep into the “who” and design for that to create storyboards and scenarios before actually designing anything.

UX design is an invaluable tool to create good, lasting things that people will actually engage with. It’s the smartest way to start any project, no matter how big or how small and will save you the headache later on. As the process of UX design continues to grow so rapidly in popularity and function, get familiar with it now and use it to your advantage! We know it works because we see the results!

 

Photo credit: Michael Mongin Photography