Your User Experience Journey
Being a UX designer can push you to different sides of the wind, you could be deep in designing as well as be pitching your possible solutions to a client while still backing it up with your research.
When you’re getting started in UX design you probably wondered where you should start from, or where to go from point A-to-B, it can be a tiny bit overwhelming with all the resources online, courses to take, staying up to date with industry trends and even mentors to look up to, But in this article, we’re going to be talking about the industry skills you need to acquire when starting your User Experience journey so you can block other distractions and focus on what really matters. Without any further ado let’s jump right into it.
Research: As a UX designer your main focus is your users, knowing how to conduct your own user research is one of the top skills of a UX designer, it helps you understand who your users are, their behavioral needs, and how you can create a better product to satisfy those needs. User research can be either secondary or primary. One of the best tools that can help with this process is the Dscout tool.
Here is a 2-minutes article on getting geared up to help you conduct your own research, by Chris Spalton good luck!
User flow: user flow is the pathway taken by a user when they interact with your product, from an entry point down to the exit point. It is the visual representation of your product which could be a website or an app or any other product you could be working on.
As a UX designer, it’s important you understand your user flow and work with it to avoid designing something amazing, only for your users to find it really difficult and confusing to navigate through it.
Information architecture: Information architecture also known as AI is concerned with the organization of information within digital products, it could be an app or a website with screens that gives the user information on what they need. The screen or pages are laid out so users can easily navigate them as well as move easily to other pages. There are call-to-action buttons as well as giving your users easy access to perform certain tasks, at this point we can say it’s the way your users easily flow within your product.
Information architecture is the backbone of every design, with AI there’s a greater chance of giving your users a better experience when using your product, as well as helping you meet your business goals.
Here is a more detailed information on AI by Rachele Jacobs.
You might or might not have heard of the word “prototype”, “wireframe”, or even “mockup”, you don’t have to bore yourself with all the mumbo jumbo going on with the names all you need to know is that they are an essential part in making your product cycle come alive, they assist with usability testing. Let’s talk a little bit about wireframes, prototypes, and mockups.
Wireframes: Wireframe is a low-fidelity representation of what your finished product should look like, let’s say it’s the bone without the flesh but still it gives us a full insight of what your product should look like in structure as well as layout. The only traditional tool you need for wireframing is a pen and a blank sheet of paper, there are some awesome digital tools you could use as well you just have to check which you’re more comfortable with.
Prototype: A prototype is a preliminary version that gives you the look and feels of what your finished product should look like, and this way you would be able to validate your user journey, you’ll be able to notice your user’s pain points, their frustrations when trying to achieve certain tasks, and these are just some of the benefits of prototyping before investing more time and resources into building the finished product.
One of the wonderful benefits of a prototype is that it can be adjusted throughout the cycle of your design.
Mockup: A mockup is a static, high-fidelity simulation of what a finished product would look like, they have everything contained in them, the icons, style, colors, and typography, the only difference between a mockup and the finished product is that mockups are not functional.
The intent of a mockup is to bring an idea to life, something you can present to your stakeholders so they can visualize every single detail of the design, you can also create a second version of your mockup if you want to find out how a tweak in your design would look like. And it’s a great way to save cost and time before the finished product is built.
Usability testing: also known as user testing, is simply what you just read it out to be, when a UX researcher in our case which is you, asks a participant to carry out some specific task on a product they’re working on, they’re simply carrying out a usability test. As a UX designer carrying out a usability test helps curb the risk of creating a poor design in the long run instead of just designing a product and using resources and time only to come up with a product your users can’t relate with, nobody wants that.
The core of usability testing is to identify your users’ roadblocks, their pain points when using your product, it will also give you an insight on how to solve the problems they just discovered, and who knows you could find one or two opportunities to make a better product for your specific audience.
Visual Design: To make our designs more user-friendly every UX designer needs to be proficient in visual design, visual design is a great way to communicate to your users through the use of iconography, colors, illustrations, typography, layout, as well as images. Among all these the designer needs to make use of principles to guide them in their design process.
Here are the most used industry principles in visual design.
- Gestalt
- Scale
- Contrasts
- Balance
- Hierarchy
Apart from all the skills mentioned above, there are some important skills a UX designer should possess and they include;
- Empathy
- Effective communication
- Collaboration
- Curiosity
Conclusion
To keep growing as a UX designer you need to make your own research and enroll in courses that give your wonderful information as you walk down this path. There are experts in the field you could network with and follow on social media as well, there are awesome blog posts made by other designers, and one of the fastest ways to learn and grow is to get your hands dirty, find a really nice project and work on it and see how far you go.
Good Luck!
