What is user experience (UX) design?

UX design is the process design teams use to build products that deliver meaningful and relevant experiences to users. Despite being a relatively new field, UX design has been ranked as one of the top in-demand skills for the last few years. If you’ve never embraced UX design in your business before, you may be wondering what it involves and how it’s relevant to your brand, products, or services.

In this guide, we reveal everything you need to know about UX design, including what it is, what a UX designer does, the benefits of UX design for business, and more.

User experience (UX) design

1. What is user experience (UX) design?

User experience design, or UX design, is a design process that aims to create systems that provide users with a great experience. UX design embraces principles from fields such as user interface design, usability, accessibility, information architecture, and Human-Computer Interaction.

User experience design is carried out by user experience (UX) designers. One of their primary focuses is how users interact with the system they’re using and the system’s accessibility. Therefore, a UX designer follows the principles that state how to make a product accessible and then represents those principles in the design process of a system to enhance user interaction.

The concept of UX design has many dimensions. When we delve deeper into what UX design is, we can describe it as:

• Dedication to developing products and services with purpose, empathy, and authenticity. It’s a continuous practice of viewing the world through the eyes of consumers and determining how you can improve the quality of their lives
• The execution of a brand’s promise and the realization that how customers feel has a significant commercial influence
• The culmination of content, research, design, and strategy and its impact on the delivery, sale, and usage of a product or service
• The art and science of evoking positive feelings from customers during their engagement with a product
• The creative and technical process of deciding what a website, product, or piece of software will be like—including what it will do for people, how they’ll utilize it, and even how it will look, sound, and feel
• The process of anticipating and addressing people’s needs before, during, and after product creation

UX Design is user-centered

UX Design is also user-centric, as it encompasses the user journey from start to finish. The design process must have a thorough understanding of the users and their context, then use this as a foundation for all design and development.

UX design is also multi-disciplinary, as UX designers come from a variety of disciplines, including visual design, programming, psychology, and interaction design. They must always keep accessibility at the forefront of what they do while being able to accommodate the physical limitations users might experience. The inability to read small text is one such example.

Whether conducting user research, creating personas, designing wireframes and interactive prototypes, or testing designs, a UX designer’s tasks can vary from company to company. The central responsibility is always meeting a user’s needs, however. Most UX designers utilize a user-centered work process to achieve this.

2. The difference between UX and UI design

UX design is about the overall feel of interacting with a product, while UI (User Interface) design is about the look and functionality of a product’s interface.

A UX designer thinks about the user’s entire journey to solve a specific problem. They consider things such as the steps the user must take, the tasks they must carry out, and how straightforward the whole process is.

A UI designer then concentrates on all the visual details that bring a user’s journey to life. They must consider things such as which color combinations to use to improve readability, or how the color pairings can cater to limitations such as color blindness.

Because UX design focuses on recognizing and solving user problems, it’s often the first step in the process of developing a product. The UX designer must map out the user’s journey across a product while thinking about information architecture, or how the content is organized. Additionally, they must factor in what types of features the user may require.

UI design, on the other hand, is all about producing intuitive, beautifully designed, and interactive interfaces. Where the UX designer lays out the bare bones of the user journey, the UI designer fills in the missing pieces with visual and interactive components. These include the individual screens and touchpoints the user might face.

Another distinct difference in both fields is that while UX applies to any type of product, service, or experience, UI is relevant to digital products and experiences only.

Although UX and UI go hand-in-hand, they each have distinct roles with separate processes and duties.

3. Why is UX design important for your business?

From increasing conversions and boosting SEO to assisting with user retention, UX design offers numerous benefits to your business. Let’s take a closer look at why UX design is important below.

1. UX design can reduce major costs down the line

New projects always carry some degree of risk for a business. UX design and its design thinking processes concentrate on research, analysis, and testing. These three elements immediately boost your chances of success from the get-go, thus reducing significant costs later on.

This is because preventing potential problems with usability is easier and less expensive to do from the beginning. Additionally, design changes aren’t as complex or costly as development changes like redesigning the product or fixing bugs.

• Prototyping: In the initial prototyping phase, the majority of product bugs are often identified and solved. Prototyping is a vital part of the UX design process, as it also involves creating a mock-up version of the final product. This prototype is then employed in user testing before the product is developed and launched. During the prototyping stage, designers extensively test the features, information architecture, and designs. Companies are therefore able to gauge a better estimate of the costs and timeline required to finish the project. Prototyping helps businesses reduce costs in two ways.
• Avoiding ‘feature creep’ and receiving more precise estimates: Feature creep is when new features are continuously added to a product, which then makes it too complicated to use. This issue is frequent among products that haven’t utilized UX design. Making changes like this isn’t just expensive, it’s also time-consuming.
• Getting content right: Your website or app’s content holds the key to your conversions. By tackling this early on in the prototyping phase, you can guarantee your content is fit for purpose before launching your website or app to the public. This is another time- and cost-saver for your business.
• Testing for users and usability: User testing tests a product’s ease with real users. This allows UX designers to detect any roadblocks they encounter when interacting with it. When working closely on the design of a product, however, it can be easy to form a bias or become short-sighted. Unless a product is being tested with users outside of a company, features may be overlooked. This is because others will likely interact with the product in a completely different way.

Performing user and usability testing helps you spot possible friction at the prototyping stage before the development phase has begun.

2. UX design can help you boost your conversions

Some websites or apps might look beautiful, but their overly complicated designs make it difficult for users to find what they’re after, thus turning them away.

Humans are impatient, and this quality is only intensified when searching online. Therefore, it’s vital to lower the level of effort your users need to make when interacting with your product. Doing so will only boost the number of conversions to your product.

• Reducing the number of steps: A key part of UX design is making it as effortless as possible for your user to interact with your website or app. When a user can’t complete their task, they become annoyed. When they’re able to find what they were looking for, however, it also helps your business by boosting conversions and interactions across your website or app.
• Having clear CTAs: Another way to boost your conversions is by having clear, action-driven calls-to-action which address a user’s “why.” “Sign up to our mailing list” is more effective from both a UX design and SEO standpoint than “click here,” for example. The latter tells users what to do, but doesn’t explain why they should do it.

3. UX design can improve your SEO

Good UX design can also boost your SEO rankings. Google favors great user experience within their search results, as they aim to quickly provide users with the most relevant answer to their questions.

User experience is also considered in paid media or PPC (pay-per-click) ads. Google Ads scores the “landing page experience” of your ads. It also offers advice to help you provide a better user journey on these pages.

A poor user experience can therefore lead to poor SEO rankings or an unsuccessful ad campaign.

4. UX design can increase brand loyalty

Great user experience also helps develop trust in your brand, product, or service. This, in turn, creates a long-term relationship with your target audience. When a user is having these positive interactions with your business, it motivates and drives them to convert into a customer.

• Customer retention: Once a user has been converted, the challenge then lies in turning them into a repeat buyer. Ecommerce stores hoping to cross-sell other products in their store to current customers particularly stand to benefit from this.

Customer journey maps are an element of UX design that help to retain and nurture existing customers. These are visual storyboards that aim to map out every step of the customer journey from beginning to end. Customer journey maps allow your brand to do three important things:

• Develop empathy with your target consumers
• Understand where a customer is in the purchase cycle
• Determine what pain points they might encounter at specific stages in their journey

These three elements also offer valuable insights into how your designs can be optimized to boost engagement, along with customer loyalty and retention.

5. UX design can help raise word-of-mouth referrals

Even in the digital age, word-of-mouth referrals are a great way to boost your business. UX design can foster word-of-mouth promotion in several ways, starting with social sharing. A functional and user-centric design ensures it has built-in, seamless interactions with social networks. This fosters social awareness of your business, product, or service.

Additionally, it builds trust. People are inclined to learn behaviors from their peers or people that share similarities with them. This is why UX design also incorporates customer reviews, star ratings, and “people also bought” features into a website or app. These are significant metrics, as they reveal real opinions and habits about how consumers are interacting with, or rating, a brand, and its products or services. At the end of the day, positive ratings lead to more sales.

4. What does good UX look like?

Good UX design comes down to three key principles: simplicity, usability, and visual aesthetics.

1. Simplicity

While usability is a core focus of UX design, a user wouldn’t be able to use a system if it wasn’t simple enough in the first place. UX designers recognize the importance of simplicity because simplicity works. There is also something inherently satisfying about a simple, easy-to-use design.

Zara’s homepage is a great example of simplicity in UX design. It features minimal imagery on a stark white background, along with simple text in black. The search function appears slightly larger than the text around it to draw attention subtly. Within a single glance, its navigation is clear and easy to understand.

2. Usability

Although usability and simplicity work together in UX design, they can also be opposites. This is because a design might aim for so much simplicity that it misses the mark in terms of usability, which has its own set of criteria.

Designers are often creating simpler, more aesthetically pleasing mock-ups of social media platforms, for example. While they might look more refined than the original, it is unlikely it is more usable than the platforms’ current UX.

3. Visual aesthetics

We’ve all heard the saying, never judge a book by its cover. However, in UX design, a user’s first impression counts considerably. This is because it takes just 50 milliseconds, or 0.05 seconds, for a user to decide whether they like a site or not. This then determines if they stay or leave.

5. UX design examples

UX design can make or break the relationship your business has with its customers. This is why products are now more user-centric than they’ve ever been. Whether it’s accommodating diversity, offering simple interfaces, or addressing every customer’s needs—UX design is aiming to delight in every step of the user’s journey.

The following brands offer exceptional user experience examples and may inspire your UX design strategy.

1. Airbnb’s booking experience

Airbnb provides the perfect example of a website that achieves a simple and seamless booking experience. It provides a clean and minimal interface, while still presenting an impressive amount of information.

The homepage creates a great user experience, as it addresses the major obstacles travelers experience when looking for accommodation. Furthermore, the action of booking is quick, clear, and user-friendly, as it’s featured at the top of the fold.

Because of its behavior and visual cues, the Airbnb homepage is easy for users to predict how it will react. Take its UI cards, for example, which display content in a way that’s slick, easy to understand, and extremely readable.

2. Booking.com

Booking.com is another website that allows users to book accommodation, as well as flights, transport, and attractions. The search bar is fast and efficient, as it auto-suggests search terms that adapt to the location.

The site also has one of the simplest and most effective checkout processes online. With its simple layout, the information is presented neatly and efficiently—despite being home to thousands upon thousands of search results.

3. Instagram

Like most social networks, Instagram has been designed in a way that encourages users to scroll for hours on end. This is because its endless stream of visual content isn’t surrounded by any unnecessary elements. Therefore, it isn’t overwhelming for the user. Instagram is a great example of UX design that expertly uses visual hierarchy and balance. Most of the screen space is devoted to user content, thus reducing visual clutter.

Using design features such as a hamburger menu (a navigation menu with three stacked horizontal lines), the app provides users with a familiar and simple way to enjoy Instagram’s content and features. Although certain options are out of sight, they are still just a click away. This allows the app to maintain striking minimalism without compromising on its features or settings.

6. What does a UX designer do?

A UX designer makes a product or service easy to use, accessible, and enjoyable. Companies can design user experiences of various kinds. Mostly, the term is used for the digital design of websites and apps, however. Although the exact UX design process differs depending on the product or company, the overall stages of UX design generally stay the same.

UX designers consider the why, what, and how of product use

For a UX designer, the ‘why’ relates to the user’s purpose for interacting with a product. The user may wish to accomplish a specific task using the product. Alternatively, they might be motivated by values they associate with using or owning that product.

The ‘what’ refers to the functionality of the product. In other words, what users can do with it.

Finally, UX designers consider ‘how’ the design is functional and accessible about its visual appeal.

To create products that users can develop meaningful experiences with, a UX designer must determine the ‘why’ of product use, before moving to the ‘what’ and ‘how’.

UX designers employ design thinking

UX designers also use the design thinking process to merge the user’s desires with technical capability and business feasibility. This design thinking process involves four key stages:

1. Inspiration

• Understand
• Observe

2. Conceptualization

• POV
• Ideate

3. Iteration

• Prototype
• Test

4. Exposition

• Storytelling
• Present

In the inspiration phase, the UX designer aims to understand and observe. To achieve this, they perform extensive research and competitor analysis to comprehend the problem they are working to resolve. Part of this research involves interviewing the product’s current or potential userbase.

Using this feedback, a UX designer can then determine the user’s ambitions, feelings, pain points, and behaviors. This information also helps them to create user personas. They must then contemplate what these personas are trying to achieve when using a particular product, along with the steps they will take to do so.

Using a variety of techniques, like card sorting, a UX designer must also map out user flows. For this step, embracing information architecture is also beneficial. When these user flows have been established, a UX designer understands what journey the user must take to achieve their desired tasks. Solutions for each of these steps will then be visually brainstormed, often through the creation of wireframes and prototypes of how the final product may look.

Prototypes allow a UX designer to perform usability tests to find out how users interact with the product. From these tests, a designer can determine if the user can carry out their desired tasks, or if changes must be made.

Along with creating solutions to user pain points, UX designers must also present their suggestions and designs to key stakeholders.

The tasks of a UX designer will differ from company to company and will largely depend upon the size of the organization, as well as their needs. In smaller companies or startups, a UX designer may be required to take on a wide range of tasks. In large companies, however, it isn’t unusual for numerous UX designers to be employed, with each one specializing in a particular part of the process.

A UX designer will always focus on the following questions, no matter what they’re designing or what stage of the process they’re in:

• Is the product functional? Is it logical, easy to understand, and simple to use?
• Does the product solve an existing pain point or challenge for the user?
• Is it accessible for all types of users?
• Does it produce a delightful experience for the user? Would they be happy to repeat this process?