UX design
Designs what a person perceives and how they respond when using, or expecting to use, a product, system, or service, from the need behind it to the interface they touch.
What it deals with
A product can have a polished interface and still fail if it does not solve what the person needs or if it is hard to understand. UX design brings strategy, structure, and interface together into a single experience.
Principles
Strategy
What the person needs and what the organization wants; for example, booking a doctor’s appointment without having to call.
Scope
Which features and content are included: choosing a specialty, seeing available times, and getting a reminder.
Structure
How they are organized and connected, such as the flow from choosing a specialty to confirming the appointment.
Skeleton
Where each element goes on the screen, such as the calendar at the top and the confirm button always in view.
Surface
How it looks, with colors, type, and images that make the screen clear and recognizable.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Work through the planes from the bottom up: before drawing screens, clarify what the person is trying to achieve and what is stopping them.
Avoid
Confusing UX with the look of the interface: a beautiful screen can still be useless.
Don’t fall for it
Test early with real people. What is obvious to the team is not obvious to someone arriving for the first time.
Especialidades
UX strategy
Aligns the experience of a digital product with business goals before designing screens.
Information architecture
Organizes, labels and connects content so people find what they are looking for.
Search design
Designs how people find what they are looking for in a product, from the search box to the results.
Models and concepts
- ConceptDeceptive patterns (dark patterns)Designs that exploit how we decide to get you to do something you didn't want to.
- ConceptProgressive disclosureShow the essentials first and keep advanced options for when someone asks for them.
- ConceptJakob’s lawWe expect a site to work like the ones we already know, because we spend more time on them.
- ConceptTesler’s lawEvery task has an amount of complexity that cannot be removed, only moved.
- ModelHEART frameworkFive kinds of metrics to measure the experience of a digital product and know whether a change improves it.
- ModelUser experience honeycombSeven facets of a good user experience, beyond whether the product is easy to use.
Methods and tools
- ApproachUser-centered designDesigning systems around the tasks and abilities of the people who use them, testing early and often.
- ApproachHuman-centered designDesigning from the needs, context and participation of the people who will use something.
- MethodPrototypingBuilding quick, incomplete versions of an idea to test it before developing it.
- MethodUsability testingWatching real people attempt tasks with the product to find out where they get stuck.
- MethodCard sortingAsking people to group cards to understand how they organize information.
- MethodTree testingChecks whether people can find things in a site's menu, using only the names and no design.
- ArtifactWireframeThe outline of a screen in boxes and lines, without final colors or images.
- ApproachJobs to be doneUnderstanding what progress a person seeks in a situation and what they “hire” a product for.
- ApproachLean UXDesigning in short cycles of hypothesis, testing and learning, as a team and with little documentation.
- MethodValue Proposition CanvasChecking whether what you offer responds to what a type of customer is trying to do, suffers and wants.
- ArtifactDesign systemThe set of shared components, rules, and criteria a team uses to build its interfaces.
- MethodSurveyThe same questions to many people, to measure how many think or do something.
- MethodA/B testingShowing two versions to random groups and measuring which one works better.
- ApproachValue sensitive designTaking into account the values of everyone affected throughout the design of a technology.
- ApproachEAST frameworkTo change a behavior, make it easy, attractive, social and timely.
- ApproachPrivacy by designProtecting personal data from the first sketch, with the most private option already set.
Connections
Builds on
Authors and works
- 1986
Don Norman and Stephen Draper
Brought together user-centered system design in a book, starting from the person’s needs rather than from technology.
- 1993
Jakob Nielsen
Described usability engineering, which measures and improves ease of use throughout development.
- 1995
Don Norman, Jim Miller, and Austin Henderson
Called Apple’s interface work “User Experience” and described the role of user experience architect.
- 1998
Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen
Explained that user experience covers the whole relationship with the company, its services, and its products, not just the interface.
- 2002
Jesse James Garrett
Organized the work into five planes, from strategy to the visual surface.
Sources
Original sources
- Norman, D. A., & Draper, S. W. (Eds.) (1986). User centered system design: New perspectives on human-computer interaction. Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability engineering. Academic Press.
- Norman, D., Miller, J., & Henderson, A. (1995). What you see, some of what's in the future, and how we go about doing it. In Proceedings of CHI '95. ACM. View source: Norman, D., Miller, J., & Henderson, A. (1995)
- Garrett, J. J. (2002). The elements of user experience: User-centered design for the web. New Riders.
- International Organization for Standardization (2019). ISO 9241-210:2019. Ergonomics of human-system interaction, Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems. ISO. View source: International Organization for Standardization (2019)
Secondary sources
- Norman, D., & Nielsen, J. (1998). The definition of user experience (UX). Nielsen Norman Group. View source: Norman, D., & Nielsen, J. (1998)
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