User experience design includes elements of interaction design, information architecture, user research, and other disciplines, and is concerned with all facets of the overall experience delivered to users. Following is a short analysis of its constituent parts.
Visual design
Visual design, also commonly known as graphic design, communication design, and visual communication, represents the aesthetics or look-and-feel of the front end of any user interface. Graphic treatment of interface elements is often perceived as the visual design. The purpose of visual design is to use visual elements like colors, images, and symbols to convey a message to its audience. Fundamentals of Gestalt psychology and visual perception give a cognitive perspective on how to create effective visual communication.[6]
Information architecture
Information architecture is the art and science of structuring and organizing the information in products and services, supporting usability and findability.
In the context of information architecture, information is separate from both knowledge and data, and lies nebulously between them. It is information about objects.[citation needed] The objects can range from websites, to software applications, to images et al. It is also concerned with metadata: terms used to describe and represent content objects such as documents, people, process, and organizations.
Structuring, organization, and labeling
Structuring is reducing information to its basic building units and then relating them to each other. Organization involves grouping these units in a distinctive and meaningful manner. Labeling means using appropriate wording to support easy navigation and findability.
Finding and managing
Findability is the most critical success factor for information architecture.[citation needed] If users are not able to find required information without browsing, searching or asking, then the findability of the information architecture fails. Navigation needs to be clearly conveyed to ease finding of the contents.
Interaction Design
Main article: interaction design
There are many key factors to understanding interaction design and how it can enable a pleasurable end user experience. It is well recognized [clarification needed] that building great user experience requires interaction design to play a pivotal role in helping define what works best for the users. High demand for improved user experiences and strong focus on the end-users have made interaction designers critical in conceptualizing design that matches user expectations and standards of the latest UI patterns and components. While working, interaction designers take several things in consideration. A few of them are:[7]
Creating the layout of the interface
Defining interaction patterns best suited in the context
Incorporating user needs collected during user research, into the designs
Features and information that are important to the user
Interface behavior like drag-drop, selections, and mouse over actions
Effectively communicating strengths of the system
Making the interface intuitive by building affordances
Maintaining consistency throughout the system.
In the last few years, the role of interaction designer has shifted from being just focused on specifying UI components and communicating them to the engineers to a situation now where designers have more freedom to design contextual interfaces which are based on helping meet the user needs.[8] Therefore, User Experience Design evolved into a multidisciplinary design branch that involves multiple technical aspects from motion graphics design and animation to programming.
Usability
Main article: usability
Usability is the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.[9]
Usability is attached with all tools used by humans and is extended to both digital and non-digital devices. Thus it is a subset of user experience but not wholly contained. The section of usability that intersects with user experience design is related to humans' ability to use a system or application. Good usability is essential to a positive user experience but does not alone guarantee it.[10]
Accessibility
Main article: accessibility
Accessibility of a system describes its ease of reach, use and understanding. In terms of user experience design it can also be related to the overall comprehensibility of the information and features. It contributes to shorten the learning curve attached with the system. Accessibility in many contexts can be related to the ease of use for people with disabilities and comes under usability.[11]
Human–computer interaction
Main article: human-computer interaction
Human–computer interaction is concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them.[12]
Human–computer interaction is the main contributor to user experience design because of its emphasis on human performance rather than mere usability. It provides key research findings which inform the improvement of systems for the people. Human-computer interaction extends its study towards more integrated interactions, such as tangible interactions, which is generally not covered in the practice of user experience. User experience cannot be manufactured or designed; it has to be incorporated in the design. Understanding the user's emotional quotient plays a key role while designing a user experience. The first step while designing the user experience is determining the reason a visitor will be visiting the website or use the application in question. Then the user experience can be designed accordingly.
Design
Main article: design
User experience design incorporates most or all of the above disciplines to positively impact the overall experience a person has with a particular interactive system, and its provider. User experience design most frequently defines a sequence of interactions between a user (individual person) and a system, virtual or physical, designed to meet or support user needs and goals, primarily, while also satisfying systems requirements and organizational objectives.
Typical outputs include:
Site audit (usability study of existing assets)
Flows and navigation maps
User stories or scenarios
User segmentations and persona (fictitious users to act out the scenarios)
Site maps and content inventory
Wireframes (screen blueprints or storyboards)
Prototypes (for interactive or in-the-mind simulation)
Written specifications (describing the behavior or design)
Graphic mockups (precise visual of the expected end result)
General design process
The steps involved in the process are:
Collecting information about the problem
The UX designer needs to find out as much as he can about people, process and products before the design phase. The designers can do this by meeting with the clients frequently in order to know what the client requirements are. Designers can also conduct user interviews in the users' work space in order to familiarize themselves with the target user base.
Getting ready to design
This is the artistic phase of the designer. The designer uses paper prototyping and white boarding to come up with a basic design from the data collected about the problem. The design problem is refined in the later stages.
Design
Low fidelity design prototypes created in the earlier step are refined. The high fidelity prototypes are left for the visual designers.
Test and iterate
Usability testing is carried out on the low fidelity prototypes. The target users are given various tasks to perform on the prototypes. Any issues or problems faced by the users are collected as field notes and these notes are used to make changes in the design and reiterate the testing phase.[13]
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