What is UX Design?

User experience design encompasses a range of disciplines and creative processes that all work together, seeking to give the end user an experience that leaves them feeling accomplished and delighted, rather than frustrated and confused.

It is driven by the idea that by putting the user and their needs at the forefront of the product or service design process (user-centered design), the results will address the specific challenges of the user more accurately, and will actually allow the team or company creating that product or service to focus their efforts on solving the problems that matter, instead of creating problems that don’t.

A common framework for this type of process is a continuous cycle of research, design, testing and iteration.

The research phase can involve looking at analytics, doing competitive market analysis, and of course reaching out to actual users by way of surveys, interviews, or simply observing how they use the product or service. This research allows for user personas and user journeys (common use cases for how they use the product or service) to be created, which then fuels the design phase. Design typically starts off very simply with sketching or whiteboarding, and then moves into wireframes and rapid prototyping. These design assets, once refined, can be incorporated into user testing, and then the results of those test will allow for iteration in design.

Part or all of the cycle is repeated as many times as necessary to achieve an end product that is ready for development.

But the process doesn’t stop there.

A successful brand never stops making their products better, because the world around us never stops changing, and neither do users and their needs.