With technology, digitization and access of internet, things are moving ahead at rapid pace. I feel that User experience (UX) is the most valuable skill that everyone should possess.
History
In the early 2000’s, we had UI developer and Backend developer.
All the tech shops worked as follows.
UI developer would design a website in photoshop, then convert it to html pages.
Backend developer would take the pages developed by the UI developer and convert it to a functional web app with PHP as server side language and MYSQL as database.
A little about UX in my own words
With technology, digitization and everything on our fingertips, to innovate and build a product for the masses, we also need to evolve with time. If we have to consider the IT domain, we have experts in Front end, Back end and most importantly UX (User Experience). There are many other important roles, but for this blog post, let’s focus on the UX role.
Photoshop is no longer even a choice when designing a web app. Photoshop is now back to its original use case i.e photo retouching.
To design and develop a web app, we have tools like Invision, Adobe XD, Figma etc. However, before we have identified how the app will look like, we have a dedicated team of UX (User Experience) experts who develop a prototype of the web app.
A UX Expert would design a flow of the web app considering the end user in mind. They would talk to the actual customer or identify a persona so that a user flow can be designed. This is a key criteria to ensure that the actual goal of creating a web app is fulfilled.
In our scenario of developing a digital product i.e. a Web application, UX exert needs to primarily take care of two things
- The user flow For eg. Think of eCommerce app that let’s you buy books. There are various scenario’s that we need to consider here
- A user knows what they want to buy They search the book, add to cart and get it delivered.
- A user is looking to gift a book They need to search based on age, gender, author, genre of the book etc. etc. A lot of criteria come into picture, before actual buying happens.
- A user wants to browse books and save them in Wishlist
- The Actual web app What I mean by this is, placing a button where a button needs to be present. There have been various studies on how a user views a web app on a desktop browser, how they interact on a mobile device etc.
- Let’s say that our eCommerce web app is entirely dependent on user’s search. This means that we need to keep the input search right on the top of the web page so that it is prominent.
- Use of icons. We have standard icons for user, shopping cart etc. so the UX should know which icon should be shown next to a particular item.
- Add to cart should be primary button. Proceed to pay should be a prominent button.
The idea of this entire exercise and involvement of a UX expert is that the entire experience of the web application, from landing on the web page to buying should be extremely easy to follow, it should be hassle free and the user should be able to perform their desired actions without anyone’s assistance.
Why should anyone learn UX ?
UX is more than what we have summarized above. Perhaps I did not even do Justice to the amount of work an UX expert does. However, with above summary, I wanted to lay a premise so that we can proceed with why everyone should learn UX.
Just like an UX Expert looks for a persona (the aspect of someone's character that is presented to or perceived by others), let me first define who “anyone” here is, what is the persona that this blog post is targeted towards.
We could be anything and not limited to the below
- Some technical artisan (Full stack, Back End, Dev ops etc.)
- A home maker
- A business owner
- A creative ninja (artist, craftsmen etc.)
Consider below user persona
1) Content Consumer
We live in the digital world. From watsapp video calls, to booking a travel ticket online, we interact with almost everything on our smart phone, smart watch or the TV. We create content and we consume content in and out, so we ourselves are heavy users of applications. If we had to book a travel ticket but after opening the app, we were not able to figure out how to login, imagine how frustrating it would be. Would we visit a food deliver app if it could not identify our location and suggest some restaurant that is impossible to our reach ?
With that, I can easily assume that we being the consumers, are qualified to give suggestions on how a user experience should be.
So if we can put in little efforts and understand the basic nuances of the world of UX, we can be of great help towards making any application a rich application.
2) Content creators
A business owner always looks out for graphic designers to create flyers for them so that their business can be advertised.
A home maker, although not into business but would and should always look out to advertise their hobby. We are always honored to cook a meal for our family and friends. We put in all the heart into decorating it. Would we not want to show it to the world through our instagram or watsapp ?
Considering the above two eg. (A business owner and A home maker), what I am trying to convey is that everyone is a content creator. Everyone wishes to publish on their story a picture they are proud of.
If we know how to design beautiful and catchy images, we are sorted.
How does UX play a role here ?
An image that has no caption, a phone number that does not have a beautiful icon, would be less attractive and not so catchy. Similarly, using a lot of different font families, having multiple colors to a single word or even having a lot of text overlay on your image may not be attractive.
UX or User experience is something that everyone should have the knowledge. No, we do not want to be an expert but we surely want to know when to fill up that white space or when to show a caption on an image, so that we are able to make such tiny yet effective decisions.
Let’s create Experiences.
Photoshop was the de facto tool for every designer. Anyone who had a computer and photoshop could be a graphic designer. Times have changed.
- Canva to the rescue. With internet connection and a smart device, everyone can create experiences. An innovator can easily create prototypes of their ideas, a home maker can play around and share their creativity and promote themselves. Applications like canva, Figma are super easy to use. However imagine the dilemma of not able to create content to your liking and not able to do it right. With some knowledge of UX, you know exactly what you want.
- If you are a professional, a backend developer or a front end developer, you have an idea and you need to validate it with a MVP (Minimal viable product), you are golden. You have knowledge of UX, you can easily use CSS frameworks like bootstrap and create a minimal working prototype. You are not dependent and blocked because you cannot imagine how the user flow will be and you can concentrate on building your product.
- Quick results and faster Validation of your product with the actual user base.
- Stressing over User Experience? When you have an idea but are blocked because of lack of knowledge of how the UX should be, you will never able to see what that idea could have turned into. We want to create a product, so should we stress over the quality ? We can always refine our product, but if we are not aware of the basics of UX, we would not only waste time but also not have confidence in our own idea.
We all should learn UX
Not everyone can be a great designer or an UX expert, but we should at least be able to understand and contribute to user experience.
Everything is getting digital and we have to stay ahead of time, so why not invest our time learning a skill that we will be using, knowingly or unknowingly.
Have basic knowledge of UX will definitely help us in every aspect of our day to day life. We want a rich, delightful experience from whatever we consume. Why not give the same experience to whatever we create ?