The golden rule for those working with digital product user experience design is never to base your decision on what the end-users perceive right. However, the actions of the customer should determine a good UX design. This implies that experience designs should focus more on how it works but not how it feels.
For this reason, it is vital to perform thorough research on usability testing to come up with the right strategy. The elements of a good user experience design include the following:
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Usability Aligned Design
Ease of use is an essential aspect of UX design. The easier the UX design, the more end-users find it easy and comfortable to use. What is vital in UX design is achieving specific objectives. If the design I a complex one, the users will find it hard and end up confusing along the way, thus, ending up with something worthless.
Netflix is a perfect example. The brand takes time to come up with the best in terms of usability. They focus more on the autoplay feature, which plays an essential role in the play. In the reviews, most users have talked about the autoplay feature. The feature gives the developers a clue on how to make it better for its users.
One fundamental principle of developing a good user experience it keeping it simple, the Kiss rule. The main aim of this principle is to make the design so basic to understand even with someone who knows less about UX designs. When the platform has a simple yet well-designed user experience, then there is no doubt that end-users will have no problem understanding the logic.
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A Well-Planned User Research
Performing research is a vital element in achieving a great user experience design. A good UX design work with the users from the beginning to the end. As a UX designer, it can be a bit tricky to know deeply what the users prefer, their objective, their behaviors towards some things, and understanding their mindset. It is crucial to ensure the final UX designs align with what the users need.
But how do you know what the users want? It can only be through user research. Conducting user research will open up your mind, and you will understand the dimensions in which your product or service will create an impact on users. It is through the research where you will realize what the users want and enjoy the most. From the information you will gather, you will then use it to make a design based on the research. There are two types of metrics used during the study in UX, which you should put in mind before selecting the final user experience design. The parameters are meant to assist your business make an appropriate decision based on the requirements of the end-users. The research metrics include:
Prototyping
In prototyping, you analyze a prototype based on the targeted users to know how a user interface or a web application behaves in real life. You can use mockplus, a tool that gives functional prototypes only through drag-and-drop art. The function of a prototype is to provide you with the best idea of how a given application, product, or even a website will respond to user inputs. As a result, the prototype offers ideas on how to innovate the design of the product to make it practical.
Prototyping is indeed a fantastic way to track the progress of the design. You can as well foresee what the end-users expect from the design and make the necessary changes.
Success Metrics
In any research, the outcomes must be measured and know. If you cannot analyze the results of the study, then it is equally zero work. The same applies to user experience design. It is vital to measure the success of user experience design to get answers from the research conducted. UX design can be measured through qualitative and quantitative.
In qualitative means, you can analyze how users navigate through the user interface and accomplish the required tasks with ease. You can always rely on this information after conducting the research.
On the other hand, quantitative means include evaluating the conversion tracking, click-through rates, and other metrics related to analysis. With quantitative means, you can always understand the behaviors of the users.
To get exceptional results when measuring the success of the design, it is better to use both qualitative and quantitative approaches.
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An Organized Information Architecture
Information architecture is simply a way of organizing and naming software and websites. The purpose of organizing and labeling is to enable end-users to locate information with ease and accomplish tasks without struggling. Information architecture makes it easy to create a structure that brings together how the web platform operates and the content. In simple terms, it is the art of arranging different parts of something to be easily understandable.
There are three elements of information architecture that helps come up with a good user experience design. They include:
- Context: Context consists of the relevance of the information you give out to the targeted users. The information provided should be easily understandable.
- Users: This is the targeted users who are searching for specified information on the website.
- Content: When coming up with the content, use all the elements such as the images, icons, videos, and texts should work together to catch the attention of the user in the entire process.
Many businesses usually avoid the idea of making changes for their websites because making such changes need time and extra efforts. As a result, they end up copying and pasting the already existing website structure, which is not the way forward.
A well-defined information architecture UX design must have the following four components
- Easy-to-go Navigation: If you can browse through the website with ease, then finding the correct information becomes effortless as well.
- Organizing Structure: It involves how you categorize, organize, and structure the information.
- Improved Search Systems: It improves how the users search and find the information.
- Website Labeling: It involves arranging the information in a simplified way
Note: The information architecture UX is the core of a digital product that helps create a good sitemap through SEO efforts.
It is high time that more focus is directed to improving visualization skills to create the best product information environment other than putting all the efforts on the user interface.
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Visually Appealing Design
A visual design determines the very first impression the users will have. This implies that it is an essential element that affects the process of UX design. Thus, more precautions should be taken at this stage. The primary function of visual design is to communicate with the user via images, layouts, colors, spacing, graphics, and videos. The visual design also makes the platform interactive apart from making it attractive
Note: It is better to take a break from creating an overcrowded interface because the less crowded interface is easy to convert over a change of a visual element.
The principle that makes a design visually appealing includes Contrast, balance, emphasis, repetition, unity, movement, and rhythm.
On the other hand, elements of a visually appealing design include direction, texture, symmetry, scale, shape, space, line, and color.
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Interaction Oriented Design
The main objective of interaction design revolves around the users and the products in terms of how they sound, feel, and the appearance of the design. In simple terms, interaction design deals with how the model can be customized according to the behavior of the user experience.
The principle of interaction design is making a transparent and straightforward UX design. With a seamless and straightforward design, there is no doubt that the users will understand the information with ease.
Four dimensions incorporate a perfect interaction design. They include:
- Visual Presentation: Visual presentation consists of the use of icons and images that interprets the actual words. Instead of writing the content in words, the content is transmitted through the use of skeuomorphic design, which is an essential aspect in the process of creating a UX design.
- Words: A design needs to have content in terms of words. The words used should be easy to read and understand. The most important thing is the choice of words to be used. Select the words that go hand in hand with the actions required.
- Response: Response shows how often the users get feedback. A good example is when the user clicks on a given button. They should get whatever they are searching for instantly.
- Designing for Touch points: This means that the selected design should be useful on all platforms because users use different devices like tablets, applications, or even desktops. The design should apply to all these devices without any difficulties.
Conclusion
Making your website, mobile apps or software product to be easy to use is what defines a good user experience. It is all about giving the targeted users an easy time when they are interacting with your products. Make the actions of the users be achieved with ease. All the ideas discussed above are meant to bring out a successful operation in the online platforms.
A good user experience design uplifts the business by increasing revenue and generating more traffic to the website. Ensure any moment a user interacts with your sites/apps is worth the time, and they leave your website while 100% satisfied.
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