UX designer as an architect
All design starts from a user and ends with a user. There's a designer and an audience at the beginning, but there's also audience's ability to interact with the product of the designer in the end. Audience means readers, viewers, persons who interacts, who looks for sense, information and even pleasure. Great description of a web design with sake of user experience is an analogy to architecture. When architect designs a house he must think about its inhabitant all the time. So a doorway must take into account the sheer physical height of this future inhabitant. Not too small, so he or she wouldn’t have to crouch or bend, but not too big either, so the huge door wouldn’t be too cumbersome to open or close. We can even call this person “a user” of a house. Room sizes, window positioning, compartment organization, door handles or light switches – all of this need to take into consideration the anatomy, psychology and behaviour of persons who will “use” that house. Designing a website is much alike.
UX as science
User Experience nowadays is a university faculty where students learn about not only design, but also modern psychology. To yield a successful message it is important to understand how any message is understood, how the human sight works and how the brain process the information, and also what can go wrong in the process. These are important cognitive functions and this makes UX as well an artistic skill as a scientific discipline.
Examples and usage (and usability)
For example, the shape of font (typeface) is not only about its attractive appearance, but it is strictly connected to what is most natural and easy to read. Serif fonts utilise small “connectors” between letters to help lead the eye through the text. The line width and number of words in a line is strictly connected to ability of an eye of a reader of finding the beginning of the next line. The longer it goes, the harder it is to find and thus to read on. This is the purpose of narrow columns in newspapers. More examples: the movement is a natural, behavioral attractor to our attention and that’s why most public commercials utilise this practice. However this made also the Internet of the 90’s look so flashy and intrusive, making this technique counterproductive.
Minimalism is the way to go
Only recently we – designers and web owners – began to utilise it in a more humane manner slowly moving out of an era of minimalism that followed. Movement should subtly increase user engagement and outline the message, not overshadow it. Also the widely used technique of “negative space” comes from the understanding that to deliver an important information is to make sure the communication is clear enough, and to remove all the clutter around it, that may disrupt the process. Lots of white space makes an element of the site looks powerful and attracts attention instantly providing successful communication.
This is why most of modern UX guidelines goes along with such phrases of minimalism as “less is more”, ”the better the design, the more invisible it becomes” or even “new interface is NO interface”. With the latter trying to utilise the concept of designing modern interfaces in most natural ways possible like speech recognition, location recognition etc. This technique could be seen in latest Amazon Go grocery shops where the shopping process is as simple as grabbing the product from the shelf; or in bike locks that work simply over the distance of the user’s bluetooth smart device from the bike, without using any key at all. These are all UX techniques that are also incorporated into websites.
Thinking in experiences of the users instead of the layouts of design schemes shifts the design process into a humane discipline putting the user in the centre. This starts even much sooner than entering a website. UX starts even with friends talking about the product or website.
Overview of UX areas
UX deals with such concepts like interaction, micro-moments, typography, colors and contrast, thinking about the purpose of visit, number of taps or clicks to reach information, engagement of users (especially for information gatherers), user satisfaction, habits, placement of product, user context, and making the whole experience consistent.
In Desta Design we strive to make as user friendly websites and products as possible, bringing the site owners and their audiences together to deliver a successful message for both. Each of our design takes into consideration best UX guidelines and we share as much knowledge as we can about what could positively and negatively impact UX when discussing designs with our clients.
