Thoughts on UX Design
I am hesitant to brand myself as UX Designer, Web Designer, Graphic Designer or even redneck designer. I really don’t want to paint myself into a corner and fit into any box. I like the diversity of wearing many hats and being a “creative professional, who practices UX Design” seems to be a better title (doubt it would fit on business card though).
“User experience” encompasses all aspects of the end-users interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”
What is a UX designer?
A UX designer uses a set process for researching what the users actually want and need. UX is strategic communication, and I believe it’s about building relationships with people through design.
The set process of UX design that I follow involves 4 steps that are cyclic. The first 2 steps are where I spend the most time building a relationship with the client. Obliviously, defining the project constraints and obstacles (time, budget, etc.) will determine the actual tactics and time we will use in each step. Here’s my “Fitz Notes” on the process that I adhere to…
- Discover
The listening phase. Getting to know the company, services, products, and customers, defining a strategic objective, and setting the design boundaries and guidelines. Asking more questions than a nosy neighbor because what you don’t know can hurt you. So it’s imperative to get as much information as possible upfront to define a clear, concise objective based on the information. After we gather our information, we should then:- Define the objective and strategy
- Outline the steps to be accomplished.
- Define the required tactics, including budget and team.
- Preparing a schedule.
- Design
This is where we start pulling in the information. I use a pencil and paper (lots of paper) during this stage. We will set our primary objective(s), develop personas, flush out ideas, determine cliches, and make obvious design choices. Prototyping, Wire-framing, and user flow. I like to develop high fidelity concepts forever page and interaction and start the style guide at this point.
Sharing the style guide and concepts with all the stakeholders should reduce and surprises. - Development
Bringing it all together, following the Style Guide, and using a Content Matrix and Content Deck makes this stage come together quickly, but always watch for deviations or bottlenecks. Identify any weak links and beat them unmercifully, just kidding. - Deployment
Launching the final site, analytics and split testing. I am a big believer in A/B split testing and believe if your site isn’t getting better, it’s at best stagnant. Using the data we gather from the split testing and our analytics, we go back to the discovery phase.
Great UX, graphic design, web design, or whatever design shouldn’t be focused on a single destination but the entire journey covering all aspects of the brand and user. Great design is relationship-building design.