UX based work techniques for projects and its routine operations

UX or User Experience is the key to making any business/product/service a success because if the user is not comfortable using the product/service no matter how functional or appealing the interface maybe it will render useless. UX design is very crucial to getting amazing user experience. In order to do so UX design process is very crucial. The core focus of a good UX design is the functionality and usability of the product based on user expectations.

UX should focus on how easy and efficient the user interaction is with a product/service. This product may be a software, app, or website. Once the designs are locked it is handed over to the developers who implement it i.e., write the code.

There are two main attributes to a good UX design. They are

Understanding the needs of potential users For example, if the need of the customer is to buy a product, then UX designers need to make sure that from the time the user lands on the webpage or app till he actually buys a certain product, his experience must be smooth, easy to follow and with not time consuming in doing any task. 

To design a product/service based on the understanding. Usability of the product is the key focus here. Easier the product/service is to use better the user experience. This will return in happy customers and probably repeat customers. A typical UX design process will follow some basic steps as depicted in the figure below. Each of these stages is iterative in nature and can be revisited as many times as possible to avoid future complications.

Can DevOps environment become beneficial for design and UX

Understanding user needs

This stage is very important and the key to delivering a successful product outcome. This is a proper brainstorming phase between the UX designers and the stakeholders. A product/service should not be developed based on assumptions. Detailed research goes into surveys, interviews with users paying close attention to user needs and existing data. Answers to the following questions are obtained at the end of the phase

1. Who will use this product/service?
2. What are the user needs?
3. What the product will deliver
4. Identify challenges
5. In case there is an existing product, how this product will be better in terms of functionality and usability

Research and Analysis

The research phase is very important, and more time needs to be spent in this phase to avoid future mishaps that may result in waste of money, time and resources. In depth user needs analysis and market research has to be done in this phase. This phase is different for different projects depending on the product to be developed (e.g., a website or an app etc), resources, funding, time and other factors.

In depth analysis should be done on

• User Research: This involves conducting surveys, interviews (in the location where they use the existing app/website to understand their tasks and challenges) and questionnaires to find the user expectations. Interviews are conducted to find out what the user expects when they navigate the different functions and what their pain points in using the product are.
• Existing competition by conducting reviews and audits of existing competitor websites/products and doing user testing of these websites understand the challenges faced i.e. usability issues and identifying possible areas of improvement.  Use cases and Storyboarding: A list of uses cases i.e. possible interactions between the user and system is documented which will be useful for design and testing  Content audit: Existing content from users is reviewed and catalogued.
• Creating User Personas: Personas are nothing but characters that are designed to represent the actual end user or customer. These personas are useful because they represent the actual end user (their characteristics and attitude), provide accurate user expectations and show how the user will actually interact with the service/product. These personas have an actual name so that the user is always the focus.
• Diary studies: This is nothing but asking users to record their experience and thoughts about a product/service in a diary and with a timeframe.
• Card Sorting: It is a quantitative user research method. It is a research tool to determine how information is logically grouped and organized within a site. This id done by writing differ t topics pertaining to the site into cards and giving it to the users in no particular order. The user then sorts through and groups the information based on their Knowledge and expectation. For example in case of a website the user will be able to organize the topics based on how they expect to navigate. This can give valuable information as what should be placed in the homepage, what sections can be created and what topics to include. Card sorting is used to evaluate Information Architecture. Card sorting can be done in many ways like Open card sorting, closed card sorting, Group card sorting and Remote card sorting.
• Brainstorming Ideas This phase is where the UX designers use the data collected from the research phase and come up with multiple ideas to realize the product idea.

Design and Prototype

This phase comes after the UX designers have clearly understood user needs and locked on the idea or approach to creating the product. The next step is to create the Information Architecture (IA) and the actual UI design. This process is iterative and involves all the team players. The design phase has the following steps:- 

• Designing on paper, whiteboard or sketching using design tool: This helps the designers to choose for the many ideas and develop rough sketches of user interface.
• Creating Workflow diagrams or Activity diagrams: These are graphical representations of the various activities the users many use to interact with the system.
• Information Architecture (IA): The purpose of IA is to structure, label and organize content in such a way that the user does not get lost while navigating the different tasks. Too much information can often burden the user and curb them from getting the desired outcome causing irritability and dissatisfaction. A good UX design must be able to properly organize the different segments and keep a logical flow. IA leads to easy navigation, decreased support costs and drop-off rates and ultimately customer satisfaction.
• Creating wireframes: Wireframe is a blueprint of the product/software/website that is being built. It is used to visualize the structure of the user interface with no code written yet. It is not the final design and amends can be made until the design is finalized and locked. Creating Wireframes is very useful as it helps to visualize the interface and the process flow. It saves lot of time, is inexpensive and avoids making changes in the last minute. It just shows the structure of the interface, its function and the process at an early stage. Wireframes connect the visual design of the site to its Information Architecture (IA).UX designers can decide what functionality to place in which page.
• Mood board: It is a collage of visual aspects like images, color palette, fonts etc to communicate to the stake holders and to get their opinions.
• Prototype development: A prototype is a simulation of the final product used mainly for testing the product among the users. It is of two types. It may be clickable wireframes also called Low fidelity prototypes or coded prototypes which are High fidelity prototypes. Prototyping tools such as Adobe XD, InVision and Proto.io can be used.
• Design specification: This contains all the designs, patterns needed by developers to create a working product.

Testing

Before building the actual product, the prototype has to be tested by actual users. This is very important because we get the actual feedback from real users and changes (if any) can be made to improve the product. This helps to eliminate any problems or user difficulties before actually going t the implementation process. Once the high fidelity design is ready, it goes for testing phase. A comprehensive testing is done and all the feedback is collected from the stakeholders and end users. This is an iterative process and based on the feedback changes are made. Once the testing is done and the product is declared usable it is the turn of the team members to use and test it.

User testing, usability testing, alpha (to test new features) and beta testing (testing done before release, by a closed group of selected users to collect their feedback) are the different types of testing done. The feedback is collected with the help of surveys and questionnaires. Remote usability testing is better than conducting the tests in lab as it saves a lot of time and money and can accommodate a wide range of participants who can. Conducting tests in user environment renders better results. All the above mentioned phases are iterative until a usable product is designed. Only when a good UX design is developed the product goes into the actual coding and development phase. If any of the above mentioned phase is not done properly it will result in a poor product/service and ultimately to dissatisfied users and customers.

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• N9 IT Solutions is a leading IT development and consulting firm providing a broad array of customized solutions to clients throughout the United States.
• It got established primarily with an aim to provide consulting and IT services in today’s dynamic environment.
• N9 IT also offers consulting services in many emerging areas like Java/J2ee, Cloud Computing, Database Solutions, DevOps, ERP, Mobility, Big Data, Application Development, Infrastructure Managed Services, Quality Assurance and Testing.

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