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A People First Approach to Design – 2020 Design Trends with Agata Orlowska

UXPin: Welcome to the 2020 Design Trends by UXPin. Today I’m joined by Agata Orlowska. Agata, would you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

Agata: I’ve been working in the UX world for almost six years. Professionally, I’m a senior UX designer and a UX researcher. Basically, I’m a one-woman army of UX in my company, but I’m a design technologist too, and I’m a clinical psychologist. And what I find to be important now is educating young UX designers and submitting them into the English academy. And I think that it’s enough. You can find me on LinkedIn and at a lot of UX industry events.

UXPin: You said that you’re a psychologist, so I think you would have to say a lot about trends when it comes to brands being more human and UX having a more human touch. So I would like to start with not exactly a UX question, but this is a very important trend as far as I’m concerned. I’m seeing more real life in design. Like real life beauty and fashion, for example, or trying to be as human as possible, as simple as possible in design in general. So what is your opinion on this trend, and do you think it’s going to be taking off in 2020?

Agata: Yes, I think it’s a kind of professional deviation. It’s a huge, huge topic and  a big influence. What’s happening now is a big influence in our lives and we don’t see it now, but maybe our children can live in totally other worlds. And I think that we are part of it now. Maybe you can say what you mean first about this huge topic. What is the first part of this?

UXPin: Where my thoughts come from is that we experienced digitalization and social media stuff on one hand, and on the other, brands want to be more human and build communities and have this customer-first approach. So, I think this is where this trend comes from – showing the real human face of brands. I’m sure it’s showing in fashion and photography. Do you think this will stay in fashion and photography, but not in technology?

Agata: Yes. I think that this trend of real life beauty is something new and it’s coming from artificial Instagram beauty. Research shows that social media is making people depressed. You know about it because it’s popular. We see and we work and it’s real – it’s imperfect. This trend will develop because more and more people need it. I believe that this will stay and grow stronger. I believe because I want it!

UXPin: That’s the psychologist part of you.

Agata: Yes, it’s my psychologist thinking. I think that for people, [the trend of showing the human face of brands] can be better for them than social media. 

UXPin: You said that what you also anticipate is that when our kids, or the kids of today grow up, the landscape of design will be totally different. How will generation alpha shape this design? What are their expectations? What do you think? 

Agata: New research says that 27% of adults said they asked for their kid’s opinion before buying a new TV, laptop, tablet, or iPhone. And of course, it’s a new landscape of design now because the older generation are changing the landscape of design. 

For example, take Apple products. There has been a huge change over the last 10 years in terms of design technology, even the size of screens. We have new keyboards and it’s only been 10 years. And I think that the generation born in the year of the launch of Instagram and the iPad will expect more interaction than previous generations. VR will be a daily reality for them. Today, we see small children trying to touch and swipe the butterfly on the bus window. I think that these gestures are innate from birth. And the same situation, generation alpha has a different way of thinking about interaction. When you look at the development of home appliances, everyday automation will be obvious for them because, in maybe five or 10 years, you will come home and your smart home starts your coffee and turn off everything. I hope that’s the future.

UXPin: Do you remember the cartoon, the Jetsons?

Agata: Yes, of course.

UXPin: That’s what I imagined when you said that. That would be so cool to live in their world – fingers crossed it’s going to happen like that. Have things done by robots. Speaking of robots and a Sci-Fi-like future, what is your view on AI and AR/VR in design?

Agata: I think that it certainly has lots of potential and I’m glad that we live in  times that enable us to do so. I don’t think that [AI] will take our jobs away from us – it’s common to talk about, “[robots] are taking our jobs.” No, no. I think that [AI] will make our jobs easier. And in this case, for me, the best part is the possibility to transform user interface design into HTML markup codes. AI is not our enemy. I think that it can make things easier. AI allows you to strengthen your search capabilities, improve visitor interaction, and provide personalized service.

Agata: We have some successful companies using AI in design in new ways. For example, Wix or Squarespace. But for me, the most interesting thing is the human aspect. The human aspect of AI, for example, is a self-driving car that needs to make decisions during an accident, whether to rescue an older woman or a child. And this is the difficulty of ethical issues that we will face. The most interesting part of AI is that it sometimes needs to make decisions like people. But AI doesn’t have empathy, and that will be our challenge over the next few years. It’s not that hard to make businesses based on AI when you design websites and stuff like that. But the most interesting part is empathy. Because we need it to make decisions, for example, to choose between rescuing an older woman or a child. If you’re a mother you rescue the child, but if someone has only parents, maybe this person thinks that the older woman can do that. That’s interesting to me.

UXPin: I strongly believe that these are the tools that we are supposed to use, but use them wisely and learn to maintain them or shift them into what we as humans need them to do. So one more question to you, Agata. What are your professional goals for 2020? Because we talked about big trends and psychology AI, human touch and everything, but I’d like to know your personal role in it.

Agata: My individual part, for AR, is that I’ve been working on a mobile app for my company and now it’s my own project now. I’m at the same time a project owner and the designer for the same project. It’s a big challenge and we want to finish it in the first half of this year. And that’s my professional priority at the moment, but I have to admit that my last year was very intense for me, both professionally and privately. This is my second job. I would like to maintain my work-life balance and spend more time with loved ones. And I think that those goals are on the same level.

UXPin: I wish you all the balance in the world to have your professional goals met, and also to be present with your loved ones. Thank you very much for joining us to share your insights.

The post A People First Approach to Design – 2020 Design Trends with Agata Orlowska appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Determining ROI for UX Investments

A study published by Forrester Research makes it clear that UX projects can have a significant influence on how much money a business earns. When companies used UX based on excellent design systems, they found that their websites:

Converted 400% more consumers.
Improved the willingness of customers to recommend products by16.6%.
Increased customer willing to spend money by 14.4%.

Increasing conversions by 400% should grab your attention. Take your amount of sales generated today and multiple it by four. That’s the number of sales you could have by investing in an ROI project that revamps your UX.

Your UX ROI Depends on Your Current Design

Obviously, you can’t count on every UX project increasing your sales by that much. If you already have an excellent UX, then you might only increase conversions by 25%. It’s impossible to know until you look at your current design, recognize opportunities for improvement, implement a new UX design, and measure the results.

Some common flaws for websites and apps include:

Slow loading times,
Confusing menus.
Unclear instructions.
Erratic design systems between products.

The more issues you find, the more chances you have to improve the ROI on your next UX project.

If you want to focus on making your design better to boost conversions, you should start with:

Making simple, unique UI and UX elements.
Adding options for real-time customer support.
Creating landing page design elements that will get customers to buy.
Improving SEO elements to attract more traffic to your website.




You Won’t Know the Financial ROI Until Later

Naturally, you want to know the financial ROI of your UX project. Studies can only show general trends in how improved UX leads to increased revenues and profits. You will not know your business’s financial return on investing in UX until you finish the project, update your design, and wait for customers to respond.

Keep in mind that your financial ROI will not improve dramatically over night. It may take a few weeks or months before people start visiting your site and spending more money. Don’t rush the process. Trust that your team’s work will lead to go things. Research shows that improved UX will get the job done.

UX Projects Can Save Your Design Team Time

It may sound counter-intuitive, but UX projects can actually save your design team a lot of time.

Make sure the project starts with creating a design system that your designers can use across multiple products. Once your team has all of the design assets that it needs, future prototyping and design updates happen much more quickly.

A design system includes approved:

Color schemes
Icons
Templates
Editorial guidelines
Image assets, such as photos and images
Interactive elements

When your designers start working on future projects, they can turn to the approved design system instead of starting from scratch. Suddenly, a job that may take 1,000 hours turns into a project that gets finished by the end of the week.,

A Design System Also Makes Your Projects More Efficient

Many small businesses have already discovered the benefits of starting UX projects by creating effective design systems. The financial benefits of a UX project aren’t usually apparent until long after your team has a design system. Once you have the system in place, though, you can expect your business to benefit from:

Faster time to market for new products.
Fewer errors that force designers and developers to track down mistakes.
Easier onboarding when you hire new team members.
Better collaboration between team members using the same design system.
More accurate user data that lets you compare how people respond to updates and new products.

It’s difficult to measure the ROI of efficiency. In financial terms, though, you can expect to spend less money because your teams finish projects faster. You may discover that your business can release more products, or you may decide that you need a smaller group of designers working on your prototypes.

Good UX Reduces Customer Support Questions

You can expect to find tremendous UX ROI when you see how users respond. One of the first things that you will notice is a decline in customer support questions. No matter how many instructions you give people, some of them will get confused and need to reach out to your support team for answers.

Good UX should make websites and apps intuitive for users. When a new customer picks up your product, they should know how to use it within seconds. They may continue learning new features over time, but the basic functions should reveal themselves immediately.

At least two important things when you make products more intuitive for users:

You get happier customers who keep using your product.
Your customer support team receives fewer questions and complaints.

Let’s focus on the second benefit. How much does your business spend on customer support? You have to hire and train people to answer questions via phone, email, and chat. You have to pay for the extra office space and equipment that your customer support employees need to do their jobs. If you adopt a chatbot to answer common, simple questions, you have to pay someone to make the bot for you.

Customer support can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

Remember, your ROI involves more than the additional money you can make. It also involves the money that you save.

UXPin Makes UX Projects Easier

The ROI of UX projects increases even more when you have a great tool that helps your designers create design systems and functional prototypes. UXPin fills those needs easily. The design and prototyping platform includes abundant features that will help your team members collaborate in real time, work from a shared library of approved assets, and understand which ideas work best.

Do you want to learn more about how UXPin can help your business improve its UX ROI? Sign up for a free trial that lets you explore UXPin’s features. Once you see the advantage of using software that combines design with prototyping, you’ll know that you have the right tool for your products.

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Ideation in Design Thinking: Importance of Approach

One of the most important jobs of a designer is to come up with new and innovative solutions to user problems. How can designers keep generating innovative ideas? The answer is in the design thinking ideation process. It allows designers to come up with fresh ideas by thinking outside the box, challenging assumptions, and exploring new territories. This article explains what ideation is, why it is important, the process for ideation, and how to create the right environment. 

Table of Contents

What is ideation?Why is ideation important in design thinking?How to run the ideation phase of design thinking: a step-by-step guideHow to get your team into the right mindset for ideation



What is ideation?

Ideation is the second stage of the design thinking process where participants in a design thinking workshop come up with ideas on how to solve a specific user problem. The design thinking process is made up of three phases: empathize, ideate, and prototype.

The ideation phase of design thinking is guided by the user problems that were defined during the empathize phase. Ideation is about the exploration and identification of potential solutions. Not all ideas will be viable solutions, and that’s okay. The primary goal of ideation is to spark creativity and innovation. 

Why is ideation important in design thinking?

Sometimes designers ask “what is the purpose of ideation?” The answer is that it marks the transition between understanding the problems that users have and generating solutions for these problems. 

Ideation gives designers the license to let their minds run wild, question the status quo, and look at problems from different angles. It also helps designers to collaborate and create groundbreaking solutions as a team. 

How to run the ideation phase of design thinking: a step-by-step guide

 Here are the steps that you need to follow for a productive ideation process. 

Step 1: Define the problem

The problem or problems that were identified during the empathize phase of your design thinking process will guide your ideation session. Your team will generate ideas that will solve these problems. 

Phrase the problem using a ‘How might we’ prefix. For instance, if your team is solving the problem of poor user experience in an app, the question would be ‘How might we create an intuitive user experience?’ This phrasing focuses the ideation session while implying that there is a solution to the problem. 

Step 2: Choose a space

The location of your ideation session has a huge effect on how safe and comfortable the participants will feel. Choose a large room that has whiteboards or enough wall space for you to set up your own writing materials. 

It is a good idea to choose a space that is away from the environment where your team usually works in. Being in a new environment triggers creativity and alternative ways of thinking. It’s also important to come up with a few icebreaker activities to help the participants loosen up. 

Step 3: Set time limits

Decide beforehand how long the ideation session for each problem is going to last. Set the number of ideas that the session should generate for each problem. These limits will give the session momentum, create energy, and an adrenaline rush which will spark even more creativity. 

Step 4: Select ideation techniques 

There are several ideation techniques that you can use to help your team come up with ideas. The most common ones include:

Brainstorming– verbally sharing ideas within the group.Mind mapping– visually ideating by starting with a keyword that is related to the problem and then writing all the ideas associated with it around it. Storyboarding– creating visual storylines of how users might go about solving the problem.Worst possible idea– coming up with the worst possible ideas to remove creative blocks. 

Don’t limit your ideation session to one technique, you are free to use more than one technique. This will ensure that your team generates the highest number of ideas. 

Step 5: Rank the ideas

If your ideation session has gone according to plan, you will end up with lots of ideas. Some will be promising, others will be outrageous and others will be crazy. Together with the participants sort the ideas according to different categories such as promising, interesting, unconventional, or crazy. For each category, rank the ideas. Don’t throw away any ideas as they might be useful in the future or in other design projects. 

Step 6: Choose the ideas that will move to the prototyping stage

The end goal of the ideation in design thinking is to come up with ideas that can be prototyped and tested. Choose the ideas that are going to be prototyped and maintain a record of those that didn’t make the final cut. 

How to get your team into the right mindset for ideation

The success or failure of your design thinking ideation process will depend on how you approach it and the atmosphere that you create. You need to create a safe judgment-free environment that will give all the participants the chance to express their ideas including the most outrageous or unconventional. Here’s how to create the right atmosphere:

Accept all ideas

To encourage creativity and open mindedness, do not reject any ideas. If you do, you will dampen the mood of the session. Remember that the aim is to generate as many ideas as possible. On top of accepting all ideas, encourage participants to build on the ideas of others by using the ‘yes and…’ phrase. This will lead to interesting ideas and perspectives. 

Stay on topic

During a high energy ideation session, your team can easily get derailed and start ideating on other issues that are not related to the problem. As the facilitator, it is your job to guide the session and refocus the ideation session. Should your team come up with a  juicy idea that is not related to the problem, note it down for future reference and then guide the session back to the problem at hand. 

Document all ideas 

Ensure that you log all the ideas produced during the session. The facilitator can act as a secretary by writing the ideas down on a whiteboard. Alternatively, the participants can also document their ideas by writing them on sticky notes or on the whiteboard. 

When documenting ideas, summarize them, and record the key point. For instance, if a participant suggests “we could create an interactive story-based app to improve user  experience” document “create an interactive story-based app.” To ensure that you don’t miss any ideas, work on ideas one at a time. 

Turn your ideas into prototypes with the best design tools

The ideation phase of design thinking helps your design team to come up with innovative solutions to design problems. Use UXPin to create prototypes of the ideas you come up with during ideation sessions. Transform your ideas into lifelike prototypes when you sign up for a free trial of UXPin today.

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Cross-Team Collaboration on Customer Experience – 2020 Design Trends with Ramsés Cabello

UXPin: Welcome to 2020 Design Trends with UXPIN. Our guest today is Ramsés Cabello. Ramsés, can you tell us a bit about yourself, such as your work experience? What is your field of design?

Ramsés: I work at GAN Integrity in Copenhagen. My role in the company is UI engineer, but I mostly work throughout the whole design process. My main focus is prototyping ideas and concepts so that we can interact with them and validate them with the customers. So I’ve been working in design industry for around seven or eight years now.

UXPin: I’ve hardly ever heard of your role, UI engineer. Can you tell us a little bit about it because I know you are a designer or product designer, and engineering is usually separate, right?

Ramsés: I feel this whole title thing is very difficult. For some companies, the same title might mean one thing and for other companies it means something else. I feel like UI engineer is mostly related to working closely with the development team, and making sure that the designs and the prototypes you create are implemented as close to the design as possible. It’s kind of interesting that you talk about this topic because I’ve felt for a while that we’ve been struggling to find out what is my role and title are. 

UXPin: I think it changes a lot. Let’s talk about the 2020 trends right now. I’ve heard that some of jobs are going to disappear or evolve into something else. While we are speaking about your title—which is really rare—could you tell me your thoughts on the idea that UX designer jobs will be disappearing and new jobs will be emerging in 2020?

Ramsés: I think for a long time, as designers, we have been wearing too many hats. I do this role, but in the end I also kind of do everything throughout the process. So I feel that as more specific roles will be appearing, I also sense that they will be sounding more like a “UX culture curator” in the company. Somebody who is responsible for all those different people. There’s something about “curation,” and I don’t like the words “management” or “manager,” but I feel designers have this responsibility to ensure that everybody in an organization knows that UX is everyone’s responsibility. This is a feeling of curating the UX community within the organization. So I see the need for more roles like that.

UXPin: So it’s not going to be just speaking about users or talking about user experience, but actually going through the whole process, from making it the smoothest you can get—like throughout the whole organization—and making sure to collaborate each time.

Ramsés: I think there’s a big need for curation and helping everyone in the organization understand that the UX designer can shape the design of the experience as an interactive point of view or service point of view. But at the end of the day, how sales sell their product, or how every different part of the company speaks about the product and how the customer and organization interact, there must be somebody curating these experiences. So I don’t know, it sounds like a “design culture curator” or something related to that kind of concept, you know?

UXPin: Yes. There’s this whole new field of business called customer experience. But now people in business or marketing roles are expected to know a lot about customer experience, because I think we are switching the focus from brand and product to real people, and the more real the brand is the more authentic the relationship with the customer or user is, right? So I strongly believe that it’s in the design as well, for example in photographs, real life beauty… it’s no longer one type of model. But people are not photoshopping pictures as much. Do you think that this trend is like really holistic, like from the business side to the customer side, to real life people?

Ramsés: I love photography and I love street photography and for me, street photography is about capturing all these daily interactions in a very lighthearted way. I think also in this trend that you mentioned, of real life, how can we apply that to products, for example, or UX. It kind of reduces the intermediaries between the product and the real people that are going to use it. For example, in the field I work, I would say that the most important thing is that people get to the data as soon as possible. So we try to cut all these things in between—how can we reduce that? How can we make the product more real and avoid putting in filters? I think it’s about reducing complexity. Photoshop, at the end of the day, is like selling an idea that’s not real; it’s like retouching reality to fit a specific mindset, but there are several mindsets. There are too many. It must be diverse.

Ramsés: So I feel like if you put it out there and you don’t sugarcoat it, if you don’t put filters on it, then people can relate easily. It doesn’t look like it’s out of their reach.

UXPin: And speaking of more diverse, I think especially UI design is shifting towards being more open to all kinds of people. It’s not like, okay, this is the typical user and we are only focused on them. From what I gather, accessibility is a huge trend. It’s not supposed to be a trend, but a must in our times. So I’m really hoping that in 2020, it will be a must—what do you think?

Ramsés: For a very long time, I’ve had these ideas how trends, like mobile first, all come and go. But there has never been something like accessibility first. There has never been this whole idea of putting accessibility in the first row of this story. So I feel this year—and not only this year, but forever and ever—we should just have accessibility on top of everything. And I also get the feeling that when we think about accessibility, we tend to think it’s kind of like so out of our everyday, right? So we don’t tend to relate very much to it as a designer, but I think industries that have never thought that accessibility will be relevant are now suffering the pains of not having thought about that before.

Ramsés: For example, I am also very close to the video game industry and many video games are struggling because they did not think about problems with eyesight.  Some users with eyesight problems will be playing games where the subtitles or the text or the UI is very complex. Last year, I had to drop so many games because I could not play due to the text being very small. I hope that means more industries will wake up and see that accessibility is not just a trend—we have to be accessible. But it’s also more about opening your product or whatever you’re building to as many people as possible.

UXPin: I was going to say that speaking from a design tool point of view, I think technology is making it so much easier for designers to really be able to design real life experience, or be accessible. Do you have an experience of how you would build this real life experience in your work?

Ramsés: Yes. Again, we’re using [inaudible] and for me it’s the tool that I use constantly, because it allows me to take accessibility on the go. Over the past year there was implementation of new features to check accessibility, like the tags, the textbook, the size of the text and the color contrast, and stuff like that. Because of all the small features that allow us to build a very high-fidelity prototypes, whatever we display to customers or colleagues is always as close to reality as possible. I see people in my company clicking around and, by mistake, they forget that this is not the real thing. Sometimes you need to remind them that this is just the prototype. Especially regarding accessibility, I would like to see tools and implementing, in context, accessibility tools. Very often for developers, you see plugins or consoles where you can check the accessibility of the site, but very rarely do we see design tools also take this approach.

UXPin: I think we have a few features to come in 2020. So while we are speaking about your point of view and your experience, what will be your favorite emerging trend for 2020?

Ramsés: Maybe this is a little bit controversial, but I think during this year we need to take a minimalist approach. What do we actually need? And during this year, we’re going to have to try to fix a lot of the mess we’ve created in the last [inaudible]. We’ve been making too many apps, too many products and just too many things or creating too complex designs in general. This year I would really like to see more designers and product people taking new approaches. Do we actually need that thing? I would love intentional design to be a trend. Why are we designing this?

UXPin: That’s a really good trend that I would like to see as well, because I think the design is not a good design unless it’s usable. But the more we dive into business and money is taking part in it, the more we kind of drift off of the how—how are they supposed to use it and is it really necessary.

Ramsés: In my field, which is a compliance solution, it’s kind of strict because it’s regulated by law. But enterprise software has a very interesting take on design because until now, it has been enough to have a long list of features. We take the enterprise software, because we can do more or you can do less. But at the end of the day, the consumer products are getting better. They have good design, they are being exposed to really, really good applications or really good websites. So I don’t feel it’s enough for enterprise software to have a ‘good list’ of features. That is not enough. So I see enterprise software embracing design more into their everyday.

Ramsés: So even customers will pick one product or the other, even if some of the features are not available yet but the design and the experience is nicer. They’d think, “I might pick that one. Maybe I can do a little bit less, but this one can do it and perform it better and easier.” That is something to think about this year in enterprise software. You can also see that thought process coming from a long time with Atlassian or others—they are embracing design a little bit more.

UXPin: Fingers crossed that it is going to happen. You’ve given us some amazing insights on 2020 trends, and thank you very much for joining me today. I hope we can engage in this discussion with our community. 

The post Cross-Team Collaboration on Customer Experience – 2020 Design Trends with Ramsés Cabello appeared first on Studio by UXPin.

Who is a UX Engineer Specifically

As user experience and related fields mature, so does the terminology, tools, processes, and roles involved in the process. But trends change over time. The number and types of roles expand or specialize, and then contract, favoring generalists with unicorn status. Different businesses and industries use different names for the same roles. It can be confusing for everyone involved, from HR departments and (potential) employees to leaders trying to build a great team with the right mix of skills and a limited headcount. Once you’ve got the team built out, you then have to make sure that everyone knows what their responsibilities are as well as who to collaborate with and when to do so. One role that is often misunderstood is the UX Engineer (UXE). So what exactly is a UXE? What do these professionals do, and why does your team need one?

Overview of the UX Design and Development Team

According to the Interaction Design Foundation, there are six essential roles within a user experience team. These roles are tailored a bit to the Design Thinking process but translate well into any methodology a team may use. 

UI Designer – aka interaction designer. UX and UI are sometimes used interchangeably, and while they have similar skills, there are differences. These team members own the overall design of a product or feature. UI designers can be more focused on individual screens and functionality, even overlapping with visual design such as color or layout.Product Designer – aka UX Designer. As with a UI Designer, the skills are similar, and the focus is on designing a user interface that people like using and can easily learn. THe product or UX designer looks at the bigger picture, considering the strategy of the product and it’s future road map or vision. Visual Designer – aka graphic designer. This role is specialized to visuals and graphics. These professionals work closely with the UX or UI designers to achieve interactions while creating attractive, usable graphical themes and assets.UX Researcher – aka usability tester. While designers handle their own research and user testing from time to time, this role is focused on conducting all types of research and testing to advocate for the users, and ensure that the designs are geared toward the best user experience possible.Content Strategist – aka UX writer or information architect. These roles can also be highly specialized. The content strategist uses user research and UX principles to determine what content is needed and when to deploy it throughout a design. UX writers create the content while tailoring it to the audience and context of the product. UX Engineer – aka UX unicorn. The UXE takes the designs and develops the code for the front end elements. They are skilled in both design and development, and can help design and development teams communicate to achieve the best UI possible.

From those basic categories the roles can still be combined, or further refined, depending on the size and needs of the team. A designer who is particularly skilled with both interaction and visual aspects may fill both roles. A product designer who enjoys CSS and building widgets could handle the UXE roles as well. Whatever the names of the roles, each team needs a unique mix of skills based on the products and channels they work in. The number of team members can be scaled based on the budget and skill set of the individual members, as well as the overall workload.

What is a UX Engineer Specifically

“UX unicorns [UX Engineers] are a rare and special breed of people who can not only contribute to all phases of the design process; they can also take charge of frontend development.”

 Author / copyright holder: Teo Yu Siang and the Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Google defines a UX Engineer as someone who can, “weave together strong design aesthetics with technical know-how.” 

Skills

Core skills of a UXE include:

Coding (HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.)Human Computer InteractionUser Centered DesignPrototypingVisual Design



Educational Background

There is no one “right” path to becoming a UXE. UXEs may come from an HCI or User Experience background, then learn that they enjoy actually building the interfaces and take steps to learn programming. Or they may come from a computer science background, and find that they enjoy figuring out what makes a particular widget or toggle work well for their users. A UXE does need a good mix of education and experience to be knowledgeable about UX concepts and design. He or she needs to be able to participate in user research, ideation, and iterative development, as well as having the ability to build the components needed for a design system, and actual end product.

What Does the UX Engineer Actually Do?

The specific responsibilities of a User Experience Engineer may look a little different depending on the design and development methodologies and process in place. Essentially though, they are involved in the entire process.

https://uxdesign.cc/ux-engineering-is...




Ideation

UXEs partner with user researchers and designers to define usability goals, brainstorm solutions, and advise on technical feasibility of fledgling designs. During this phase, brainstorming is a huge part of the process. The UXE is essential for helping decide which of those ideas are possible given the technical limitations of the project.

Design

Design Systems fall solidly within the domain of the UXE. They work with designers to create a library of consistent, usable components to be used in wireframing and prototyping tools like UXPin, as well as to be handed off to the front end development team. This means putting together web pages, styles sheets, and coding controls for reuse throughout the interface.

Build

All components, widgets, pieces and parts need to be developed. The UXE doesn’t focus as much on non-UI elements of the front end like data integration, APIs, performance, or analytics. But they do collaborate with the rest of the frontend developers to ensure that the designs are executed as intended, with elegantly simple and efficient code.

Test

From the time a new control or widget is dreamed up in ideation, to the building of the prototype, to the final integration in the interface, the UXE collaborates with user testing. If an element doesn’t test well, they collaborate with design to find the solution. If there is a bug, they work with development to determine ways to fix the bug, or modify the code to integrate with the system better, and meet technological requirements. 

Conclusion

User Experience Engineers are not the same as User Experience Designers. Adding a User Experience Engineer to your team could be a great way to help your design team bring their vision to life, particularly if the front end development team is not closely connected to them organizationally, or functionally. User Experience Engineers understand user needs and know how to build components that serve their needs, while knowing how to talk to developers and testers to ensure the tech works seamlessly.

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The Emerging Importance of Experience Design

No matter what type of business you may run, finding the best methods and practices of gaining and maintaining customers for the long-term can be challenging. Indeed, given that many markets are saturated and there are literally new businesses popping up overnight, companies now need to go above and beyond to encourage customer loyalty. Nevertheless, doing so can mean the difference between struggling to secure every dollar and securing years of effortless sales from a staunch selection of repeat customers. With that in mind, let’s look at experience design and how it is becoming increasingly important to brands and businesses of all kinds.

Why is User Experience Design so Important?

It’s no secret, more and more customers are shopping online searching for the best deals, rather than feeling any actual obligation to support any given brand or business. Therefore, brands need to find deeper ways to connect with their customers to secure them as long-term supporters. As a result user experience design is so important. It helps businesses uncover the goals and desires of their customers, in order to provide them with the goods and services they need to improve their lives and become more content overall.

What the Heck is Experience Design?

For those who are yet unfamiliar, user experience design is a process that takes on a customer-centric focus when it comes to designing and creating products and services for their customers.

In other words, by studying user experience, or the various ways in which customers interact with the goods and services, businesses are able to provide clients with an improved shopping experience in general. This can include everything from the packaging used, to the features of the products, and much more. The bottom line is that user experience design makes it possible for companies to provide their customers with enhanced experiences that serve as a foundation of a meaningful, long-lasting relationship between the customer and the company.

Experience Design: Meeting Users’ Needs

Focusing on the entire journey of the customer, user experience design helps meet users’ needs by offering:

Empathy – One of the top benefits of user experience design is that it allows your customers to feel heard and understood. While previous marketing methods gave only partial consideration to appealing to the emotions of the customers, UX design makes it one of the primary focuses. This is one of the most effective ways to forge long-term relationships with your customers.Functionality – Another major benefit of UX design is that it allows companies to better cater to their customer’s needs by offering products and features. Rather than creating products based on what they believe is the next big thing, companies are now creating products based on what the customers have directly requested.Experiences – UX design goes above and beyond products. Rather, it focuses on providing memorable and favorable experiences. These experiences can become invaluable aspects of customers’ lives and something they grow to cherish and seek repeatedly over time.



Human-Centered Design for a Human-Centered Experience

By involving a human-centered perspective in every facet of your company, you are creating a brand that becomes more relatable and helpful to your customers. This method makes your customers feel respected and valued, rather than making them feel as though they are simply being used as a means to and end.

The Benefit of Humanizing Websites and Apps

Given that websites and apps are being marketed to humans, it only makes sense that companies would start to focus on making them feel more human. The benefits of humanizing websites and apps are:

Aesthetics – Given that companies often pay top dollar to experts to figure out which color schemes and graphics will help them make more sales, offering aesthetics that are pleasing to the customer is mutually beneficial.Ease of Use – Many customers seek products that can help them become more productive. Therefore, by considering customer feedback when designing products, you will be able to provide them with a product that is not only easy to use, but adds value to their life experience.Information: Lastly, many customers are also seeking knowledge that can help enhance their lives in some fashion. Therefore, if you are designing an app or website, it should offer tons of useful information that helps empower the customer.



Experience Design improves Customer Retention

By creating memorable experiences, useful products, providing them with empowering knowledge, and life-changing products, UX design allows many companies to improve customer retention. For instance, if you have a website that offers your users useful information that helps them become more productive and successful, these customers will start to view you as a go-to in your realm of expertise. Over time, this will make them more likely to visit your website and purchase your products before shopping with similar brands, even if they are offering the products or services for less.

Experience Design Creates Competitive Advantage

Similarly, UX design can help establish your brand as a trusted source in your field. Once you have been established as a leader in your sector, many customers will always prefer you over your competitors.

Experience Design: Brands Become Stories

Since UX design helps to create memorable experiences, these experiences then become stories that your customers will love to tell for years to come. This is one of the most powerful types of word-of-mouth marketing as your brand becomes a part of your customer’s favorite stories and experiences for a lifetime.

Offering Enjoyable Experience Instead of Selling a Product

As mentioned, rather than just focusing on selling a product, UX design makes sure that the customer enjoys the whole experience. For instance, certain stores offer product demos, coupons, and other special perks to anyone who enters their store. When these experiences are warm and enjoyable, customers are much more likely to want to frequent your store.

Overall, UX design can be one of the most effective ways of attracting and maintaining your customers. Luckily, UXPin offers an all-in-one tool that makes managing your UX design efforts as simple and effective as possible. If you need help or guidance to help you incorporate UX design into your business, please contact our team of experts here at UXPin today.

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How Agile Environments Revolutionize a Design Team’s Workflow?

Agile environments, teams, and manifesto. In the world of design, there is no way to escape these buzzwords that have gradually entrenched themselves in work circles around the globe.

What is an agile environment and why is it so important to those in the design industry? To understand how agile environments revolutionize a design team’s workflow, it is crucial to delve deeper into the “agile” world.

The Evolution of Agile Environments  

First, let’s explain what an agile environment is. While the term “agile environment” sounds complex, it simply means that a company or organization embraces the values of the “Agile Manifesto” as a part of their day-to-day work culture. This methodology, developed by a group of seventeen different software developers in 2001, has been adopted by companies that wish to put waste reduction, transparency, and customer preferences at the forefront of their operations. 

This is achieved by dividing large chunks of a project into smaller ones that can be developed more quickly on their own, but also by prioritizing a culture that encourages a team of people to work together to reach a shared goal. Some of the main characteristics of an agile work environment include:

Being open to change – Many companies would be hesitant to change the path of a project in its late stages of the development cycle. Instead, they prefer to follow timelines, but agile work environments expect and embrace change at all stages. 







Face-to-face conversations – In today’s tech-savvy world, it is easy for companies to collaborate via email, phone conferences, or project management software. Agile environments, however, have a strong preference for face-to-face conversations. This is because it is the most effective way of communication.A unique workspace – Agile work environments typically look much different than your standard office. You likely will not find cubicles with large dividing walls or closed off offices for most employees. Instead, there are few walls and desks and tables are arranged to prioritize communication and collaboration. Likewise, there are usually many social spaces for gathering, such as sofas, tables, large whiteboards, and other furniture/tools that can easily be rearranged for impromptu meetings and discussions.



Applying Conceptual Models to Enhance Design Workflow

Conceptual models are models of an application that are created by developers to offer increased understanding to users. These models can differ in terms of their composure and are divided into two categories: sequential and structured or nonsequential and unstructured. While designed with users in mind, these models can also be used to enhance the design workflow when the abstract concepts can be refined and envisioned as practical elements. For instance, a conceptual model regarding entity relationships within a database (or an Entity-Relationship Diagram) can be used to assist both designers and developers in different ways to increase workflow when creating a website or an app. 

For design purposes, this conceptual model allows designers to visualize various database design ideas while identifying any flaws before actual changes are made.

To maximize the benefits of conceptual models for design teams, they must be well-defined with visual and written elements to express abstract concepts effectively, provide a basic structure, be available to all team members, and be easily changed to reflect the most up-to-date information. 

How Does Agile Influence Team Culture?

Following the “Agile Manifesto” creates an innovative work environment where openness and transparency are key. Each member of the team, and those in leadership roles follow the same set of core values, behaviors, and practices in the workplace that allow these concepts to flourish as a priority above all else. Likewise, the high level of collaboration and a focus on supportive leadership over command and control increases trust, loyalty, and overall integrity. This method, in turn, produces teams that are much stronger than those who follow traditional practices and they have an impeccable ability to adapt to change. Additionally, agile environments are more conducive to productivity, personal mastery, and meaningful results. 

Are Agile Environments Built for UX?

Agile environments have been rising in popularity since the initial concept was created in 2001. Although the environment and overall methodology are immensely beneficial, the focus of the “Agile Manifesto” lies prominently on developers and not those involved in UX. Because of this, typical agile practices do not include UX. They often neglect to consider the level of time and amount of research that those in UX require to create flawless designs that can put UX professionals who work in agile environments in a difficult position. Despite this, agile practices and UX can harmoniously co-exist. To make this happen, UX must be added to the software development process. Additionally, the organization must understand the importance of the UX professional’s work, include them as a part of the team and the agile environment must be flexible enough to accommodate the needs of all team members, including those in UX. 

Suggestions for Designers Incorporating Agile Practices

For designers who wish to create an agile development environment, it is crucial to understand the basic principles of the “Agile Manifesto”. This consists of four foundational values and twelve principles, but each can be applied in different ways to suit specific businesses’ values and practices. The main concepts to apply to reap the rewards of an agile environment; however, include: 

Be open with all employees and those in leadership roles about the shift to an agile development environment and inform them of the principles, behaviors, and benefits of incorporating agile practices.Create small, flexible groups where each team member has different skills and encourages increased communication, collaboration, and transparency on a companywide level. Extend this focus to clients to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.Opt for leadership over management. Those in leadership roles should be supportive and encouraging instead of the directive and commanding. Focus on people over set processes. This will allow teams to freely experiment with tools to create more effective and innovative processes than the ones that are currently in place while aiding in personal mastery.







Embrace change. To incorporate agile practices, it is crucial to be open to change at all stages of design and development. This may disrupt standard timelines but in turn, will result in more thorough results.

When the agile methodology is adopted by a company, it can present immense benefits to the overall work culture, employees, and level of productivity. For those in the design industry, an agile environment is equally beneficial and can revolutionize the entire team’s workflow. To reap the rewards, however, designers must ensure that their environment remains flexible enough to accommodate crucial components like the use of conceptual models and a focus on UX. Curious about other ways design teams can streamline and simplify their work? Reach out to our design experts at UXPin to learn more. 

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User Interface Elements Every Designer Should Know

UI elements or user interface elements are the most integral part of a software application, regardless of whether it’s a mobile, web, desktop, or Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality app. UI elements are the core building blocks for all applications. 

They are responsible for interactions between the user and the application. They are what allows for effective user navigation and input/output data, to name but just two core functionalities.

As a UI designer or web developer, it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of UI elements and how users interact with them. It will help you create a better application/website structure.

In this article, we will be exploring some of the common user interface elements and UI terminologies that all designers should have a good grasp on. 

UI Elements & Terminology Every Designer Needs To Know

There are some common UI elements & terminologies that are used across different platforms while designing interfaces. The three most important UI elements include:

Input elementsOutput elementsHelper elements

We will discuss each of these elements in detail later on in this article. As for the terminologies, we can divide them into 2 main segments. 

Standard UI terminology: Verbs (Actions Terms)Standard UI terminology: Nouns (Identifier Terms)

Standard UI terminology: Verbs a.k.a Actions Terms

TermsDescriptionClick / TapAn act of pressing, tapping, touching, and releasing of a mouse button or screen touch.PressAn action that requires pressing a button (physically) on the user keyboard,  the power button, and so on.TypeAn act of pressing a key to type it into a text box, etc.SwipeMostly applicable to touch screens. An act of touch and swipe through an area without releasing the touch.HoldAn act of Click/Tap/Press and hold a UI element. Such as buttons. 

Standard UI terminology: Nouns a.k.a Identifier Terms

TermsDescriptionFieldAn area in the WUI (Web User Interface) or GUI (Graphical User Interface) where you need to enter information.DialogueA pop-up window that appears before/after an action.PanelA toolbar or a control panel.PaneAn independent area in the WUI or GUI that you can scroll and resize.ButtonA graphical or web element that executes an action when clicked.IconA graphical or web element that represents a shortcut to an action.TabA graphical or web element that groups a set of actions.WizardA dialogue that walks a user through the sequence of steps to perform a particular task.



The importance of understanding of UI elements

Let’s say we receive a requirement of presenting the user with six options to choose from. For their preferred countries to work. Many UI elements can serve the purpose:

List: It allows for the selection of multiple countries.Dropdown: This usually allows for the selection of a single element.Checkboxes: Alternative way for selecting none, one, or multiple countries. Radio: It allows for the selection of a single element.

So, what would you pick? Is there anything else that offers more value? Can you use your custom-designed radio buttons? 

To resolve these questions, you require a proper understanding of various UI elements. 

Interested? Let’s start!

Types of UI Elements

Ideally, we can group UI elements into 3 major categories. 

Input elementsOutput elementsHelper elements



Input elements

Input elements are responsible for handling different user inputs. Sometimes they’re also part of the input validation process. Some of the most used input elements include:

DropdownsCombo boxesButtonsTogglesText/password fieldsDate pickersCheckboxesRadio buttonsConfirmation dialogues

Source: Dribbble.com

Output elements

Output elements are responsible for showing results against various user inputs. They also show alerts, warnings, success, and error messages to the users. Output elements aren’t neutral by nature. They rely on inputs and various operations.  

Source: Google Doc

Helper elements

All other elements fall into this category. The most widely-used helper elements include:

NotificationsBreadcrumbsIconsSlidersNotificationsProgress barsTooltips

We can also group helper elements into 3 categories.

Navigational

Responsible for UI navigation. Navigational helper elements include things like navigation menus, list of links, and breadcrumbs, to name but a few. 

Source: UXPin

Informational

Responsible for representing information. These include, for example, tooltips, icons, and progress bars. 

Source: Toptal

Groups/containers

Responsible for holding various components together. Widgets, containers, and sidebars for part of this category. The Newsletter subscription widget of UXPin blog is also a good example of a container.

9 Common input elements



Checkboxes

Checkboxes allow the user to select one or more options from an option set. It is best practice to display checkboxes vertically. Multi-columns are also acceptable considering the available space and other factors.

Source: Github.com

Dropdowns

Dropdowns allow users to select one item at a time from a long list of options. They are more compact than radio buttons. They also allow you to save space. For better UX, it’s necessary to add a label and a helper text as a placeholder. I.e. “Select One, Choose, etc.”

Source: Stackoverflow

Combo boxes

Combo boxes allow users to either type a custom value directly or select a value from the list. It is a combination of a drop-down list or list box and a single-line input field.

Source: mdbootstrap

Buttons

Buttons allow the users to perform an action with touch or click. It is typically labelled with text, icon, or both. Buttons are one of the most important parts of a UI. So it’s important to design a button that the user will actually click. 

Source: Evergreen UI

Toggles 

Toggles allow the user to change a view/value/setting between two states. They are useful for toggle between on and off state or switching between list view and grid view. 

Source: Youtube

Text/password fields

Text fields and password fields allow users to enter text and password respectively. Text fields allow both single-line and multi-line inputs. Multi-line input fields are also known as “textarea”. Password fields generally allow single lines for a password.

Source: Shopify.com

Date pickers

A date picker allows users to pick a date and/or time. By using a native date picker from the platform, a consistent date value is submitted to the system. 

Source: Material Design

Radio buttons

Radio buttons allow users to select only one of a predefined set of mutually exclusive options. A general use case of radio buttons is selecting the gender option in sign-up forms. 

Source: UXPin

Confirmation dialogues

Confirmation dialogues are responsible for collecting user consent for a particular action. For example, collecting user consent for a delete action.

4 Common output elements



Alert

An alert presents a short, important message that attracts the user’s attention. It notifies users about these statuses and outputs.

Source: material-ui.com

Toast

This refers to a UI feature where an event (user input, server response, calculation etc.) triggers a small text box to appear on the screen. Ideally, it appears at the bottom on mobile and bottom left or right side on the desktop.

The difference between “Alert” & “Toast” is that the former doesn’t dismiss itself and the latter does after a certain time. 

Source: Evergreen UI

Badge

This feature generates a small badge to the top-right of its child(ren). In general, it represents a small counter or indicator. This can be something like the number of items over the cart icon or online indicator over a  user avatar. 

Charts

Charts are a common way of expressing complex data sets because they depict different data varieties & data comparisons.

The type of chart used in UI depends primarily on two things: the data we want to communicate, and what we want to convey about that data

Different types of charts. Source: material.io

Common helper elements



Navigational Navigation menus

This is a UI element with several values that the user can select. They are taken to another area of the website/app from there. 

Source: UXPin

List of links

As the name suggests, a list of links consists of links. Sidebar with a category list is a good example of this. Links can be both internal and external. 

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs allow users to see their current location within the system. It provides a clickable trail of proceeding pages to navigate with.

Search fields

A search bar is usually made up of two UI elements: an input field and a button. It allows users to enter a keyword and submit it to the system expecting the most relevant results.

Source: Google Chrome Browser

Paginations

This feature divides the content between pages and allows users to navigate between them.

Informational Tooltips

A tooltip shows users hints when they hover over an element indicating the name or purpose of the item.

Icons

It’s a simplified symbol that is used to help users to navigate the system, presenting the information and indicating statutes.

Source: Dribbble

Progress bars

A progress bar indicates the progress of a process. Typically, progress bars are not clickable.

Source: Tenor

Notifications

It is an update indicator that announces something new for the user to check. Typically shows completion of a task, new items to check etc.

Message boxes

It’s a small window that provides information to users but typically doesn’t prevent users from continuing tasks. Message boxes perform tasks like showing warnings, suggestions, etc.

Source: Evergreen UI

Modal windows

It’s used to show content on top of an overlay. It blocks any interaction with the page — until the overlay is clicked, or a close action is triggered.

Source: Evergreen UI

Group/ContainersWidgets

It’s an element of interaction, like a chat window, components of a dashboard, or embeds of other services.

Source: Dribbble.com

Containers

Containers hold different components together. This includes text, images, rich media etc. Cards in modern UI design are one of the best examples of containers. 

Source: Material.io

Sidebars

Sidebars also contain other groups of elements and components. But that can be switched between collapse and visible state.

Source: Semantic-UI

Search bar

The search bar holds the search field and search options. Typically, the search bar features a search field and filtering option. Twitter’s advanced search is a great example.

Source: Twitter

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve covered the importance of understanding UI elements and how users interact with them. From input to output and helper elements, we’ve discussed all the terminology you need to grasp as a designer to design and keep your UI elements organized and working efficiently. 

Now that you understand what common UI elements are and how they work, it’s time to put your new knowledge to practice. UXPin offers all the features you need to design and organize your UI elements, simplifying the process of designing and prototyping with powerful features!

Get started now. You don’t even need a credit card number to explore UXPin’s powerful features.

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16 Core UX Principles That Will Have Your Users Smiling

All designers should place the user experience at the center of their design work. If the people a product is intended for have a difficult time using that product (website or app), they’re going to take their business somewhere else. 

UX design is about making sure there’s a match between the website or app’s use and the user’s needs. 

We write a lot about design trends, UX/UI, and more on this blog, but we’ve never explored the underlying principles of UX design before. This blog will provide a foundation for UX designers to fall back on when they need to ensure a match between user needs and a website’s use. 

All of these principles should inform every step of the UX design process. 

Design, whether for user experience or user interfaces, is always changing. When you align those changes with these 16 core principles, you’ll never fail to make users smile at your design. 

Number 1: Focus on the User

This one should be obvious: the user needs to be at the center of your design choices. Often, designers allow their personal preferences to creep into their design work. 

Perhaps your favorite color is blue, so you have a tendency to use the color frequently in your design work. However, every color has a meaning. Other than blueberries, there aren’t any naturally occurring blue foods. So using a blue color scheme for a restaurant’s website or a food app could make potential customers choose a different website.

Or maybe you’re a really fast reader and you pack a carousel with dense text. The average adult reading speed is 200 to 300 words per minute. If you design based on your personal characteristics, you’ll turn off the people you’re trying to reach.

You can read more about the ideas of user-centered design here. https://www.uxpin.com/studio/blog/human-centered-design/

Number 2: Be Consistent

A good UX is hidden from the user. When you create a consistent design feeling across all user interactions — which includes all of the elements on a website or app but also can extend beyond that to the landing pages, emails, and other materials used to move people to your website or app — the design recedes into the background and the user can simply enjoy the product. 

When inconsistencies creep in — different fonts, a slightly off-color, a completely different button style, etc. — it takes the user out of enjoying the experience; almost like discovering a fly in your soup. Consistency builds trust, helps the user navigate your site when they return, and helps people remember who you are. The most effective way to ensure consistency throughout your UX design is to create a design system. 

Number 3: Easy to Digest

You wouldn’t pick up an entire pizza to take a bite, you cut a pizza into slices so it’s easier to eat.

Long forms and dense blocks of text are daunting to people. When you need to convey a lot of information or gather a large number of demographic information, break it down into easy to read chunks.

Number 4: Don’t Make Users Think

The average attention span of people on the Internet is short. In 2015, Microsoft released research that claimed the attention span of people had dropped from 12 to 8 seconds. This led to numerous articles about people having a shorter attention span than goldfish. While in reality, attention is fluid, it is true that you have only seconds to grab someone’s attention online. 

Don’t make them think.

As Steve Krug pointed out in his book, “Don’t Make Me Think, “As a user, I should never have to devote a millisecond of thought to whether things are clickable — or not.” 

As this applies to UX design, every action that you want someone to take must be clear and explicit. Hyperlinks are usually bold and blue (or underlined and in italics) because that’s what people expect to see. 

A second example, buttons are ubiquitous online, yet how many are vague or sloppy? Make buttons look like buttons people are used too. Save your design experimentation for something else.

Number 5: Points, Lines, and Planes – Understand Visual Grammar

Everything visually created, from user interface elements to the arrangements of the elements on a screen, is composed of three core elements: points, lines, and planes.

These elements are combined to create, well, everything you see on a page — online or not. They are the building blocks of all design, as first defined by the Bauhaus school in the early 1900s. 

When you understand how to effectively use the three elements of visual grammar, you’ll begin to see how to focus on restraint in your UX design. As you remove complexity, you’ll create user experiences that are easy to navigate and understand, which means happier users. 

Number 6: Identify the Problem First

Don’t waste time trying to fix what you “think” is the problem. 

Do the research. Precisely identify the problem your UX design is intended to solve. Keep asking “why” until you have the real answer, not the surface reason. 

Number 7: Simple Language Is Best

Jargon confuses people and excludes anyone unfamiliar with a particular industry or group. Simplicity in writing is a key piece of successful UX design. Use simple words. Place them perfectly. 

Using fancy words obfuscates meaning; use “hide” instead. 

A good rule of thumb is to write to a 6th grade level for Web copy. Resist the urge to use complex words to appear serious. The goal is to communicate. Use simple, clear words that help you do so. 

Number 8: Have Empathy for Your Audience

Put yourself in your intended users’ shoes — walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak. One of the underlying principles of UX design basics is the concept of human-centered design. At the heart of human-centered design is having empathy for your audience. This is a step beyond understanding. 

Understanding is about knowledge; knowing the facts about the persona you are creating a UX design for, for example. Empathy focuses on feeling what your persona feels. Understanding is knowing that the mile you walked in your users’ shoes and the shoes were Nikes. Empathy is knowing that the shoes made their feet hurt.

Number 9: Provide Feedback

Let the user know how they’re doing. For instance, progress bars on a quiz or a questionnaire let the user know how they’re progressing. Or a check mark after pushing a “submit” button. These let the user know they successfully completed an action. 

When there’s an error, make the error message easy to understand and easy to see. Feedback needs to be clear and positive. Feedback messages should also remain on brand and not added in at the last moment and be disconnected from the rest of the design.

Number 10: Don’t Forget the Business

Most UX design work isn’t done in a vacuum. While the user must be at the center of your design, you need to stay in business too. Your design needs to make sense for your business as well. Work on creating a balance that creates a streamlined UX while meeting those goals. This, of course, means having well-defined business goals, but that’s a wee bit beyond the scope of this blog post! 

Number 13: Accessibility

UX designers need to create a design usable by as many people as possible. This includes making it as easy to use as possible (such as adhering to the guidelines mentioned already). 

It also means designing for those with disabilities. For instance, placing labels above a form field allows a screen reader to read those labels for the visually impaired. Doing so also has the benefit of telling users what to put in the field. High contrast between text and background also enhances readability.

Number 14: Give the User Control

People will always make mistakes. Give them a chance to correct their errors. Much like the “undo” button on word processing programs, providing an easy “back” button to the previous page or a “cancel” button before completing a task gives users a way out of an accidental or undesired action (or because they changed their mind).

Number 15: Technology Handoff

The perfect design isn’t perfect if it can’t be supported by existing technology. When considering UX design principles and creating your UX design, you must keep in mind what is technically possible.

As UX designers, we’ve all experienced the frustration of having our UX design change when handed to the programmers. 

One of the benefits of a platform like UXPin is that as you create your design, you are also generating code for programmers to use as they turn design to reality. There’s better fidelity between the UX design creation and implementation. Experience the UXPin difference, sign up for a free trial today. 

Number 16 — Reevaluate and Revise

We mentioned in the beginning that design is always evolving. Once you launch your app or website, give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done and enjoy being “done” for a day or two. 

But the work of UX design is never “finished.” You need to evaluate reality versus expectations. Are people using the design as intended? Do you notice any flaws or gaps in what you wanted to have happen versus what is happening. For instance, using heat maps is a great way to judge how people are interacting with the design. 

Even if you create the perfect design that people love and use as intended, you’ll still need to revise at some point in the future to take advantage of better UX design ideas, new tools, etc. 

A UX designer’s work is never done.

Keeping all 16 of these core UX design principles in mind as you create user experiences will help provide a great experience for your audience. Of course, UX design is always changing and evolving, and this is a high-level overview of these core UX principles. 

Applying these UX design principles is easier when you don’t have to think about the platform you’re using. With UXPin, you can create your design, create design libraries, gather feedback, hand it off to programmers, and much more from within a single platform. If that sounds like UX design help you could use, sign up for a free, no obligation trial now. 

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How to Apply Strategic Design Principles to UX

Strategic design is the crossroads between user experience and business objectives. It means creating a set of design principles that guide your team through the process of building a product or experience. The principles articulate the vision and mission of your project and keep you focused on the big picture as you move through the stages of design. Ideally, strategic design means you will always know the next step. 

Strategic design affects every aspect of your product or service. It encourages designers to look at the design process and a fluid, adaptable approach to problem-solving. Strategic design thinking creates an understanding between designers and stakeholders. It outlines how the design team plans to align the user experience of a product with business objectives. This kind of design thinking improves branding and innovation as well as the long-term sustainability and competitiveness of an organization.

Learn these 10 ways to incorporate strategic design thinking into your user experience designs. 

Table of Contents:



Get Inspired Assess the ProjectCenter Strategic Design Around Business GoalsAsk Thoughtful QuestionsMatch Strategic Design Principles With Core ValuesKeep Strategic Design Principles FluidEstablish Ownership of Strategic Design PrinciplesEncourage Collaboration on Strategic Design ImplementationSet ExpectationsHave Regular ReviewsPractice Good CommunicationConclusion



Get Inspired

Before laying the groundwork for your own tactical design thinking, you can start by researching the design principles of other companies. Design Principles FTW is a great resource for creating your own set of principles by browsing through collections of inspiring companies and strategies. Principles.Design also has a great open-source collection of design principles and methods. Getting some insight into what other organizations are doing can inspire you to formulate killer strategic design principles that will benefit your team for years to come. 

Assess the Project

Once you and your team have gotten into the strategic mindset and observed how other organizations are using design principles, turn your focus back to your team. Assessing the project in a holistic way is the most important principle of strategic design and the one that should run as an undercurrent throughout the different steps of the project. This is an opportunity to analyze obstacles and opportunities, and to look at the design from a bird’s-eye view. What is the purpose of the project and what impact do you want it to have on the business? 

Center Strategic Design Around Business Goals

The best way to implement strategic design in your UX design is to tie every design decision back to your business objectives. In order to do so, you need to have a clear outline and hierarchy of both your design and business goals so you can make sure they remain aligned. Look at the desired outcome of the project –  how does it directly relate to business goals? What are the key measurements that will serve as performance indicators? 

Ask Thoughtful Questions

Any designer or design team that has successfully implemented strategic design principles will tell you that curiosity is a critical element of this approach. Tactical design is not a step-by-step formula, it’s a manner of thinking about design that serves as a problem-solving mechanism. In order to incorporate design principles into your UX design, you’ll want to ask thoughtful questions about the client, the team, and the project itself. Why does the project exist? What problem are you solving for users? How does the product reflect the mission of your business? Does the product/experience help users in achieving their goals? How does their satisfaction help your company achieve its goals and build your brand? 

Match Strategic Design Principles To Your Core Values

Design Principles should align people around the nature of your organization. It’s important to evaluate every strategic design touchpoint according to the vision and mission of your organization. This involves having designers and stakeholders work together on establishing guiding values. Shopify has a great example of how they outlined their experience values here: Shopify Experience Values. 

Keep Principles Fluid

Strategic Design is not about coming up with fixed, static rules to guide a project from start to finish. Thinking strategically is more about problem-solving and creating new approaches to old problems. This approach involves practicing the strategy over time, making adjustments, and improving. Implementing strategic thinking into UX design means leaving room for adjustment and change. It also helps you learn along the way by adapting to new understandings of your users.

Establish Ownership of Strategic Design Principles

Implementing strategic design into UX is a project in and of itself, so it’s important to establish ownership from the outset. Assign the job to a person or team who will manage the project from start to finish and keep all of the team members on the same page. Strategic design is a philosophy that will apply to every level and member of your organization, but without an explicit owner of the project, it’s easy to lose focus of the principles. Select a project owner who can create a plan for outlining and adhering to your design principles. This should include everything from creating a hierarchy of company values to selecting the principles to keep them in plain sight (such as on vision boards throughout the office, on interoffice communication, etc.). 

Encourage Collaboration on Strategic Design Implementation

Your organization’s strategic design principles will be much more effective if you develop and implement them in a collaborative way. Invite all team members to participate in the process. It also helps ensure that they are effectively implemented into UX design. Individual team members will have more motivation to use design principles on a project when they have a role in creating the principles. This is also a great way to get team members from across the company to brainstorm ideas on what is necessary for good design. The collaborative process serves to give the principles more meaning to your team on a personal level. 

Have Regular Reviews

Another essential part of implementing strategic design into your UX is to have regular check-ins. Your strategy should be a constant work-in-progress. Planning tasks and milestones will help you assess the elements of the strategy and make sure each principle is supporting the core objectives of UX design. As you finish tasks during the design process, schedule team meetings and ask strategic questions. These check-ins will help you reassess the effectiveness of your principles and make sure each one is directing you toward your intended goals. 

Practice Good Communication

Applying strategic design to enhanced UX is also directly related to how competently designers can communicate. Even the most proficient and talented designers can’t succeed without being able to communicate ideas, processes, and principles effectively. Clearly articulating design strategy and decisions to stakeholders ensures that everyone understands and agrees on the principles and how to apply them to UX design. Asking for input, listening to feedback, practicing empathy, and communicating in a practical manner are all essential for applying strategic design to your projects. 

Conclusion

Implementing strategic design principles to UX requires a tactical thinking approach. This kind of mindset gives us a more useful and effective perspective on building a new product or experience. If you need help developing a design strategy or revising your existing principles, contact us. UXPIN can help your team easily plan, collaborate, and implement strategic design principles that are better aligned with your business objectives. 

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