Today, user experience (UX) design is a field within technology, usually referring to optimizing the consumer’s interactions with a particular product, such as an app or website. As businesses have searched for better ways to engage their current and would-be users, the field has become more central to software development, and professionals within it are in high demand.
Some ideas in UX design change with the landscape. But others have remained consistent for years. It’s important to understand the concept because it plays a key role in software development today.
Here are 10 essential best practices to keep in mind for your next product.
#1 Always Keep the User in Mind
This may sound obvious, but you job function email list would be surprised at how many businesses forget about the most important part of their product: the user.
The user’s needs supersede the interests of the developers, the product managers, and anyone else involved with the project.
One of the most important aspects of this is ensuring they can accomplish their mission quickly and easily as soon as they use your app or website. If they can’t efficiently do what they need to do, they’ll almost certainly go elsewhere — probably to one of your competitors.
#2 Rely on User and Market Research
But how do you know what your users optimising campaigns based on cost per click (cpc) actually want? Extensive and thorough market research is the answer. You can’t make a quality product without researching what your customers’ needs are.
Any good UX designer knows that market research — focus groups, surveys, and other feedback — is critical to find out how customers will actually respond to your product and what can be improved. If you have experts on staff, they can perform these tasks. Otherwise, consider working with marketing research consultants.
Market research will also inform your goals for the product.
#3 Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
While you certainly shouldn’t replicate sale leads other businesses’ UX designs or past concepts from your own, you also shouldn’t start from scratch completely. There are plenty of well-honed patterns and practices for devising thoughtful UX concepts — and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to put them into your projects. These patterns will help you address and resolve potential issues.
For example, users are familiar with what different icons and buttons mean, so don’t, for instance, change the meaning of the house icon to indicate navigation to a page other than the home page.