User Experience Design (UXD)
What is user experience design?
User experience design (UXD, UED, or XD) is a form of human-computer interaction (HCI). It refers to the process of designing the end-to-end experience that users have - known as the user experience - while interacting with a company, its services, and its products.
The importance of user experience design
If executed properly, intentionally shaping a user’s journey will enhance the overall user flow, user satisfaction and loyalty, providing a positive experience that keeps users interested in your business or brand. In a world of constant brand evolution and advancement, a business's chance of survival is often dependent on its accessibility, usability, and aesthetic. Within that landscape, UX design has become one of the most powerful tools for the development of brand growth and reception. Wix's tools can help with building a website that is UXD optimized. To see that in action check out these UX design portfolios.
To be clear, the importance of UXD extends beyond the confines of design. While it is important to maintain consistency on assets like packaging, color palettes, and logos, the scope of user experience refers to anything and everything that relates to a user’s interaction with your brand, product, or service. Thus, a set of unofficial UXD principles has been slowly formed in order to establish overarching guidelines you can use to positively impact your users.
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Examples of user experience design principles
Like many other roles in the creative field, a UX designer adheres to certain principles in order to create a seamless user journey for anyone coming into contact with your brand and its products. To do so, the user experience designer will typically start by considering the ‘why,’ ‘what’ and ‘how’ of a product and use those answers to direct their process.
As they work, they will refer to three fundamental principles that can adhere to in order to get effective results:
Consistency: Does the brand persona echo throughout all of your channels? A user should be able to go to your website and find the same design and persona that they found on your packaging.
Usability: How simple is your product to use? Nowadays, the design isn't the only thing that gives you an advantage over your competitors. In fact, it’s the ease-of-use and minimalist approach that garners the best audience reception. As a helpful tip, think about the user interface of an iPhone. It’s praised as the pioneer of single-button phones that are so easy to use that they don’t even need to come with an instruction manual.
Accessibility: Is your product accessible to everyone? The most fundamental role of a UX designer is to design a product that is used by people. It’s their responsibility to take a wide range of abilities into account when imagining future users. This includes people living with any disabilities, including visual or hearing impairments.