Nobody Tells You These Truths about UX Design

As a designer, you’ve probably heard the term “user experience design” more often than any other. But what is it? And more importantly, how can you ensure your product’s user experience will be as good as possible? While there are plenty of books and courses that dive into the details of creating a good user experience, here are some things we wish someone had told us when we first started:

UX design is more art than science.

UX design services are more art than science. It’s not an exact science, and it’s not a pure one, either. Still, it can be broken down into four parts: user experience (UX), interaction design, visual design, and information architecture.

In this article, we’ll look at each of these components so you can understand what makes UX design so unique from other disciplines and how you can apply their techniques in your projects.

Designing a user experience is an iterative process.

Designing a user experience is an iterative process.

Designing a user experience is a process, not just a deliverable. It’s iterative, not linear. It’s not always predictable, and it’s never easy--but that doesn’t mean you should stop trying!

A great UX needs an understanding of the user and the business.

A great UX designer must understand the business, and they must also understand the user. The two work together to create a seamless experience for the end user--and it can be disastrous if they don’t come together.

A good UX designer will understand what makes a successful product or service tick. They’ll be able to explain why they need something or how they want it done differently than everyone else. And most importantly: they’ll know what makes people buy into their vision!

The best UX is invisible to the user.

The best UX design is invisible to the user.

When you think of UX, you probably imagine something like this: a person sitting in front of their computer, browsing the web, or looking at emails on their phone. They’re using an app or website to accomplish their task and have fun doing it!

But what happens when you look at this same scenario differently? Would it still be possible for us to experience our favorite apps as we used to do? What if we take away everything but the screen itself? Would our experience still be enjoyable and comfortable--or would it feel like we were missing out on something important?

The answer is yes! Our ability to interact with technology depends not only on how good our products look but also on how well they work for us --and that means understanding how people use them every step along their digital journey (from start-to-finish).

Excellent UX is invisible to everyone, including the designer.

The best UX is invisible to everyone, including the designer. Good UX is invisible to the user, but it’s not invisible to the designer.

It’s important to understand this distinction because it can lead you down a dangerous path if you think your job as a designer is merely to make things look pretty or create new features for an existing system. You may have heard that “good and minimalist design makes something easy,” but this isn’t true--it makes something worthwhile!

You shouldn't expect your first design to be perfect.

When you’re just starting, it’s easy to think that your first design will be perfect. But nothing could be further from the truth! You will make mistakes and learn from them, but don’t let these setbacks keep you from moving forward. The first step in improving your UX design skills is just getting started. It would help if you had some practice designing something so that when it comes to making something good enough for public consumption, you’ll know what works well together.

Great design skills are important, but they're not everything.

To be a great designer, you must have more than good design skills.

Being a great designer involves more than just having the right tools and knowledge of UX design--it also requires strong communication skills and an eye for detail. You have to communicate effectively with clients and colleagues to get your ideas across clearly, so everyone involved can understand what you’re trying to say. And if there’s one thing, we’ve learned from working with many different types of people over the years as designers at our UX design agency, it’s that there is no such thing as an average user experience (UX). Every person who interacts with your product will bring their own unique set of expectations about how things should work together; these expectations may vary widely depending on whether they’re using the app for personal reasons vs professional ones.

Learn how to be critical of your work before you show it to anyone else.

As a designer, you have to be able to look at your own work and think critically about it. You may have come up with an idea for a new feature that you think is awesome. Still, if the user doesn’t like it or finds it helpful--or even worse if they actively hate it--you need to know how bad this could be so that when someone else critiques and criticizes your work on the project, they don’t dismiss your ideas out of hand.

This can cause problems when clients start requesting changes in direction from UX designers who haven’t thought about what those changes might mean for users’ experiences with their products or services.

Conclusion

There’s no such thing as a perfect design. You can’t expect everything to be perfect the first time around because perfection is an impossible goal for most products and services. Instead, you need to keep working on your designs until they’re as good as possible—and if that means making some mistakes along the way, so long as those mistakes benefit users and make them happy. So be it!