Successful User Experience is preceded by User Research (UX Research) in order to be truly successful. It must be clear in advance what constitutes a good UX in the first place. UX research helps from the very beginning to work out a meaningful UX strategy and ultimately to achieve sales goals. Before you can determine the right application of a UX Research, it is important at first to understand a definition of User Experience (UX). All aspects of it can vary from product to product and have a lasting impact on the nature & processes of UX Research.
What is User Experience?
The UX is the user’s application experience when interacting with an app or website, or when using a physical item. The user experience is directly related to user satisfaction. As a driving factor for customer satisfaction, the user experience usually determines the commercial success of a product or manufacturer. While the user experience of digital goods usually involves optimizing human-computer interaction, UX also translates real-world customer experience factors well into the digital realm. When a customer goes shopping in a store, there are several factors that persuade them to be a consumer. These include:
- Navigation in the store and at the shelves: Can the customer find their way around quickly, do they understand the logistics and arrangement of the products?
- Is the staff friendly and responsive?
- Are the customer’s questions answered satisfactorily?
It is very similar with the digital UX. The expectation scheme is the same – the implementation varies. What needs to be taken into account here?
User Experience in digital world
The user experience for digital products is a bit more complex than that in the real world – the experience not only needs to be improved, but created as a first step. User Experience is:
- Visual Design – what the user interface looks like
- Content Design – how the user interface communicates
- Interaction Design – how the user interface interacts
The UX already begins with factors that are invisible to the user (all UX competences you can find here). The first interface is the visual design and visual communication, also called user interface (UI).
The user already decides in the first seconds of the application (consciously or unconsciously) about the quality of his user experience. It is important that the interface is functionally optimized and attractively designed. The design must communicate all important functions, but at the same time fulfill aesthetic aspects. Ideally, the user should be able to navigate through the app or website without any problems and find the design both cognitively and emotionally appealing. When it comes to navigation, special attention should be paid to intuition. A good user experience starts with the user being able to access the desired information/product purely intuitively.
Although the user interface (UI) is a large part of the user experience (UX), these terms should not be equated. The difference between UX and UI is that the UX describes the entire user experience of the user, while the UI only deals with the external presentation. So it is the interface between human and machine, but only on the surface. Nevertheless, it builds trust in the first few seconds – an appealing design motivates the user to examine the application in detail. At this moment, it is crucial that a well-designed foundation exists to execute operational decisions.
. Interaction design meets information design .
The framework that needs to be optimized in intuitive UX is the information architecture. It deals with the usability of all functions as well as the findability of all relevant information and applications. Metadata of the documents, images and data used and their structure also play an important role in this process.
Another important factor is interaction design. This area deals with the options the user has while actively using the app or website. This includes, for example, drag-and-drop functions, key combinations or sequences of the user’s performed actions. Interaction design thus determines how the user can interact with a program and what the program can offer the user in return. This also includes animations, graphics as well as auditory perception such as warning sounds.
. Usability – the core of the user experience is usability .
The final and probably