Designing digital products while delivering an enjoyable experience to people can be challenging but fun nonetheless.
As a UX Designer, I am often in a maze of possibilities when solving problems. And after talking with other designers, I realized that I am not alone, this is part of our practice.
Here I want to talk about the complexity and ambiguity that we face in our day-to-day work. But before that, I want to give you some context and look back at how our profession came about.
Looking back.
In 1993 Don Norman coined the term "user experience" for his group at Apple Computer. Before this role UX There was no design in the industry. The work of a designer was more about aesthetics than business. UX Designers, as we know now, started appearing in the late 90s along with the dot-com bubble, but they were called Information Architects.
By then, usability and accessibility had become the hallmarks of online products. And organizations began to create jobs for people to take care of those areas.
In the beginning, the day-to-day job of an information architect was to organize information overload and create easy-to-use websites. They were also responsible for conducting usability tests for websites.
Soon, e-commerce companies began to realize that information architects could also help increase sales. Continuous advances in software, hardware and digital technology have made their work inherently complex.
The real UX of Design.
Currently UX Designer work includes more branches. We take into account the end-to-end experiences of people interacting with products and services.
Together with other UX users, we plan and conduct user research. Together with product managers, we explore new strategic business opportunities to determine which products and functions should be built.
We then prototype and test with users to identify problems people might encounter while using our products and then propose solutions.
We work with other designers to turn quick and dirty prototypes into amazing user interfaces.
In cross-functional teams, we partner with engineers to create applications that make them easy to use. Once the products are on sale, we work with data analysts to track user behavior and conduct A / B tests.
Balancing what people want and what the business needs to grow and be sustainable can be a daunting task.
Dealing with this ambiguity is not always convenient, as we often have to deal with difficult trade-offs that could potentially affect millions of users.
Understanding interdependencies in design.
Digital products carry many interdependencies within and outside organizations. For example, the state of the economy, politics, society, the environment, available technologies can affect the lives of people and, therefore, the acceptance of products by consumers.
Within organizations, you need to quickly create and ship products. This requires broad interdisciplinary collaboration from a range of teams and departments.
Organizational culture influences everything and the challenge, especially in large organizations, is to motivate everyone and work towards the same goals.
The interdependence of all of these factors and the people involved makes product design and development really challenging.
When faced with complexity, it's common to take a reductionist approach and try to simplify things. But the problem is that by doing this, we often exclude things that may be important to some of our clients. When developing a product, we must roughly prioritize, and this is difficult when we strive to be inclusive.
We now understand the need for experimentation, and therefore rapid movement, learning and market adaptation are the keys to product success.
In the digital world, “perfect” performance no longer exists. It used to be that things were more top-down and therefore more predictable.
The products were fully formed, designed and delivered in one go. Today, it is more important to take risks from the start and accept the trade-offs for both the business and the users of your products.
Managing complexity in UX / UI.
Being a UX Designer requires a lot of flexibility. It is an ongoing process of learning, weaning and adapting. Technology is constantly changing and new design tools are coming to the market, but that's not all.
Studying the behavior of people interacting with your products is an ongoing exercise. In addition, as we move from one project to the next, we must quickly adapt to the dynamics and culture of the new teams.
An ongoing collaborative approach can help us deal with complexity and ambiguity.
Involving users as well as employees from different areas of the business in the product development process brings different and valuable perspectives. Listening to people's stories can challenge our own biases, and this is so important to inclusiveness.
Awareness can also come from various industries. They allow our brains to create new extensions of thinking and systemic perspectives on problems.
Working as a team, there is nothing better than doing something visual to create a shared understanding. Concept creation is a powerful way to see the big picture, prioritize, and focus on what matters most. This triggers the imagination when discussing possible scenarios.
Problem solving in UX / UI Design.
Quite often, problem solving requires us to act like detectives, trying to find clues and evidence to solve our mysteries.
- We conduct various types of research with existing and potential users, as a result of which we go deeper to understand their needs and motives.
- We start a full investigation from scratch, challenging our own assumptions.
- We formulate and rethink problems, create hypotheses and test solutions.
- We base our lines of investigation on whatever evidence we may have at any stage of product development.
The challenges we face require analytical and pragmatic approaches, as well as creativity and imagination. Unlike logic puzzles such as Sudoku or crosswords, solutions are not always accurate. They don't fill the board with perfectly combined numbers or letters within squares.
Since there is often no perfect solution, we have to consider the pros and cons of every alternative or assumption we have.
Once we have considered the various constraints, we can make informed decisions to provide a feasible and viable solution.
Experiment and learn in UX development.
When dealing with ambiguity in UX Design, we have to admit that we don't have all the answers. In order not to get stuck, we can offer experiments in data collection, learning by doing and figuring things out.
We can create hypotheses, plan tests, observe results, and develop solutions. This approach helped the teams in which I worked to develop.
In general, we quickly assemble a group of people into cross-functional teams and decide:
- What are our hypotheses?
- What do we want to try?
- Who's going to try it?
- How long are they going to try it?
- How do we know if it worked?
As we experiment, confidence rises and teams become more confident and aligned with common goals. In addition, evidence-based decision making provides process transparency.
It is difficult to predict how Usability Design will evolve. However, there is no doubt that new difficulties and new posts will continue to appear.
Technology will drive change in all aspects of our lives, and ambiguity will continue to bother us if we are not aware of interdependence.
As mentioned earlier, a systematic, collaborative, and experimental approach helped me navigate complexity at work. This allowed the teams to share responsibility for difficult decisions.
So the next time you run into ambiguity, instead of worrying and rushing to “easy” solutions, try to welcome the unknown and energize your imagination with your scenarios and possibilities.
✓ Who is UX Designer?
A specialist who calculates designs based on user behavior habits.
✓ What is Usability Experiments?
This is A / B testing. Two or more design options are taken. Testing shows which design is more convenient for the user.
✓ What data are used for A / B tests?
The UX specialist has extensive knowledge of successful designs. He selects options and tests.
✓ How to choose a UX designer among all designers?
A UX designer is ready to provide you with two design options and test which design will best attract customers.
✓ What exactly does a UX designer do?
The UX designer deals with the entire process of purchasing and integrating a product, including aspects of branding, design, usability and functionality. This is a story that begins even before the device is in the hands of the user.
✓ Is UX design the same as graphic design?
Unlike graphic designers, who focus on aesthetics, UX designers focus on users and how they interact with the product. UX designers want to make people's lives better and, when developing, put the user's needs ahead of their personal preferences.
✓ What is bad UX?
Bad user experience, also known as “Bad UX,” happens from time to time, probably in every company. When we think about UX, we tend to think about digital interfaces. However, this association dates back to the time when the term “user experience” first appeared in the 1990s, when widespread use of the Internet began.
