So, What is UX Design Anyways?

By Morgan Bruggeman

According to Wikipedia, user experience design is "The process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the product." To put it in to less complex terms, user experience design is the process of creating an experience that is easy and fun for the user. UX designers strive to help users reach their goals, and allow them to achieve this goal in the easiest and most pleasurable way possible. A user experience designer's final product revolves around usability and functionality, instead of colors and pictures.        

            User experience designers use information architecture, wireframing, and prototyping to create the overall  "user experience" of the product. Information architecture has to do with the hierarchy of the information.  For example, the name of the company or their logo is usually at the top of the webpage, enabling users to know where they are and who's content they are viewing. Wireframing helps work through the overall navigation of each page.  This helps decide where elements on each page should live to make sure the user flow is a smooth as possible. Prototyping using various apps and programs, allows user experience designers to create high fidelity and interactive pages that they are then able to test before the designs are sent off to development. User testing is done at this stage and is an important part of the process. User testing is how UX designers evaluate the product by testing it on real life users, and is the best way to understand if the product is meeting the user's goals. 

All of these aspects of the design process, create an end product that is then implemented by a developer who creates the real working website. The end goal for a UX designer is to create an experience for the user, not just a product. I hope this post helped you better understand what it is that a UX designer really does. Happy Designing!