User Experience Design Must Involve Users Through Design Research

Creating an incredible user experience not only depends on design elements, but also on user perception, user requirements, and overall user expectation. Despite the high degree of user involvement in making a user experience team  (UX) noteworthy and pleasant, many organizations ignore user involvement within UX designing.

User Experience from User’s Perspective

The first time a user visits an internet site to browse products or services, whether on their desktop or smartphone, they sense comfort and usefulness within seconds of their visit. The very first impression might captivate them. However, it could also defeat and frustrate them. User experience is what defines and establishes the efficacy of an internet site in terms of its value, simple use, and level of pleasure concerning the user experience team. an excellent user experience shows a positive response

How a user behaves on a specific website won’t necessarily be almost like how another user behaves. Nevertheless, some behavioral commonalities are generally denoted by their user experience. This means that the user experience team may be a factor that’s governed by user perception to a big extent.

The UX professionals are liable for providing a greatest browsing experience that specializes in special user needs. The trouble should be to make an easy yet eye-grabbing design. Good design conventions are still not adopted and implemented widely by organizations as they do not completely understand all facets of supreme user experience.

Collaboration and cohesion between various fields like the content developers, graphic designers, customer service, and therefore the product and development team ensure all concerned stakeholders are on an equivalent page and share a standard understanding. This orchestration makes every team strive to make an efficient user experience. (1)

Focus on User Requirements

An important factor that eases the user’s browsing experience is the ability of the planning to satisfy their unique needs and task accomplishment. A design might appear great from the designer’s perspective, but won’t be usable from the user’s viewpoint. The simplest designing conventions seek to bridge the gap between designer and user perception. The goal should be to direct towards a practical, business-oriented, user-centered, and context-based approach.

User research is a neighborhood that certain organizations won’t support, especially in scenarios governed by a quick release of the merchandise (agile process). The scrum process doesn’t assign importance to UX designers. Agile teams ignore user research on design and ideas thanks to lack of time and resources, aversion to figure with users, and inability to conduct design research. This results in the development of a product whose true value has not been established from the user’s perspective. (2) The result’s poor UX and poor business value generation.

User research can speed up the preparation process because the info can help refine, polish, and make informed decisions. Approved information can bridge the gap between opposing arguments of designers and other stakeholders over a debated design element. Leaving the responsibility on users to settle on a design element is more valuable.

Design Research

The process of adding aiming to the planning through evaluation and observation is the core of design research. Implemented through various stages of the planning process, design research aims to realize the simplest design solution for the foremost acceptable and superior user experience. User research and user testing are two branches of design research. User research is conducted before and through the planning stage. User testing is used after the planning completion.

Who will use the planning and what’s the context of use in terms of task accomplishment?

Answering these questions causes design effectiveness because they take user perspective and behavior into consideration. Design research can either be qualitative or quantitative. the fundamental focus in the context of research and applicability of the technique for the actual design. (3)

The design team examines the research data and comes out with action-oriented results through storyboards, mental models, etc. It helps to know user information, skill level, motivation, and therefore the belief systems of users. The techniques employed might be interviewing, contextual inquiry, a questionnaire, card sorting, and task analysis. Usability testing unveils the particular interaction of users with the system because what users might feel sometimes differs from what they do. (4)

A prototype is often employed for usability/user testing through various research techniques. Guerrilla research is completed on the spot with users or through remote research where users are involved through online interaction. The convenience factor is higher in remote research. (5)

Conclusion

Involving users within the design process requires recruiting the right audience, making the participants sign non-disclosure bargains, and receiving approval from the highest management for involving external sources. Design research through user research and user testing helps UX practitioners in making informed decisions and overcoming the fear of design failure to a big extent.

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Christophe Rude

Christophe Rude

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