UX Design is essential to providing value to the user. It takes precise planning before implementing an ideal design. In addition, it is all about understanding the user’s pain points and providing a user-friendly solution. Undoubtedly, it could make or break your app when you implement the right UX design.
A poorly constructed and uncomfortable interface will prompt users to shift their interest to your competitors. Hence, it is crucial to understand the design process to craft an exemplary UX design.
As a beginner, you may wonder how many steps are involved in a UX design process. In this guide, we will go through six key steps of the design process top companies follow to fulfil a pleasant user experience.
The 6 Steps of the UX Design Process
Step 1: Understand
First and foremost, we must identify our customer’s pain points. There needs to be a purpose in our objective to make the design in the first place. And providing the users with a solution is a great place to start. Understand what their problems are? Is this something many are facing, and there is no available solution in the market? And how can you help them to solve this problem?
For example, if you are working in the aviation industry, identify if the customers can book their flights successfully through the app. Observe if there are a lot of complaints highlighted at one particular phase of the UX journey.
On the other hand, if you are working for food delivery services, identify if customers receive all the information they need in the app. On top of that, if they face any issues in the checkout page or food tracking systems. As a result, defining these problems will generate a project worth pursuing and meet your organizational goals.
Step 2: Research
Once you have identified the core issue, the next step is to conduct in-depth research. It is an integral part of the process because it shows how prepared you are to provide the best solution to the customer.
A few ways you can conduct research are:
- Interviews
Simply talking with the customer face-to-face is sufficient to get a lot of qualitative and quantitative data. Ask them questions on what challenges they face, what drives them, and what they would like to see in the interface to make their lives easier. You will be amazed at the results you would receive when conducting interviews as you tap into their emotional side.
- Focus groups
Talking to a group of users is another good way to get information about their troubles. Having around 5-10 people discussing the product will present more valuable insights. As it is a group effort, a lot of opinions get exchanged, which helps to find the commonality of the core issue.
- Surveys
Preparing questionnaires and detailed surveys can reach thousands of users and collect essential data to draw commonalities. Adopting online tools such as Google forms and Survey Monkey are great ways to collect data quickly.
- Industry analysis
Study your industry to gain insights on how you can improve the product or about the recent market trends. Analyze your competitors and see what they are up to. Additionally, it helps you stay in touch with the competition and acquire that extra bit of information.
Step 3: Analyze
Next up, it is time to analyze all the data collected from your research. This step involves brainstorming and deciding who and how we can help our target audience.
This stage usually involves:
- User personas
They are your fictional customers you will outline to get a good idea of our target audience. It is essential to come up with specific details when deciding on your ideal user persona.
For example, if you design an educational app, you will know your users will be mainly students. Furthermore, metrics such as Age, Gender, Income Level, and other demographics will assist you to recognize the ideal target audience.
- Mapping out the user journey
Plan how your user journey would look from the first point of contact till the last. Understand how much they are invested in different phases of the user journey to organize a proper structure for your design process.
- Storyboards
A storyboard mainly visualizes how a customer is interacting with your product. The idea was inspired by the movie industry. As a result, it gives you a fair understanding of the timeline and emotions the users experience.
Step 4: Design
Now that we have done adequate research and validated some creative ideas, it is time to sketch.
Here are a few ways you can go about when it comes to designing:
- Wireframes
These are your low-fidelity prototypes. Simply sketching on paper or wireframing tools such as Balsamiq helps you draw quick designs and modify them according to the user’s requirements.
- Prototypes
On the other hand, prototypes are high-fidelity in nature. Creating prototypes is all about actual design elements users interact with. Using the right design tools such as Figma and Sketch provides you with a great platform to design your prototypes.
- User flow
Sketch the entire UX process from start to finish. It assists you in understanding the user journey and what plus points and drawbacks they will face in each phase.
Step 5: Testing
After designing your app or website, it is time to test out your masterpiece. There are a few ways to go about when it comes to testing and receiving feedback on your UX design:
- Usability testing
It mainly involves users testing out your interface directly and providing you with valuable insights on how to improve it.
- Beta testing
Launch a beta version of your interface for a limited amount of time for beta users. It helps you to identify the pros and cons of the UX design before permanent deployment.
- Analytic reports
Gather data from many users and conduct a thorough analysis of the findings. Prepare reports that summarize the key findings and be presentable to the stakeholders.
Step 6: Iterate
Finally, the last stage is iteration. It is fundamental to comprehend the UX design process is a never-ending cycle. It requires continuous feedback and improvements to keep your customers satisfied.
Furthermore, it is imperative to take a few steps back and identify which details are missing or what additional work needs to improve the user experience.
Undoubtedly, that is the beauty of the UX design process, where you can always come up with solutions and implement them in your design anytime.
To wrap it up…
Now that we have understood all the six stages of the UX design process, which step do you think is the most important to meet those user requirements?