Before knowing about what is the UI/UX design process, you should know what is UI/UX Design?
For example, Imagine a smartphone with a calculator app with tiny, hard to read buttons with no clear numbers and functions. Without thoughtful design, using the app becomes frustrating, you will struggle to perform even simple calculations, right? This lack of proper design makes the app difficult to use and reduces its overall efficiency. Here comes the importance of UI/UX design.
In simple words, I can explain that UI/UX design focuses on the clients' better user experience on both websites and applications. UI/UX designer works towards making it smooth and practical. UX stands for User Experience and UI stands for User Interface. Even though they are mentioned together, they are not the same thing.
When it comes to UX designers, they take a more functional approach. Their end goal is to have a superior user experience. They focus on
The flow and the feel of the applications
Is the navigation on the app logical?
Is the user experience simple and pleasant?
While UI designers take a more aesthetic approach. Their end goal focuses on how the application looks. This includes
Transitions
Interface
Animations
Graphical locations of the components and so on
UI/UX designers are important in creating any application or website. Normally they will interact with the client or the intended user directly in the following 5 steps which is known as UI/UX design process, this includes:
Empathy
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Design Process Overview
1. Empathy
The first process of UI/UX design is empathy. In this stage we collect first hand information about our users, their wants, desires,and factors that influence them. There are some research techniques to do this such as interviews, surveys, and observation. In this process the organisation should put themselves in the clients position in order to identify the effective design. So that it enables designers to come up with solutions that are simple and practical.
For example: Not considering illiterate people or people who know only a certain language when placing road signs.
It's empathy that made someone decide that we should use symbols instead of texts to display road signs... Otherwise people from Asia and America should learn French, Dutch or German before driving on European roads.
2. Define
The second stage is defined, in this stage we should define questions that are related to the design. This will help us to transform the outcomes from the research to clear information. The questions that are defined are the base of the entire process therefore it helps the design team to solve unwanted problems and in this stage, the goals and objectives are also defined.
For example: Consider you are building a fitness app and while building its UI/UX, you should consider some questions like:
"What are the primary fitness goals of our target users (e.g., weight loss, muscle gain, general fitness)?"
"What features do users find most valuable in a fitness app (e.g., workout tracking, nutrition guidance, social sharing)?"
"What common frustrations do users experience with existing fitness apps?"
By answering these questions, we can find out the clear goals and objectives that will help you to build a user friendly fitness app.
3. Ideate
The third stage is ideate, in this stage people come up with plenty of different ideas. So that there will be many possible solutions and concepts regarding the problems that we defined in the above stage Define. There are some techniques like mapping, sketching, group discussion, and so on to come up with many different ideas. Through this we get the most promising ideas by evaluating the number of ideas and we can shortlist the most effective ideas.
For example: Consider the above example Fitness club app, we should brainstorm different creative ideas for gym activities, such as diet, workout plan, nearby gym locations, supplements, boxing, physiotherapy etc. so that we can come up with the great efficient final idea.
4. Prototype
The fourth stage is a prototype. In this phase, the ideas that we created in the above phase are converted into a model that exists in reality where we can engage. It can closely match the final design of a website and product like the functional clickable interface or a simple sketch of an early-stage application and website. It helps us to try out various layouts, interactions, and user flows. We can also come up with multiple prototypes so that we can do multiple iterations of the mock up thus improving the flaws of the application.
For example: Consider smartphones, early models of smartphones are made from plastic or cardboard to test the size, shape, and user interface before mass production. Likewise UI/UX designers also build models to come up with the most simple and practical one.
5. Test
The last stage is to test, in this stage we can test our applications in the form of user testing sessions. We can switch the sessions from A & B to understand and compare the effectiveness and the usability. It also enables us to find defects. Through this new measures can be implemented or recommended. Thereafter the design team will refine the prototypes by making changes to them to develop a product that meets our level of the required user experience.
For example: One of the best examples that everyone can relate is, testing different outfits. When we go shopping we will try clothes until we get the best one. Likewise we test our app’s UI/UX design to get the best one.
Conclusion
To conclude, the UI/UX design process includes empathy - research your users needs, define - state your users needs and problems, ideate - challenge assumptions and create ideas, prototype - start to create solutions, and test - try your solution out. If you ask any developers, they will let you know how important UI/UX designers are to the team. If they are not present in the team, the team would be spending a lot of time deciding a simple task like font type, font style, colour, theme, etc… UI/UX designers are crucial in the entire process of creating an application. They generally get paid pretty well ranging from Rs 6,00,000 to Rs 8,00,000 LPA.
If you would like to become a UI/UX designer, contact us at +91 8136866266
If you want to take up a course on UI/UX, details are available at UI/UX
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