The evolution of UX process methodology. Why do we need usability testing? An affinity diagram that groups quotes from user studies around the four most common fears you've identified. The image located on the

When determining the value of property, three approaches are used:

Cost-effective approach.

Cost-based approach- a set of methods for assessing the value of an appraisal object, based on determining the costs necessary for the reproduction or replacement of an appraisal object, taking into account wear and obsolescence. Reproduction costs of the valuation object are the costs necessary to create an exact copy of the valuation object using the materials and technologies used to create the valuation object. Replacement costs valuation object are the costs necessary to create a similar object using materials and technologies used at the valuation date.

The cost approach is used when it is possible to replace the valued object with another object that is either an exact copy of the valued object or has similar useful properties. If the object of assessment is characterized by a decrease in value due to physical condition, functional or economic obsolescence, when applying the cost approach it is necessary to take into account wear and tear and all types of obsolescence.

Comparative approach.

Comparative approach- a set of methods for assessing the value of a valuation object, based on a comparison of the valuation object with analogous objects of the valuation object, for which information on prices is available. Analogue object of the object of valuation, for the purposes of valuation, an object is recognized that is similar to the object of valuation in terms of the main economic, material, technical and other characteristics that determine its value.

The comparative approach is used when there is reliable and accessible for analysis information about the prices and characteristics of analogous objects. When applying a comparative approach to valuation, the appraiser must:

a) select units of comparison and conduct a comparative analysis of the object of assessment and each analogue object for all elements of comparison. For each analogue object, several units of comparison can be selected. The choice of units of comparison must be justified by the appraiser. The appraiser must justify the refusal to use other units of comparison adopted during the assessment and related to factors of supply and demand;

b) adjust the values ​​of the comparison unit for analogue objects for each element of comparison, depending on the ratio of the characteristics of the object of evaluation and the analogue object for this element of comparison. When making adjustments, the appraiser must enter and justify the scale of adjustments and provide an explanation of under what conditions the values ​​of the adjustments made will be different. The scale and procedure for adjusting the unit of comparison should not change from one analogue object to another;

c) agree on the results of adjusting the values ​​of units of comparison for selected analogue objects. The appraiser must justify the scheme for reconciling the adjusted values ​​of units of comparison and the adjusted prices of analogous objects.

Income approach.

Income approach- a set of methods for assessing the value of the valuation object, based on determining the expected income from the use of the valuation object.

The income approach is applied when there is reliable information that allows one to predict the future income that the valuation object is capable of generating, as well as the costs associated with the valuation object. When applying the income approach, the appraiser determines the amount of future income and expenses and the moments of their receipt.

When applying the income approach to valuation, the appraiser must:

a) set the forecast period. The forecasting period is understood as a period in the future for which, from the date of assessment, the quantitative characteristics of factors influencing the amount of future income are predicted;

b) examine the ability of the valuation object to generate an income stream during the forecasting period, and also make a conclusion about the ability of the object to generate an income stream in the period after the forecasting period;

c) determine the discount rate reflecting the return on investments in investment objects comparable to the object of assessment in terms of risk level, used to bring future income streams to the date of assessment;

d) carry out the procedure for bringing the flow of expected income during the forecasting period, as well as income after the forecasting period, into value on the valuation date.

To obtain the final value of the valuation object, the appraiser coordinates (summarizes) the results of calculating the value of the valuation object using various approaches to valuation and valuation methods. If, as part of the application of any approach, the appraiser used more than one valuation method, the results of applying the valuation methods must be agreed upon in order to determine the value of the valuation object established as a result of applying the approach.

When agreeing on the results of calculating the value of the valuation object, the type of value established in the valuation assignment, as well as the appraiser’s judgments about the quality of the results obtained within the framework of the applied approaches, must be taken into account. The reconciliation method chosen by the appraiser, as well as all judgments, assumptions and information used by the appraiser when reconciling the results, must be justified. If a weighing procedure is used for approval, the appraiser must justify the choice of scales used.

Translation of the article How To Conduct User Experience Research Like A Professional

Translation: Ksenia Kuzminykh

Introduction

“UX research allows you to understand how a product or service will work in real world for real people. You discover new user needs (or confirm your hypotheses). They should be the basis of your product design."

Chris Maars, UXr

Large informational portal for designers and developers, Designmodo calls UX research “the process of studying how a user behaves, what their needs are, and how they feel about a product. To do this, they use the observation method and various tools to collect feedback.”

One of the benefits of UX research is that it allows you to understand how people live and how to respond to their needs with design solutions.

Amateurs vs professionals

In UX design, it is very easy to distinguish between an amateur and a professional: the amateur excludes the end user from the design process. Early in my career, I thought I could test an app, website, or product on my own, and passed up the opportunity to interact with the end user.

Over time, I learned a more professional approach: when developing a study, you need to start by getting to know the opinions of users. UX research allows us to get rid of narrow-mindedness, and the users of our products are still different from us.

"Insights taken directly from user experience, are like muscle memory: the more you do research, the more effectively you improve your competencies. But just like muscle memory, it takes a lot of work to enjoy the results. It is so tempting to outsource research to a special research group (and sometimes this is simply unavoidable). But try to immerse yourself at least a little in the research process: then you will gain the insights you receive yourself, and not just appropriate what someone else has gained later.”

UX designer Ali Rushdan Tariq, ARTariq

5 stages of UX research

Erin Sanders proposed a 5-step research model called the Research Learning Spiral. In the first two stages you form questions and hypotheses, and in the next two stages you collect information using specific methods:

1. Goals. What don't we know about users?
2. Hypotheses. What do we seem to know?
3. Methods. What methods will we use given the time and resources we have?
4. Data collection. We collect information using the selected methods.
5. Synthesis. We fill knowledge gaps, confirm or refute our hypotheses, and open up opportunities for design work.

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Are you planning major renovation your website? Read on for tips from an experienced practitioner to help you get around underwater rocks restart.

The Role of Research in UX Design

UX research is the starting point for any project. It helps you understand users, their behavior, goals, needs and motivations. It also shows how people navigate the site, where they have problems and, most importantly, what their feelings are from interacting with the product.

When creating a design, start with UX research, otherwise all the work will be based only on your personal experience and subjective assumptions.

The Value of UX Research

UX research is truly valuable because it reduces uncertainty about what users want and need. This benefits both the product itself, the business, and the users.

Product Benefits

UX research gives you data about end user how and when the user will use the product, and what problems the product can solve. It is also useful when the team is unable to choose between several design options.

Business benefits

UX research is very important for business. Understanding the end user and taking design requirements into account at the initial stage allows you to speed up product development, reduce redesign costs and increase user satisfaction.

User benefits

One of the main features of UX research is its direct appeal to users' opinions. Simply put, it voices the thoughts of users without any influence from external authorities, and also serves link between manufacturer and user.

UX Research Methods

To choose correct method research, it is necessary to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each of them. In total, there are 5 types of UX research: focus groups, usability testing, interviews, online surveys and persona creation. While each can be used independently, it is usually more effective to combine them. Next we will analyze each method in more detail.

UX research method: focus groups

Focus groups are a series of structured interviews with a target audience that are conducted quickly and without extra costs will reveal desires, opinions and experience of using the product. A fairly useful method if a company needs a large number of insights in a short time. It is best to conduct focus groups at the very beginning of the study.

Why are focus groups needed?

Focus groups can help your company better understand:

1. How do users perceive the product?
2. What are the main features of the product according to users?
3. What problems do people face when using the product?
4. Where does the product fall short of their expectations?

Group interviews can also be used to generate ideas about the future of a product.

What people say doesn't always correspond to what they do, so focus group results don't always accurately characterize user behavior. And the influence of participants on each other’s opinions and preferences causes data inaccuracy.

1. Ask only quality questions. Make sure your question is simply worded, leads to a comprehensive answer, and is focused on the topic at hand.
2. Choose several topics. Plan a discussion of 3-5 topics in 90 minutes.
3. Invite a certain number of people to participate. A good focus group has 3 to 6 respondents. This quantity is quite enough to discuss several points of view and give everyone the opportunity to speak.

How to Conduct Research Using the Focus Group Method

The research process can be divided into several stages:

According to usabiliy.gov, usability testing means “evaluation through testing by typical users of a product or service.”

During the test, participants are asked various tasks while one or more observers watch, listen, and take notes of what is happening. The main goal of this method is to find usability problems, collect qualitative data and determine the overall level of participant satisfaction with the product/service.

Why do we need usability testing?

This method allows problems to be identified before they are written into code. When product development problems are identified early, they are less expensive to fix.

Usability testing also shows how satisfied users are with the product and what changes need to be made to improve their rating.

This method also has disadvantages. For example, usability testing does not 100% reflect scenarios of interaction with a product in real life. And also, qualitative (not quantitative) data does not allow covering a large sample of respondents, unlike a survey. The benefits are that qualitative data can be more accurate and useful for generating insights.

1. Run a test on five users. This is enough to understand the main problems of your design.
2. Involve your team in testing. Anyone interested in quickly and efficiently solving problems should attend the sessions. The team will include managers, as well as leading developers and designers.
3. Make the report concise and get rid of the unimportant, leaving only the key comments of the respondents. Include the top 3 positive and top 3 negative comments in your report. Therefore, a full report should contain up to 50 comments and be less than 30 pages in length.

How to Conduct Research Using Usability Testing Method

Usability testing can be divided into several stages:

1. Determine what exactly needs to be tested and why ( new project, new part in the project, etc.)
2. Determine your target audience (or users you would like to reach).
3. Create a list of tasks for participants.
4. Find respondents to test.
5. Involve people from your team who are interested in the results in testing.
6. Apply what you learn from respondents to your design.

UX research method: interviews

Another popular UX research method is interviews. It is designed to identify the user's attitude towards the product, his beliefs, and the past experiences of current and potential users. This method assumes that 1 interviewer talks with 1 respondent for 30 to 60 minutes. Interviews can be conducted live, over the phone or via webcam.

Why are interviews needed?

Of all UX research methods, interviews are usually conducted at the very beginning of the development cycle, when identifying product goals. Since interviews are conducted one-on-one, any problems that arise can be quickly addressed and resolved.

Personal interviews also allow you to “capture” the respondent’s verbal and nonverbal signals: facial and body language, emotional reactions that may reflect interest in a product or dissatisfaction with an issue.

When choosing a methodology for UX research, keep in mind that interviews are a great complement to online surveys. A “reconnaissance” interview will help you clarify the wording of future questions in the questionnaire. And conducting an interview after the survey allows you to get more detailed explanations of the answers in the questionnaire.

However, this method has several disadvantages. First, interviews require a team of interviewers, which requires considerable expense.

Secondly, the sample in this method is also limited and depends on the number of interviewers.

1. Hire an experienced interviewer. Good specialist always asks questions in neutral terms, listens carefully, defuses the situation and knows where and when to dig deeper.
2. Create a guide. Set up an interview script for each interviewer. It should consist of the questions to be asked, their order and structure.
3. Obtain consent to record. Before conducting an interview, it is necessary to confirm that the respondent agrees to have the conversation recorded. It's also a good idea to have a pad or two on hand for notes.

How to Conduct Research Using the Interview Method

The interview can be divided into several stages.

The survey includes a series of questions to understand users' preferences and opinions on given topics. Today, surveys are typically conducted online and vary in format and length. Online survey data is collected automatically, and the survey tool (platform) itself already involves primary analytics, the data of which can be used to further development product.

“It is very important to avoid leading questions. This is a common mistake. For example, the wording of the question: “What don’t you like about Uber?” suggests that the user has a negative attitude. An example of a more neutral wording: “Tell me more about your experience moving around the city.” This question elicits a more natural response from the user."

Note from the UX Beginner website

Why do we need online surveys?

Unlike traditional surveys, online surveys allow companies to quickly collect data from a wide and sometimes hard-to-reach audience for free or at a low cost. Surveys also help you understand who your users are, what their goals are, and what information they're looking for.

Unfortunately, as with focus groups, what users say sometimes doesn't mean what they do, so surveys can produce inaccurate results. Respondents' responses can also be negatively affected by poorly worded questions. Survey length can also be an issue—many people hate long surveys. That's why it's important to create short surveys so that users are more likely to complete them and be willing to participate in future studies.

1. Keep the survey short. Especially if remuneration for participants is minimal or not provided at all. Focus only on what really matters.
2. Simplify the survey. Make sure your questions are easy to understand: ambiguity or complex wording can harm the quality of the data collected.
3. Make the survey interesting. Include closed ones (with given options answers) and open questions.

How to Conduct Research Using Online Survey Method

You can conduct an online survey in several stages:

1. Determine the goals and objectives of the study.
2. Formulate questions in the questionnaire. Note: Try to collect information about how satisfied the user is with your product, what the user likes/dislikes, and what changes he might suggest.
3. Select a survey tool (for example, Survey Monkey, Qualtrics, etc.)
4. Find respondents
5. Conduct a survey
6. Analyze the results and prepare a report

UX Research Method: Creating Personas

A persona is a fictional image of an ideal client. A persona is typically based on background research and has goals, needs, and observable behaviors as a representative of your target audience.

Why are characters needed?

If you are creating a mobile application or website with adaptive layout, you will need to understand who will use the product. Understanding your audience can influence certain design elements and features to make your product more useful. The persona refines the profile of your audience by answering the following questions:

• Who's mine ideal client?
• What are the current behavior patterns of my users?
• What are the needs and goals of my users?

Understanding user needs is vital when developing a product. A well-defined persona will allow you to identify and interact with the user's needs.

Unfortunately, creating personas can be very expensive, depending on how much user research you're willing to do. The character creation method is also not scientific, which makes some doubt it.

1. Create a character. It should consist of 4 elements: name, demographic characteristics, goals and behavior scenario.
2. Describe the character briefly and succinctly. Do not overuse unnecessary details that will not affect the final design.
3. Make the character realistic. Avoid caricatured images, collect enough details so that the image is not divorced from real life.

How to Do Research Using Character Creation

Character creation can be broken down into several steps:

1. As a result of conversations with stakeholders (UX designers, marketing department, product manager), identify your target audience.
2. Conduct a survey and/or interview with real users to collect demographic information, « pain points » and preferences.
3. Summarize the research results and identify target audience groups.
4. Convert the resulting target groups into characters.
5. Test your characters.

Next steps: Which method should you choose for your research?

Now that you know more about UX research methods, it's time to choose the most suitable one for your purposes.

Behavioral Research vs. Attitude research

As mentioned earlier, there is a big difference between what people say and what people do. Attitudinal research aims to measure opinions, while behavioral research aims to study how people behave. For example, usability testing is a study of behavior. Focus groups, surveys, interviews and personas are used to study people's attitudes towards a product.

Quality vs. Quantitative Research

Qualitative methods (usability testing, focus groups, interviews) are more suitable for answering questions that begin with the words “why” and “how”. Quantitative methods(online surveys) are suitable for answering questions starting with “how much”.

Conclusion

To summarize, the goal of UX research is simple: discover patterns of behavior, preferences, and insights from the people who use your product. These things provide the basis for your product design. Research also helps us combat the practice of designing for ourselves or for interested company employees, and allows the user to return to focus.

Expert opinion

Ksenia Kuzminykh
Web Analyst
i-Media

A UX designer, psychologist and sociologist have a lot in common. The goal for all three is to understand the opinions, motives and preferences of different categories of people. They achieve this goal using the same methods.

The author of this article is Raven Veal, a behavioral psychologist and mentor for an online UX design course on CareerFoundry. She brings her knowledge of conducting research from academia to business and explains how this research benefits the product, customer and user.

The article introduces UX research methods. It covers both “classical” social science methods (survey, interview, and focus group) and specific UX methods (persona creation, usability testing).

Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. The task of a professional is to choose the appropriate method for specific purposes and “squeeze” the maximum out of it useful information.

Raven Veal talks about the benefits of addressing the user at the interface design stage. As a sociologist working in web analytics, I advocate for the general “humanization” of data in the digital environment. Users are not just numbers about sessions and page views, not just blots on a click map. These are living people who have opinions.

That is why now at i-Media we have begun to use online surveys as an important source of information to increase website conversion. Most often we turn to surveys when we need to understand how users evaluate the usability of the site now and what needs to be changed/added. This is information that cannot be extracted from Google Analytics and Yandex.Metrica. It is an excellent living addition to generalized behavioral data.

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29.09.2017

User Experience(interaction experience) or UX is a currently popular term in technological and design industries. As UX continues to evolve and be defined, many people are still unsure what UX means and how to properly use the term.

You probably often hear about UX when we're talking about about the interfaces of websites or mobile applications. This is partly true, but a deeper look at UX is necessary to fully understand why user experience is so important and why it is so important to know about it.

What is User Experience (UX)?

UX stands for “user experience”. Experience is how people interact with a product.

You encounter UX everywhere. In theory, everything you come into contact with, starting with software to the on/off button and its shape are examples of elements that create UX. The sum of your interactions with a product becomes the experience you have using that product.

All objects around us have an experience of interaction - from touch-screen kiosks in the subway to elite coffee machines that allow you to pour yourself a cup of gourmet coffee. Possibility to use mobile phone or any other device on the go improves the UX, as well as interacting with the car using the touch screen and voice commands makes driving easier and more convenient.

The success of a product is based on how users perceive it. When using a product, people typically rate their experience as follows:

• Did I benefit from this product?
• Is it easy to use?
• Is it pleasant to use?

Whether people will become regular and loyal users of the product directly depends on the answer to these questions.

UX elements

Don Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, was the first to coin the concept of “user experience” in the 90s, saying “The user experience covers all aspects of a user’s interaction with a company, its services and products.”

“I coined this term because I thought that human interfaces and usability were too narrow concepts. I wanted to capture all aspects of the human experience with the system, including industrial design, graphics, interfaces and physical interaction.”

In this video, Don Norman shares his thoughts on the origins of the term UX.

To sum it up, UX is almost everything that influences the user's interaction with a product.

• Interaction experience is based on sensations. It goes beyond the usual human-computer interaction (HCI) and places special emphasis on the human side. People value interaction as a personal moment.
• UX depends on the context in which the product is used. The conditions under which the product is used are constantly changing. UX involves understanding the broader context in which users operate and determining what role the product plays in their lives.
• The user experience evolves over time. The experience of interacting with your product is dynamic. For example, when New Product hits the market, or when a user experiences a product for the first time, they may be disoriented and have mixed feelings because they don't know what to expect. Later, when users become familiar with your product and define it benefit, their interaction experience will grow positively and cause emotional attachment.

From a technical perspective, UX includes the practical, experiential, affective, meaningful, and value aspects of interaction. Peter Morville's Honeycomb is a tool that will help you find the right balance between various areas effective UX.

• Usable: The product should be simple and easy to use. It should be designed to be familiar and understandable.
• Useful: The product must satisfy a need. If it doesn't do that then the user has no reason to use it.
• Desirable: The visual aesthetics of the product should be attractive. Design elements may cause positive emotions and sympathy.
• Findable A: If the user has a problem with the product, then they should be able to quickly find a solution.
• Accessible: The design of the product should be such that even physically challenged people can have the same experience as everyone else.
• Credible: The company and its products must be credible.

When a product design combines these 6 elements, then it will be valuable to users, and maximizing value is the main goal of UX.

What is UX design?

UX is almost always accompanied by the word “design”. People working in this field are UX designers.

In simple words, User Experience Design (UXD or UED) is the process of creating a physical or electronic product, which is useful, easy to use and enjoyable to interact with. But in reality, everything is much more complicated:

01. UX design is more than usability

There is a misconception that UX design is the same as usability. And this misconception is understandable: usability assumes that the product is useful and easy to use.

Usability is a quality attribute of a user interface that determines whether a product is easy to learn, how effective it is, and so on.

Yes, usability is one of the most important factors in effective UX, but if UX is limited to only this element, then your product will be one step behind.

02. UX design is not visual or UI design

UX design is often mistakenly classified as Visual/UI design because for many people the word “design” is immediately associated with colors and graphics. But UX design is different.

User interface (UI) is defined as the means of communication between a person and a system. With increasing popularity personal computers And mobile devices the term is usually equated with a “graphical user interface (GUI)”—the look and feel, presentation and interactivity of a product.

While the user interface is obviously an important part of the user experience, UX designers don't create things that have the same feel as a visual interface designer. UX designers create the functionality that sits behind the visuals: the process that makes a product work well for the people who use it. UX bridges the gap between how something looks and how it works and feels.

The graph below shows that UX brings together all aspects of product design and use, while UI is mainly limited to the visual part of the design.

03. UX design is about people

UX is a design approach that considers all aspects of a person's interaction with a product or service. It is strongly linked to an understanding of user behavior, his needs, goals, motivations and the context in which he will use the product. The ultimate goal is a solution that satisfies these areas of experience. UX design is the art of serving and creating value for people.

User experience does not take into account every situation for every user because everyone is different. What works for one user may have the opposite effect on another. UX design is about achieving the best and most reliable solution for your target audience.

So, to create a great user experience, a designer needs to empathize with the people who will use the product.

04. UX design has different dimensions

From smart watches to the widest TV screens, content needs to be viewed well on all devices. But development under different screens– this is not just changing the size of the content, but much more difficult process: The designer needs to maximize the user experience for each device so that the user understands that the application truly designed for their device, instead of just stretching across the width of the screen.

05. UX design is an ongoing process

Product UX design constantly evolves over time as new technologies emerge and feedback is received. The product evolves and changes, and UX must move along with it.

The role of a UX designer is extremely complex. The responsibilities of a UX designer may vary from company to company, but an effective design team always focuses on creating user experiences through information architecture, interaction design, information design, and visual design.

What do UX designers do?

When a UX designer develops a new product, the first thing he does is study the audience. The target audience is the most important and it is important to know what their goals and needs are.

The designer then tries to satisfy these needs by focusing on the following areas:

• Visual design. Creating an effective visual hierarchy for the UI.
• Information architecture. Satisfy user goals by analyzing key user tasks and behaviors.
• Interactive design. Optimizing interaction between people and interfaces.
• Usability. Analysis of how people use the product.
• Content strategy. Aligning content with overall product strategy.

UX designers also spend a lot of time communicating with each other. Design is a team sport, and it is important to effectively communicate decisions with your team from the start of a project through to completion. final stage. The ability to empathize and understand the motivations of developers, product managers, marketers, and other designers is essential for a UX designer. Their work covers many areas and they must interact effectively with many departments to create successful product. For example, a user behavior study prepared by a UX designer can provide a lot of useful information for the marketing team to develop their content strategy.

Finally, UX designers spend a lot of time working on . Prototyping is a critical part of a UX designer's workflow, creating sample products that can be tested before launching the final product. A prototype can be anything from a sketch to a pixel perfect interactive interface. The essence of a prototype is to test a product and ideas before creating the final solution. Prototypes help fix usability bugs and reveal areas that need improvement. You can create quick prototypes, for example, using Adobe XD.

Naturally, UX aims not only to meet user needs, but also to meet business needs. There's no point in creating a product that users love if it doesn't help achieve business goals. A UX designer must find a balance between users and business to create the optimal solution.

Ideally, the main goal is to combine business goals and user needs through research, prototypes, testing, and find something that satisfies both sides. This is achieved by following the principle of placing the user at the center and taking into account his needs at every stage of product development.

Examples of great UX design

Jared Spool, a UX design expert, said, “Good design, when done right, is invisible. We only notice him when he is bad.”

When looking at examples of less effective UX design versus very effective UX design, three important rules emerge.

01. Provide enough correct information

Let's take a look at the car's dashboard. The state of UX design in most modern cars is constantly criticized for its lack of intuitiveness. Car manufacturers are slowly introducing quality design into their industry.

Bad UX: The car informs the driver about the breakdown.

In the example below, on the left, the system tells the user that there is a problem with the machine, but does not provide any additional information about the source of the problem or its solution.

Effective UX: Informs the user about the problem and provides all the necessary information.

In the example above, on the right, dashboard communicates the problem in a language that is understandable to all users without further explanation.

02. Avoid visual clutter

The news industry is a perfect example of an industry that has undergone digital transformation over the past few years. Many news companies have left the press and moved to online platforms, and strive to ensure that visitors spend as much time as possible on their websites. Conflicting visual hierarchy and too much advertising are two of the most common problems with news sites. These issues irritate and slow down users.

Many news sites strive to maximize their revenues whenever possible. Addition large quantity advertising is a natural reaction, but in most cases advertising worsens the UX. In the example below old version CNN site. It is difficult to find news content on it due to the abundance of advertising.

Effective UX: Focuses on what is important to the user

By focusing on the content that matters most to readers, news organizations deliver experiences online readings to the very center. This approach is good for readability because the reader's attention span is limited. The example below demonstrates a clean visual hierarchy, where the most important content has the greatest visual weight, and distracting elements are minimized.

03. Make the user journey as smooth as possible

Various obstacles prevent users from achieving their goals. This hurts conversions and irritates potential customers to the point where they are ready to abandon the site. One of the clearest examples of such obstacles is logical walls - pages that ask the user to log in or register. Let's take a look at the confirmation process in an online store.

Bad UX: Forcing registration without offering benefits

E-commerce sites often use logical walls. The need to register has a high interaction cost because it forces the user to waste time creating a new account and remembering information. More than 85% of visitors leave the page due to forced registration. Even Amazon does this. It forces users to register before purchasing selected products, so great amount visitors leave the site.

Effective UX: Give guest access

The registration process can be simplified using guest access. It is normal for e-commerce sites to ask for payment information, but not to force users to register.

When a user has an easy and smooth purchase, they can create an account as a thank you for a great experience (especially if the data they entered earlier is transferred to the account creation form).

04. Eliminate user uncertainty

Let's take a look at the form for online shopping. It’s easy to pay for something online with a card, right? Yes and no. Yes, because many users have this experience, and no, because no two forms are alike.

Bad UX: Doesn't help the user

In an ideal world, the user can easily enter all necessary information into the form and makes a payment. In the real world this is usually not the case. Look at the example.

The user will probably have the following questions:

• What cards can I use? Can I pay with American Express?
• What is this “Name”? Name on the card or your full name?
• What format should the date be in? MM/YY or MM/YYYY?
• What is “Security code”?
• What happens if I click “Next”? Is this the final payment step or will I be able to check the entered data?

Effective UX: Visualize everything you need

Sometimes simply improving the UX of your data entry process can earn you millions of dollars.

There are many ways to eliminate uncertainty through design. Below you see modified version forms from the previous example. Each input form now has an informative title and visual cues for the types of cards supported.

Below is another great example. The form visualizes the results of user operations and makes it clear what data is needed.

Why should you care about UX?

User experience plays a critical role in shaping your customer base and user base. People perceive products emotionally, and negative emotions, unfortunately, are remembered better than positive ones.

When the experience of interacting with your product leaves a bad impression, the user will go to do his business elsewhere. This way, bad UX turns into a weak foundation for your business. At the same time, the most effective UX generates user interest and, most importantly, attachment.

Good UX for good business

In the case of business, UX – the most important criterion survival. Modern user expects a lot from your brand, which means your product must deliver good experience interactions. UX design is a major investment. Forrester Research reports that every dollar invested in UX generates an average of $100 in profit and return on investment in 9,900 percent.

Demand on the labor market

UX designers are in high demand. According to CNN Money, UX design is one of the top 50 jobs in the United States. The average salary for a UX designer in the US is $70,000 per year at entry levels and $100,000 per year for experienced designers.

Hiring Trends in UX Design

According to Adobe survey, most companies hire UX designers to work with web and mobile applications. It is expected that within 5 years the mobile industry will become the most popular. While desktop-to-mobile (cross-platform design) will remain important, almost half of companies in the next 3-5 years plan to hire UX designers who can work with virtual reality(VR).

Conclusion

UX is essential to the success of your product or business. Focus on UX throughout the entire development process. Make the user need your design. The essence of UX is to provide the best best experience. Get feedback from your customers to make sure you're on top on the right track and never stop your journey towards good UX.

Web application or offline service. This - good material for those who are starting to master this area and want to figure out “how everything works here.”

Introduction to UX Design

Starting to study a new discipline can be exciting and even scary. However, when it comes to user experience design and how to become a usability designer, it is especially difficult for beginners to know where to start learning about this field.

What is the reason?

Usability is an area that is considered extremely important in digital product development, but for many it remains mysterious due to its relative newness and constant development. For a beginner, even acquiring the skills to successfully design interfaces can seem like an overwhelming task.

You probably already know that this activity is currently gaining momentum. More and more companies, both startups and large corporations, are hiring interface designers. The current decade is called the “decade of design” in the press. The fact is that the number of digital products and services is growing steadily, and along with this, the need to improve usability is growing.

UX design is not only fun, but also just a good thing.

Revealing the secrets of UX design

This material contains not only theoretical provisions, but also practical advice, which will help you become a usability expert. We'll start with the basics and first of all answer basic questions like "What is UX design?" Later we'll delve deeper into the process of professional interface design and touch on topics such as Research custom audience,Design and Testing. To give you a clearer idea of ​​how to become a usability expert, we have prepared a few for you. practical tasks that you can do yourself.

What is usability design?

The official definition of user experience is:

“The perceptions a person has when using and/or intending to use a product, system, or receiving a service.”(ISO 9241-210:2010, subclause 2.15).

When it comes to UX design, the definition includes techniques and ways in which a designer can improve usability. The “design” itself aims to improve the usefulness, usability, and effectiveness of a product or service in the user experience.

Visual design is how a product looks, while usability is how it feels. But that is not all. Usability includes all aspects of user interaction with a company, from customer service to product quality. Keep in mind that many UX designers use the terms “product” and “service” interchangeably.

Wikipedia defines UX design as:

“The process of increasing user satisfaction with a product by improving its usability, ease of use, and accessibility.”

Every time you interact with a product, software, or any object, you experience it as a user. This means that the key task of UX design is to make the experience as successful as possible. A usability specialist should, among other things, be the “glue” that holds the entire team together, handing over projects to developers who will then bring them to life.

The ultimate goal of UX design is not just user satisfaction. The design process aims to help the product achieve its business goals and ensure that those goals align with the user's goals. Which leads to the next question:

Why do we design interfaces?

Interface design gives a company two main advantages:

1. It has a positive effect on the user's perception of the product.
2. A successful user experience increases product adoption.

These are the main goals of interface design:

1. Understand your prospect's goals and context of product use.
2. Based on customer goals and context of use, develop a product, service or application within business and technology constraints.

Thus, we design interfaces to achieve the stated goals - satisfied customers and high sales.

The first thing a usability designer thinks about is how to combine user goals with business goals. For example, if the user's goal is to purchase a product, then the company should make this purchase useful, convenient and enjoyable.

• Useful: You need to satisfy the client’s need, that is, solve his problem.
• Convenient: High level Usability should be obvious so that customers understand the scope of your product or service.
• Have a nice one: It doesn’t hurt if purchasing your product brings joy to the customer.

If the user's goal is to obtain information, then the company must provide reliable data, thereby instilling confidence in the buyer, and the staff must politely answer questions asked over the phone. A satisfied client who has received all the information he is interested in will return, but a disappointed one will not.

1. If the client’s goal is achieved (that is, he easily and quickly found what he was looking for), then he will have a pleasant impression of your product.
2. If a customer has a good experience, they are more likely to make a purchase or recommend the product to their friends.
3. When a customer returns to your site, buys your product, or tells friends about it, sales and conversion rates increase.

A Brief History of UX

Behind last years The term "UX Design" has become close in meaning to technology and software, but this was not always the case. Initially, “user experience” was simply understood as the experience a person has when using a system.

The term "UX Design" was coined in 1995 by Donald Norman, who at the time served as Vice President of the Advanced Technologies Group at Apple. He said:

“I invented this term because I thought that “human interface” and “usability” were too narrow terms. I wanted to involve all aspects of the user experience of interacting with the system, in particular the industrial design of the product, its graphics, interface and physical contact."

In addition, Norman wrote the book “The Design of Common Things,” in which for the first time convenience and functionality were placed above aesthetics. His work is still very popular in design circles. Interest in UX design has grown, and the term itself has become an umbrella term for a number of different fields, such as User Research, Information Architecture, Usability Development, Service Design, etc.

What is usability?

Usability is the ease of use and mastery of an object created by man.
This concept is directly related to the reasons why we design interfaces - because usability has a positive impact on the user experience. The easier a product is to learn and use, the better the user experience. But the product must not only be easy to use - it must solve the client’s problem. And in most cases, a usability designer's job is to figure out what users need.

How an interface designer sees the world

By learning the basic principles of UX design, you can “get into the head of an interface designer” and see the world through their eyes.

Artist and usability designer Allison House explains her approach to her work:

“When I design UX, I repeat the mantra: “Think bigger, prioritize, look deeper. Study the situation, determine what is important, and begin to solve problems in order of priority.”

UX design is a people-first activity, which means a key skill of a UX designer is the ability to understand the needs and behavior of users of a site, application or product. He must strive to ensure that these needs and desires are consistent with the business goals of the company for which he works. As we mentioned earlier, a usability specialist always tries to make sure that every action taken is useful, convenient and enjoyable for the user.

Qualities required for a usability engineer

Empathy– the ability to understand why people act in one way or another. In order to engage in usability design, you need to be able to put yourself in other people's shoes. This is probably the most important quality to have in this field and you need to learn how to understand other people's actions. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone has this ability naturally.

Curiosity– the desire to know why people act in one way or another.

Clarity of Expression– ability to explain complex concepts in an accessible form for those unfamiliar or unfamiliar with the field.
Prototyping designer at Manulife's RED lab, Ali Rushdan Tariq, explains:

“Good usability engineers think about people first. They worry if they find out that their customers are experiencing inconvenience when using the product, and they strive to fix it. Moreover, good usability engineers remember that in their journey to improve people’s lives, they must also pursue clearly defined business goals.”

UX Design Process

User audience research

User audience research is the designer's starting point in every project. It helps us get to know users, their motivations, goals and needs. The study also shows how easy it is to navigate our system, what difficulties users encounter and, most importantly, how they feel when interacting with our product.

User audience research is a fundamental element of UX design. Whether you work for a large corporation where special team is conducting this research for you, or you are the only usability engineer at a startup, there is no way you can skip this part of the design process. As a UX designer, by definition you need to know everything about your product. However, your intuition cannot always accurately determine what users will like, so conducting research with real users so important for successful design.

Nate Bolt, founder of user experience research lab Ethnio, shares advice:

"Don't be afraid to use creativity not only to the design process itself, but also to the research of the user audience. The way you conduct interviews, work with your team, and present your findings are all opportunities to think creatively. We are used to considering design as part creative process, but the research must be no less creative.”

The key here is empathy. You will work with user groups with different levels preparation and with different experience behind them. Your job is to understand why they act the way they do and not try to change or influence their behavior. You have to make sure your product is useful to them. As an aspiring UX designer, it is very important for you to show empathy at every opportunity that arises.

The study has other benefits as well. The conclusiveness of the results of extensive user research can help gain support from colleagues or superiors when demonstrating designed solutions.

In this section, we'll look at the skills needed to conduct user audience research and discuss the importance of this step in the usability design process.

Peter Merholz, usability scientist and product manager at PeterMe.com, gave this advice to better understand users:

“Don’t confuse the process with the result—knowing UX design elements like personas, flows, and UI layouts is important, but it’s not enough to create a successful user experience. What's more important is the mindset - you have to look at the world through the eyes of your users and do everything you can to make your work meaningful to them."

Why user audience research is so important

“Research is meaningless if it is not conducted properly. The transition from studying research results to design is the most an important part the work of a usability engineer,” Harry Brignull, UX Design Specialist at 90percentofeverything.com.

When we base our work solely on personal experience or assumptions, we often miss what that experience might be like for other people, particularly our users. This means that we may miss opportunities to improve our service or product and make it useful to users. In addition, it may seem to us that navigation in our system is quite simple and convenient, but we worked in it for a long time and we know her well.

Simply put, our users don't know our product as well as we know it.

To become a usability scientist, you must always look at the product from the user's perspective; and you can only learn this by working with real users during an in-depth study of the audience.

It allows us to find out how customers feel when interacting with our product and check whether our product actually helps them achieve their goal.

During the course of the study, the interface designer will collect information using various sources and means to create a positive user experience. We'll look at some of these methods next.
Here's what Lean UX author Jeff Gothelf said about user research:

“Over the past five years, the nature of software has moved into a state of constant and consistent improvement. Thanks to this, designers have a wonderful opportunity to constantly connect with their audience. Ongoing communication—small research conducted frequently and regularly—helps to hear the customer's voice in the decision-making process. Essentially, it ensures that this research, as well as development, design, or requirements gathering, has its place in the iterative process of product design and development.”

Why we start with user research

We start the UX design process with user audience research, because otherwise our work will only be based on own experience and assumptions. And this will prevent us from achieving objectivity, because our opinion may differ from the opinion of our clients. User audience research provides us with the data we need to create a product. Without this data we cannot start work.

By starting with research, we save ourselves a ton of work, time, money and resources. As a result, we will only have to make a few amendments to our project. But if we conducted the research after we had finished all the work, we would have to make huge changes to the interface to match the needs of the users surveyed. The same goes for redesign. Those who work on redesigning an existing product have the advantage of seeing how users perceive existing system.

“Properly conducted user research is the key to creating a positive user experience. Designing without doing research is like building a house without a strong foundation. Soon your design will start to come apart at the seams and eventually fall apart.”

What does user audience research include?

There is a difference between listening to users and observing their behavior. Both of these methods allow you to get valuable information during the study. The mistake newbies make is that they focus too much on listening to users, when observing allows them to identify more information for more short term.

Interview

A user interview is a meaningful dialogue between an interviewer and a user from a potential interest group. It is carried out to find out the needs of the user and his requirements for the product. The interview can be conducted directly during the client’s interaction with the product; The interviewer can ask questions to find out what the user is thinking about while navigating. Ask your customers about the problems they encounter when using the product. You could even ask them to describe what their ideal product would look like.

Online surveys

An online survey is a method of collecting information that is a set of questions sent to your target audience over the Internet - usually in the form of a questionnaire. The duration and format of the online survey may vary depending on the project, but in any case, the data obtained is entered into the database and subsequently studied by a usability specialist or a team of usability specialists. Before you begin writing your profile, conduct several interviews to fully understand subject area. This will help you ask better questions.

Creating Personas

Personas are not your desired customers. These are the clients you have or may have. In web design, a persona is defined as a description of a fictional person within a specific user audience. We develop user personas based on qualitative and quantitative data from user audience research, as well as on the basis of obtained web analytics.

Using personas is effective if they:

• Truly reflect the motivations, goals and needs of real people
• Give a clear picture of user expectations
• Shows how users interact with the site
• Represent the vast majority of site users

Peter Morville, known as the founder Information Architecture, gave advice regarding creating personas:

“Portraits and profiles of user types (as well as their goals and behaviors) remind us all that we are not users and serve as a compass when designing and developing.”

User testing

We'll cover this topic in more detail later, but keep in mind that when redesigning an existing product (as opposed to designing a new product), this type of testing can be a valuable source of information to help identify product shortcomings from the users' perspective.

Berlin-based usability and strategist HanyRizk emphasizes the importance of user research in the UX design process:

“Designing without conducting user research is completely contrary to the concept of UX design. This research helps UX designers and other stakeholders understand users and their needs, and determine their product requirements. Simply put, it replaces assumptions in the design process with concrete data.”

UX Design Processes: Design

Usability in design

As Steve Jobs once said:

“Design is not how a product looks and feels. Design is how it works."

This truth, so aptly articulated by Steve Jobs, is often forgotten when it comes to product design. Anyone will recognize the products Apple by its graceful and unique appearance. The design of iPhones and MacBooks is so successful that tech companies the whole world is trying to copy it.

However Apple products received international recognition not because of its aesthetic properties. And while the design of these devices is easily recognizable and functional, it is the user experience and usability of these products that sets Apple apart from its competitors and continues to make the brand popular to this day. Nowadays, companies large and small around the world are emulating Apple's success by focusing their efforts on the usability of their products.

Of course, the aesthetic properties of the product enhance its attractiveness. However, in UX design, you'll quickly come to the conclusion that if a product doesn't work properly, the user doesn't care much about how it looks. At the same time, do not forget that the final success of the product depends not only on your design, but also on its implementation by the developers, as well as on project management. This is another key skill required for a usability engineer – the ability to work in a team. We'll talk more about this in the last section.

Designing a positive user experience involves carefully planning the product-customer journey and helping them navigate intuitive searches. In either case, customers will interact with the product based on their previous experiences with other products. Your task as an interface designer is to adjust the product/service to the already habitual behavior of the client.

The design of your product is about functionality and usability, not colors and pictures (these are later selected by a visual designer). When, based on the results of your user audience research, you have determined the expectations, goals and desires of your customers, it is the functionality and usability of the product or website that you should think about first.

Don't forget that any client action should be useful, convenient and enjoyable. If you don't solve the user's problem, they won't look at the colors or the pictures.
Dan Saffer, interaction design expert and author, shared another tip. He said:

“Never forget the why: why you are designing this product, why people will use it, why you made a particular decision during the design process. Write these reasons down on paper. Tell them to anyone who will listen. Incorporate them into your layouts and presentations. This “why” should give direction to the entire process because it is what determines the meaning, story and theme of the product.”

In the second part we will talk about the rest of the UX design processes: modeling, prototyping, usability testing and what place a UX designer occupies in the team of any project.

To be continued...

Day after day we are overwhelmed with a massive flow of information, as in offline mode, and online. Thanks to new technologies and fast connection With the Internet, people create more content than they are physically able to consume. When interacting with numerous websites and apps, users don't read everything they see word by word—they scan the page first to see what might be useful to them. The task of making the interface readable is one of the main factors in achieving usability.

What is interface readability?

Readability is the way content and navigation elements are presented in a layout that can be easily scanned and therefore readable. When interacting with a website, especially for the first time, users quickly skim the content to analyze what they need. Any piece of content can become a hook in this process: words, sentences, images, or .

By the way, this behavior is not something new: for many decades, people have often done the same thing with a new magazine or newspaper, skimming it before starting to read the articles carefully. Moreover, reading from a screen is much more tedious than from paper, so users are more selective.

Why is it important? About ten years ago, Jacob Nielsen responded to a question about how people read on the Internet: “They don’t. People rarely read web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, selecting individual words and sentences." The experience hasn't changed much since then: we're not willing to invest our time and effort into learning a website unless we're sure it suits our needs. So, if we cannot catch the eye from the first moments of interaction, the risk is high that the user will leave. Whatever the type of website, readability is one of the significant factors of convenient interaction.

How can you check if a web page is readable? Try to look at it from the point of view of a new user and answer two questions:

• Is what you see in the first moments of interaction relevant to the expected audience on that page?
• Can you understand what information is on the page within the first seconds?

If you're not sure both answers are positive, it might be time to think about ways to improve your website. It's worth investing time because it's good readable pages become much more effective in the following aspects:

• users complete their tasks and achieve their goals faster;
• users make fewer mistakes when searching for the content they need;
• Users quickly understand the structure and navigation of the website;
• the failure rate is reduced;
• the website looks and feels more authentic.

Popular reading patterns

A vital factor that a user interface designer must consider is reading patterns, which show how users interact with a web page in the first seconds. When you understand HOW people scan a page or screen, you can prioritize content and direct attention to the most visible areas.

Various experiments collecting eye-tracking data have shown that there are several typical patterns in which visitors typically browse a website.

The Z-Pattern is fairly typical for web pages with a uniform presentation of information and a weak visual hierarchy.

Another layout has a zigzag pattern, typical of pages with visually separated blocks of content. Again, the reader's eyes go from left to right, starting at the top left corner, then scanning the entire page to the top right corner.

Another model is the F-pattern, introduced in Nielsen Norman Group research, which shows that users often use the following interaction flow:

• Users first read the horizontal bar, usually through top part content areas. This initial element forms the top bar F.
• Users then move around the page a bit, and view it in a second horizontal movement, which usually covers a shorter area than the previous one. This additional element forms the bottom bar F.
• Finally, users view left side contents in vertical movement. Sometimes it's a fairly slow and systematic scan that looks like a solid line on the eye tracking map. In other cases, users move faster by creating a heat map. This last element forms the F pillar.

Ways to make the interface readable

1. Visual hierarchy

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Expert in design, development, web analytics