Seven questions about the work of a UX designer: understanding the profession. Create an additional portfolio. What is user experience

About how to become a designer.

A friend of mine once admitted that she always wanted to be a designer, but missed out on the opportunity to become one. I quickly assured her that it was never too late to start and I was the best proof of that. In fact, many designers have been able to learn UX design without any formal training.

Here's how it all happened for me, step by step:

1. Understand all areas of Design

There are visual designers, interaction designers, user experience (UX) designers, interface (UI) designers, product designers, graphic designers, and so on. There are also generalists who know a little bit of everything. Start by finding out what specialization interests you.

2. Read articles on UX/UI design on your way to work

4. Take a break when you encounter difficulties.

Sooner or later you will find yourself confused, overwhelmed and overwhelmed - buy yourself a latte please! Reward yourself for the hard work you put into your passion. Stay positive.

I remember with a smile the day I sheepishly admitted to my friend that I had no idea how to use the pen tool (you'll find it funny in a few months). My friend and I got jobs at the same company a year later and are still smiling about the day we literally spent 8 hours drawing shapes in Photoshop.

5. Read good books.

6. Find a designer who knows how to do it and ask him sometimes

I'm not saying "find a mentor." I don't believe in mentors because I think people are too busy working on their own dreams. I never expected anyone else to put much effort into my career, but I have made some excellent friends who I can quickly ask a question or buy coffee when I need advice.

7. Get inspired

Listen to Matias Duarte, Vice President of Android design, and him stories about material design.

See work on Dribbble, The Best Designs and Awwwards. Make inspiration a priority. It will help you understand UX patterns, visual design and empower you.

8. Work on projects that don't exist

If your goal is an intern or entry-level position in UI/UX design, then you need to show the employer something. This is the most difficult step, it's like jumping off a cliff. It's unlikely that you'll be ready to start working on the project, but do it anyway. Try creating a portfolio in Sketch or Illustrator, starting with user flows, wireframes, interactions and finally a full mockup. After that, redesign the site that simply needs it. Create own application with a list of tasks. Create a delivery app. Keep creating what excites you.

9. Subscribe to Sidebar

They send out 5 design links every day.

10. Write this quote on your desk.

Nobody ever talks about this to beginners. And I would like someone to tell me about this at some time: everyone, each of us, whose work requires creativity, has good taste. But we all instantly find ourselves on the edge of the abyss: during the first few years while we are creating, it is impossible not to notice that what we are doing is not as good as we would like. We clearly see that we haven’t done anything good. We would like it to be good, we strive for this, but every time we get something that is not what we wanted...

And only taste, that most cherished thing that initially attracted you to creativity, your taste is simply magnificent! He is so good that you yourself admit that what you are doing is a complete disorder. Many people cannot get past this stage. And many quit their job.

To all of you, I would like to say with an open heart that everyone I know, everyone whose work requires creativity, everyone has gone through this stage of many years when, for all their amazing taste, they saw that what they do is not so good , as we would like. They knew they were falling short. They saw that they could not reach the level at which they would like to create.

I want to tell you that everyone goes through this grueling stage. And if you are at this stage now, remember - this is completely normal. And the most important thing you can do now is to keep working, working hard.

The time to reach the goal is a function of the distance to the goal and its size. In 1954, psychologist Paul Fitts, studying the human motor system, showed that the time required to hit a target depends on the distance to the target, and is also inversely related to the size of the target. According to this law, fast movements and small targets lead to more errors. Fitts' Law is widely used in UI and UX. For example, according to this law, interactive buttons should be made large, because small buttons are more difficult to click and take longer.

Hick's law

Decision time increases with the number and complexity of choices. The greater the number of stimuli, the longer it will take the user to choose which one to interact with. If users are bombarded with choices, they will have to take time to interpret and decide what they don't want to do.

Jacob's law

Users spend large quantity time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same as sites they already know. Jacob's Law was coined by Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, who has made huge contributions to UX, such as inventing the heuristic evaluation method.

Law of Pregnancy

People will perceive and interpret ambiguous or complex images in the simplest form because this interpretation requires the least amount of cognitive effort on our part. This law was discovered in 1910 by psychologist Max Wertheimer when he saw lights near a railroad crossing. It was like turning the lights around the stage on and off. To the observer, it appears to be the same light that moves from light bulb to light bulb, although in reality it is just a series of light bulbs that turn on and off in turn.

Law of Proximity

Objects close to each other are perceived in a group. This law is also one of the main ones in Gestalt psychology and was discovered by Wertheimer. He noticed that a rapid series of events creates the illusion of movement. For example, films are fast moving frames that are perceived as a continuous visual experience.

Miller's Law

On average, a person can retain 7 ± 2 elements in his memory. working memory. In 1956, George Miller argued that the range of immediate memory and absolute judgment was limited to about 7 pieces of information. The basic unit of information is the bit, the amount of data required to choose between two equally likely alternatives. That is, 4 bits of information is a decision between 16 paired alternatives (4 consecutive binary solutions). The point at which confusion causes poor judgment is throughput channel.

Parkinson's Law

Any task takes up all the time allotted for it. According to this law, restrictions in time, space or budget lead to increased productivity and efficiency.

Serial arrangement effect

Users remember best the first and last objects in a series. Manipulating serial placement to create a better user experience is used in many popular designs from successful companies like Apple, Electronic Arts and Nike.

Tesler's Law

Tesler's Law, or the law of conservation of complexity, states that for any system there is a certain amount of complexity that cannot be reduced. In the mid-1980s, Larry Tesler realized that how users interact with applications is as important as the applications themselves. He says that in many cases an engineer should spend an extra week simplifying an application rather than forcing millions of users to spend an extra minute using complex program. However, Bruce Tognazzini argues that people resist simplifying their lives. Therefore, if the application is simple, users begin to strive for more complex tasks.

Von Restorff effect

The Von Restorff effect, or isolation effect, predicts that when there is large number similar objects, the one that is different from the rest is most likely to be remembered. This effect was discovered in 1933 by German psychiatrist and pediatrician Hedwig von Restorff, who found that when study participants were shown a list of similar objects, among which one was different, that object was remembered better.

The term “design” can seem deceptively simple. At the same time, it is quite vague, and if you ask different people explain to you this concept, their answers will be very different.

For example, when someone says, “Oh, I work as a designer,” most people may not understand what they mean. And all because behind this, it would seem, in a simple word lies great amount meanings.

Today the market is experiencing growth in the sector technical enterprises, which tend to focus on producing a variety of screen interfaces, which in turn leads to new design features.

A profession such as a UX designer may seem strange and even a little complicated at first glance, for those who have not encountered it before - moreover, some experienced developers do not understand what is meant by it and may wonder: Who are UX designers and what do they do? Do they even work?

However, the UX industry is growing rapidly now. Just look at how much the number of UX (or “User Experience”) specialists has grown.

Not all of them are new experts, if only because the job market in the field ranges from complete beginners to people who have always been UX specialists but never knew it.

The above circumstances can create certain problems, for example, not everyone who calls themselves a UX designer is actually a UX specialist. Because this is a special kind of profession that cannot be clearly defined, as if we were talking about dentists or nurses, moreover, in UX it is quite difficult to distinguish good specialist from bad.

Who is a UX designer?

The work of a UX designer, as a rule, is related to the perception of a product or service, so design problems in in this case are not always obvious.

They are subjective and may have more than one solution. Essentially, it is the UX designer's responsibility to ensure that each step of the product design process flows from the previous one.

The above can be achieved through the use of face-to-face user testing, in order to evaluate the actions taken. If users can complete both verbal and nonverbal tests, then the conditions for effective UX have been created. For example, creating a convenient onboarding experience for new users would be a good solution.

What does a UX designer do?

A good UX specialist can combine all aspects of a great user experience into one product.

This can only be done if you are convinced that the above aspects work well together and not separately. The professional we are considering bears full responsibility for future results and in particular for the ux itself.

But still, this is only the beginning of a career for a qualified UX specialist, because in the future they can be used various methods that allow you to do this job well.

To be a truly good UX designer, you will need excellent communication skills, passion, a love of innovation, a flair for creativity, and the initiative to know when to experiment and when to stick with it established framework. However, all UX professionals should start at the lower levels of their career if they want to be marketable in the future.

In order to become a successful UX designer, you must be able not only to describe, but also to competently use communication mechanisms, algorithms for performing tasks, and requirements for interfaces.

You must be able to explain to investors the user experience from start to finish, as well as the features and context involved. With the support of a strong team, a UX designer can transform the characteristics of any well-known platform, such as Facebook, into a valuable and accessible toolkit.

Wireframes and sketches are just a small part of the work

Wireframes and visual plans are the result of the extensive preparation that goes into creating a product. It is really important to present the preparation process in a visual form, such as PowerPoint presentations, For further use similar materials by designers and programmers.

It is quite easy to obtain data on product prototypes during usability tests, or even create screencasts. These tools can be just as important as wireframes.

UX designers can also be recognized by the way they focus on a carefully crafted plan to improve a product's design to make it more effective.

However, there is no proven method for choosing a good UX specialist because their responsibilities may vary. The latter have a very large spread, and cover interaction with individuals, legal entities, as well as with new technical developments.

Conducting user testing

There's a lot more to UX design than just sitting down with your customers at your online platform or app, periodically asking them for their opinion on a feature.

In fact, the assessment process should include observation of the client's ability to carry out the activities that have been designed for them. This way they can give you their unedited answer about their own user experience.

For this type of assessment, the number of customer assessments, individual assessments, and selection of test participants largely depends on how much money you are willing to invest in conducting it in the early stages of product development.

Luckily, customer-centric testing is actually as reliable and simple as observing how users interact with your product online.

Defining and Creating Personas

The term "person" is used to refer to fictional character, which represents one of the categories of users for whom you are developing the product. This type of personality assessment can be the subject of careful research, if of course it is appropriate.

Although it may be very tempting to do this - to completely invent a character, however, if your “persona” is not based on statistical data about your real users, then, unfortunately, it will be useless. Creating a character will also have no meaning if it has nothing to do with your business.

The best way to create a character is to use various types research, e.g. user tests, surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, as well as other methods.

When You Can't Call Yourself a UX Designer

You can't become a truly skilled UX designer unless you learn how to interact with the people who are supposed to help you shape your strategies.

The name of this profession includes the phrase “ user experience", but if the user doesn't exist, then your activity has no value whatsoever. If you're creating a design based on little more than interesting idea, but do not take into account data about the actual needs of users, then you are definitely not a UX designer.

The same can be said for those UX specialists who cannot define their target audience. If you think that your online platform perfect for anyone and everyone, you're not only making your job impossible, you're also neglecting the true principles of web design - there should always be a target audience.

Another disadvantage is trying to solve the problem immediately, rather than making sure it actually exists and then finding the cause.

If your boss asks you to design an online platform, and you don’t even ask why it needs to be done, then you are most likely an ordinary (and not necessarily talented) web designer, and not a UX specialist.

Make decisions based only on personal experience, also a bad idea. If your boss asks, “Why did you decide to use label fields instead of another alternative option feedback in your last survey?”, you should answer something better than simply: “I chose them because I like them.” This definitely doesn't work in UX design.

If you want to become a successful and qualified UX designer, it is very important to use all design tools - from interviewing clients, to usability tests, creating personas, contextual assessments, conceptual models, site maps, product prototypes, wireframes, A/B assessments and much more.

For skilled UX designers, it is necessary to not only figure out the specifics of their target audience, but also have the ability to demonstrate this information to their team.

The product must always evolve

The first thing to accept is that your product will never actually be finished. Moreover, a product should not be considered only in terms of its intrinsic value, for the methods required to develop it are also important.

Many UX professionals may find it difficult to stay within strict boundaries or follow a plan, however, most companies stick to this path. However, the only thing that remains constant is change, and it will always be that way.

If you are trying to design a product, you must strive to improve the methods needed to produce it, as well as continually improve the end result.

In fact, it can be helpful for UX designers to periodically look back on their past projects (successes and failures) to figure out what they learned and how it can be applied to their future work.

Development user interfaces with a competent approach, it is built in such a way as to create it as attractive and convenient as possible to optimize its interaction with the user.

In any project, web interface developers are faced with the task of creating a user-friendly interface. However, this is not always the case simple task, as it may seem at first glance, and sometimes requires quite a bit of design experience. The main requirements here are convenience, practicality and intuitive clarity. It is at this point that concepts such as UX and UI design come into play, which are often confused. Let's look at each of them separately and identify their key points.

UX design (UX design)

User Experience Design translated means "interaction experience" and includes various UX components: information architecture, interaction design, graphic design and content.

In general, UX design involves A complex approach to user interaction with the interface, be it a website, mobile app or any other program. The person who does this work is UX designer(V Lately more and more often you can hear the names of UX architect, UX engineer or strategist, since the word “design” in this context is more of a common noun than what we are actually accustomed to understand by the meaning of this word) - when developing an interface, one should, as much as possible, take into account all the little things, starting from the user’s environment and type electronic device and ending with methods of entering and displaying information.

Simple example: Let's say you invested an impressive amount of money to promote your resource to the top positions search engines, however, its convenience leaves much to be desired. In this case, an impressive number of users will simply leave the site and the effect will be minimal. That is why it is necessary to constantly analyze the actions of resource visitors, improve your website and follow modern trends.

The main issues addressed by UX design:

• Setting goals and objectives - what do we ultimately need to achieve?
• Selecting suitable UX tools to achieve your goals
• Development of a product that is as convenient and easy to understand as possible target audience
• Analysis final result- Does the product meet customer expectations and how high is the level of user satisfaction?

It is the competent thought out of all the details at these stages that will allow you to create an army of fans of your product. A striking example here is Apple company, which followed this path and won the hearts of thousands and millions.

UI design

User Interface Design or user interface is a narrower concept that includes specific set graphically designed technical elements (buttons, checkboxes, selectors and other fields). Its task is to help the user organize interaction with the program/site. Currently there are some UI design rules:

1. Organization of interface elements. This means that they must be logically structured and interconnected.
2. Grouping of interface elements. It involves combining logically related elements (menus, forms) into groups.
3. Aligning Interface Elements. It's hard to imagine that a poorly aligned interface could be convenient for anyone!
4. Uniform style interface elements. Styling plays an important role, because it is what is retained in the user’s memory.
5. Availability of free space. This allows you to differentiate information blocks, focusing attention on one thing.

A user interface developed according to all the rules significantly increases the efficiency of the resource and gives it a competitive advantage.

Information Architecture (IA)

Separately, I would like to say a few words about Information Architecture (IA). Its work focuses on data organization, that is, the extent to which information is structured from the point of view of the user, rather than technical or system rules. It determines the placement of elements on the page, the connection of the pages themselves. The competence of IA is rather menus and navigation and their competent implementation.

To summarize, I would like to note that in different sources UX design means different things, but in general they all mean the work on the product described in the article. What does UX mean to you?

The term UX arose in 1993 in the depths of the Apple Corporation, the decoding sounds like User eXperience. With growing popularity mobile devices this concept became fashionable and began to be used everywhere. But even now, not everyone can answer with confidence what UX design is, how it differs from UI design, and why these things are often mentioned in conjunction. We'll help you figure it out.

What is UX design

In Russian, UX design is user experience design. It is one of the first steps in creating a product and serves to ensure that the application is logical, convenient and useful. and sites determines what impressions a person will get from using them, and how exactly he will use these products.

Where is the best place to place the entrance? Personal Area? How many steps must a user go through to subscribe to a newsletter or place an order? How will he understand that the operation was successful? These are the questions that a UX designer solves.

UX design includes different components:

• information architecture;
• interactive design;
• usability (an indicator of the simplicity, convenience and effectiveness of a product in the eyes of users).

A UX designer understands the psychology and emotions of users, analyzes their expectations from the product and sets a goal to achieve. Next, he selects the appropriate tools and comes up with an application or website structure that meets all necessary parameters.

A rough idea for a website or application is like a disassembled puzzle in our office. By the will of the UX designer, a clear structure is formed from these pieces

A UX designer does not have the same tasks, so different projects often require people with skills from various areas. There are entire laboratories with powerful technical equipment, in which a team of several people works on research. In such laboratories there are devices that record the psychophysical reactions of users (for example, eye movements and heartbeat), they conduct surveys, observe users using the included and unincluded method, etc.

It is important for UX designers to be able to:

• conduct user research;
• create wireframes and prototypes of websites and applications. This will help you evaluate in which direction to develop your application or website. Moreover, the ability to draw is not a required skill for a modern UX designer. There are many tools for prototyping, where using ready-made elements you can create a competent visualization of the interface (for example, Axure, Balsamiq or UXPin);
• design interaction, that is, imagine exactly how a person will use the product. For this purpose, maps of user routes across application screens, interactive skeletons of sites and applications with different options design;
• test the product;
• do analytics. Using various metrics (such as Webvisor, Hotjar, Mixpanel, UXcam, or Appsee) will help you understand how effectively the design is working and refine the product based on real data.

You can read more about the principles and basics of UX interface design in.

What is UI design

User interface design or UI design is the visual embodiment of UX design. Its task is to make an application, website or other product intuitive, attractive and as easy to use as possible using certain graphic solutions.

A UI designer is responsible for how each individual screen or page will look. His area of ​​responsibility is graphic elements controls such as buttons and checkboxes, fonts, color schemes and various visual images.

What should a button look like to make it comfortable to press? What font size should I choose to make the text easy to read? How to format an error message so that it attracts attention without being annoying? UI interface design helps to find answers to these questions.

A UI designer uses different graphic editor: Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch, Fireworks, Adobe XD, Gravit Designer, Affinity Designer, Figma

When working on how the application will look on the gadget screen, the UI designer focuses on the guidelines mobile platforms— sets of recommendations from Apple and Google, thanks to which applications third party developers look uniform and fit organically into the overall concept.

If we draw a very simple analogy from life, then UX design is the layout of the apartment and communications, and UI is the choice of wallpaper and flooring. However, in practice, UX and UI design are closely interrelated, the second logically follows the first, and often the same person does both. Therefore, the line between the two concepts is blurred, and they are indicated together.