UX, CX, UI, IA, A/B, MVP, RWD, Lean, Personas, Prototype, Sprint, UCD, Sitemap, Wireframe… the list goes on… but
First – What even is UX?
UX stands for User Experience. In digital terms, it relates to the way that a real customer, user or client of a company, feels and reacts to the experience they have when using its product or service.
Experiences drive customer decisions
Users make or break your product.
They are advocates, or they are not.
They will buy again or they will not.
These decisions, no matter what product or service you offer, are fundamentally driven by their experience.
01 / UX is only done at the start of a project
No!
UX is iterative!
Users change. People change. Digital and devices change. Make sure you change with them!
Don’t get left behind by only looking at UX research once and thinking that it will do. It’s vital that UX is embedded into everything you do online. We work closely every month with a handful of our clients on UX reviews, prototype development, usability testing, A/B tests and content and analytics reviews to assess where we can incrementally improve the experience for their customers.
02 / We’ve already done market research so we don’t need UX research
Market Research and UX research are completely different things. Don’t fall into trying to cover all bases with one part of the insight to your research. Market research will uncover things like competitors, busy periods, market activity and an overview of demographics and high level insight on your customers. This helps to inform what we call ‘personas’.
Personas are the detailed picture of your typical users – what their interests are, and what they are like, what sort of services or products they might buy from you, what their needs and motivations are from your site or application.
UX research gathers a whole different and deeper layer of content and insight into your user personas. UX research surfaces the details of stories and user behaviour, reactions and preferences and engages directly with users in how and why not just the what (which is often just what personas cover) – providing valuable insight to build design decisions around.
03 / Usability testing is expensive
No. No. No.
And No.
Many companies still believe usability testing is a luxury that requires expensive equipment and takes an age in time to do. However usability testing can be both fast and relatively cheap.
You don’t need expensive prototypes; low-tech paper prototype tests can also bring valuable results. You can (if budgets or time are super tight) also run tests yourself with guidance. You don’t need a lot of participants either. I would always suggest starting with 5 users. This can be enough people to test for specific tasks.
Real tangible feedback on prototypes or designs is super rich insight. So don’t get put off if your digital agency puts ‘usability testing’ in your project – it’s vital.
In fact – when making digital things for your customers or users, you should question it if they don’t put it in the project!
04 / Your homepage is the most important page
Nope. Sorry.
It *might* be – but it all depends. It depends on so many things, but namely – your users, your user habits, how you market your website, and how your website content is served on search engines.
Your homepage is important. But understanding the importance and priority order to your users’ needs and user stories and journeys around your website content, is what will determine exactly where in the ‘importance’ hierarchy your homepage appears!
05 / Accessible design means basic design (so we won’t make it accessible)
Nope. This is just not true.
Sadly the majority of websites that push for meeting accessibility standards are public sector websites that have to meet AA or often AAA standards from WCAG. Unfortunately for too long the web industry has not pulled accessibility standards out the bag as an ongoing standard – especially since the rise of devices and mobile. This has led to some beautiful websites across the globe, but they all fail miserably at accessibility standards.
In terms of public sector, sadly again the majority of NHS and Council websites are, well, basic design. They’re boring. Not pretty. However, they often do meet excellent UX and accessibility standards. Take .gov – it’s the most boring site visually (unless you like forms and legal government jargon) – but its flipping awesome for accessible UX design and clear pathways and user flows.
On a side note – accessibility should not be the focus anymore. It should be about inclusive design – a brilliant shift in mindset from Robin Christopherson from Ability Net.
People of all areas of life are affected by poor design, not just those with visual or physical impairments.
UX design is not a part of a project. It should be an ongoing asset to your business growth.