  'Why Should I Care About UX?"
   
The amount of confidence, or trust, a user has is an important part of any successfull product. Thankfully, we can promote user confidence by understanding the qualities that influence it.

Defining Goals & Benefits

User experience design (UX, UXD, UED or XD) is the process of enhancing user satisfaction with a product by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction with the product. 

Or, to give it some real-world context, 'UX design is about making the user’s experience with the product the best it can be.' UX designers want to attract people to use a given product and, in the case of a an ecommerce site, 'make their journey from the home page to purchasing the product as easy and fun as possible.'

In practice, UX design focuses on 2 primary goals & benefits when developing the experience of a product, service, or event:

   
Goals
To understand the goals and context-of-use of potential users or customers; and
to use that understanding to design a product, service, or app within the constraints of business and technology.

  Benefits
It improves the experience of the user of that product; and
A good user experience increases the adoption of that product.

   
  Essentially, UX design focuses on creating good 'user experiences', which in turn improve the likelihood that a user will buy or return to a product and recommend it to their friends.
  
    When a user buys a product, returns to a site, or recommends either to their friends, this increases the adoption, use, and sales of that product, or increases the traffic and conversion rate of that site.

Who Benefits from UX Design?

In a perfect world, UX design would be utilized everywhere due to unlimited budgets and resources. Since we live in reality, where we must work with limited budgets and resources, its important to prioritize and identify the areas that stand to gain the most from UX design and UX designers.
  

Complex Systems
  
The more complex the system, the more involved will the planning and architecture have to be for it. While investing in a full-blown multi-member UX study for a simple static website seems excessive, multi-faceted websites, interaction-rich Web applications and e-commerce websites stand to benefit a lot from UX design. Systems that involve a myriad of user tasks must be perceived as being valuable, pleasant and efficient. Designers risk big losses in revenue by neglecting the user experience.
  
Start-Ups
  
Start-ups and smaller companies generally do not have the resources to hire dedicated employees for this. Training the principles and processes of UX, or contracting out the UX work as needed, might be more suitable than hiring a full-time employee.
  
Projects with Decent Budgets
  
Smaller agencies that work for small and medium-sized businesses need to keep costs low for the customer base and prioritize deliverables in order to stay on the budget. The focus in these situations is more on the build process and less on planning, research and analysis. Projects with small budgets will be driven more by the launch of the final product. That doesn’t mean that these projects wouldn’t benefit from the good UX — of course they would — but in practice, small or medium-sized companies often do not feel compelled to invest resources into something that is not necessary for the launch of the site.
  
Projects with Longer Timeframes
  
By simple logic, adding a cog to the traditional website production process will extend the timeline. Time must be allotted for user experience design. UX designers could, in theory, shorten timelines by taking on some of the tasks traditionally assigned to Web designers and developers, thus potentially saving time and costs in revision phases by having addressed user issues.

   
 Hopefully these qualities provide a more grounded understanding of our topic, allowing us to consider their practical application as we review core-sets of common factors.    
  

Common Factors of User Confidence

  These qualities are a nice start, providing a high-level understanding of the topic and a relatable 'real-world' way to discuss it. But for practical solutions we'll need to understand the core factors that effect each quality.    
  

Consistency

The product reinforces established patterns, navigation paradigms, placement of elements, etc.

Messaging perpetuates and extends the viewpoint of the larger ecosystem.

Aesthetic

Users instinctually know that design quality goes hand-in-hand with over-all quality. Essentially, good design must look good.

An aesthetic product has an inherent power of being able to fascinate and immediately appeal to its user's senses.

Balance

The product weighs the amount and detail of communication necessary to maximize user effectiveness. Constant tooltips can be distracting and bothersome, but infrequent messaging might convey a lack of quality.

Consider the ‘Goldilocks Principle’ when seeking a balance between excessive (too much) and insufficient (too little) communication.

**Empathy**

The product has been designed from a user’s point of view.

Purpose

Your product is intended to help a user with something they need to accomplish, therefore task completion must be the primary objective of design.

Once the task is established, design, technology and content fall easily into place.

Assurance

Digital trust is the confidence people have in a platform’s ability to protect and promote the interests of its users.

Users are assured their personal information is secure via messaging, interactions, and quality.

Empowerment

The product allows users to take control. They can explore and choose their own path. They can decide how they want to use it.

Develop a clear hierarchy, make interface elements meaningful, and provide clear directions.

Identify pain points by combining analytic and A/B testing data.

**Clarity**

The product explains itself: how it's used, perceived, and understood.

Lucidity

The core functions, tasks, or activities are easily seen, recognized, and understood.

The product takes advantage of learned behaviors by conforming to established mental models.

Messaging styles (prescriptive and personal, educational and instructional) are divided for improved delivery and comprehension.

Restraint

Your product is designed with intent.

Practice moderation, and aim to solve problems simplistically.

Glean elements that distract from essential features or requirements.

Avoid imprinting your own identity or implementing design elements just for the sake of it.

Presence

The invisible effects of good UX.

Elements are placed or appear when expected or needed. Contextual cues help orient and guide the user, and present a more cognizant experience.

To summarize, we've defined 'user confidence', explored its effects, grounded our understanding by grouping common factors into qualities, and reviewed those common factors while considering practical applications.

I hope this has been helpful. Feel free to contact me with questions or constructive feedback, especially when it comes to practical applications (which could use its own article).

Say Hello

'Why Should I Care About UX?"

The amount of confidence, or trust, a user has is an important part of any successfull product. Thankfully, we can promote user confidence by understanding the qualities that influence it.

Defining Goals & Benefits

Essentially, UX design focuses on creating good 'user experiences', which in turn improve the likelihood that a user will buy or return to a product and recommend it to their friends.

When a user buys a product, returns to a site, or recommends either to their friends, this increases the adoption, use, and sales of that product, or increases the traffic and conversion rate of that site.

Who Benefits from UX Design?

In a perfect world, UX design would be utilized everywhere due to unlimited budgets and resources. Since we live in reality, where we must work with limited budgets and resources, its important to prioritize and identify the areas that stand to gain the most from UX design and UX designers.

Start-Ups Start-ups and smaller companies generally do not have the resources to hire dedicated employees for this. Training the principles and processes of UX, or contracting out the UX work as needed, might be more suitable than hiring a full-time employee.

Hopefully these qualities provide a more grounded understanding of our topic, allowing us to consider their practical application as we review core-sets of common factors.

Common Factors of User Confidence

These qualities are a nice start, providing a high-level understanding of the topic and a relatable 'real-world' way to discuss it. But for practical solutions we'll need to understand the core factors that effect each quality.

To summarize, we've defined 'user confidence', explored its effects, grounded our understanding by grouping common factors into qualities, and reviewed those common factors while considering practical applications.

I hope this has been helpful. Feel free to contact me with questions or constructive feedback, especially when it comes to practical applications (which could use its own article).

Start-Ups

Start-ups and smaller companies generally do not have the resources to hire dedicated employees for this. Training the principles and processes of UX, or contracting out the UX work as needed, might be more suitable than hiring a full-time employee.