1. UX is Driven by Technology

User Experience though making use of technology has and will always be ‘user’ centric. Great products have always kept their users at the center of their product. Technology however radical and cutting edge can only gain acceptance if they are able to be easily consumed by the intended users. A drastic shift in mindset from building a product first and fixing the UX as an afterthought to actively building the technology and UX simultaneously is the need of the hour. The work of the UX designer is best summed up by the popular General Electric slogan

“We bring good things to life”.

2. UX Design Is Expensive

You could go “the full monty” and use every available tool and method of the UX process in the hopes that more is better. Design is expensive, and no one really goes all in. The best UX designers have a toolbox of options, picking and choosing methods that make sense for the particular project and budget. Sometimes less is more and great design opportunities can be discovered with insights gained from doing user research with just five users.

“Majority of theUX problems can be solved by testing with 5 REAL USERS.”

The consequences of poor user experience adds up to friction which leads to frustration. Poor UX is much more expensive than getting a great UX created in the first place.

4. UX Design makes the product beautiful

UX design is not based on aesthetics alone to provide great usability. Aesthetics deals with how something looks. UX design consists of multiple overarching fields that together define how to make something that works well for the end user. Designs that focus on aesthetics alone and ignore the basic tenets of usability end up being useless by definition. Imagine buying a car with a killer paint job, leather seats and a convertible open roof with a bad suspension, tacky steering, underpowered engine. You would end up with a toy that is fit for display but unusable for anything else.

5. UX Design Is only for Digital Products

UX design is neither confined to the edges of a user’s screen nor is it a layer or component of a product or service. It involves making changes and defining the experience of what the product show look and feel like to the end user, by understanding what the end user is trying to accomplish and tailoring an experience best suited to his/her needs. It involves incorporating changes across different levels that affect the product, to accomplish the single goal of making the users experience better.

As Don Norman says:

“User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”

Be it building a pin, a chair, a phone, a bike, a car etc., a UX designer helps the product by designing an optimal experience for the end user.

6. UX Design Is Optional

UX can make or break a product. Bad UX has even cost president’s elections. Many products have succeeded solely on the basis that they had stellar user experience and far greater number of products have failed for providing terrible user experience. UX design should not be an afterthought. Products are not all about features and functionality. UX design plays just as important a role in its success and now, is not merely an option. It’s an absolute essential for companies and products to succeed. An initial investment in UX during product development always pays huge dividends in the long run.

7. UX is making pages accessible in 3 clicks

One of the core usability tests that most people believe to be the benchmark for good UX is the 3 click-rule or the 2 tap rule, which states that if users are unable to find information in 3 clicks or two taps the users will leave your site or app. Recent studies have proved that this is not the case and that this neither affects user satisfaction nor the success rate. The myth that fewer clicks make better UI, is just that a myth that got turned into a benchmark of good UX. Fewer clicks does not mean happier users nor does it means that the page is perceived as faster.

What really matters is the ease with which users get to what they want to do. Providing information to the users that are both easily digestible and understandable to the user. Not making user think about the clicks goes a long way in enhancing the user experience masking the irritability associated with a few more clicks.

8.Anyone can do UX

There is a popular belief that anyone can do UX. Most managers and engineers think that by reading a book or two and subscribing to UX Magazine you know the ins and outs of UX. Working as a UX designer has a lot of intricacies to it. UX requires you to not only LOVE people but to be endlessly curious about why they do the things they do. If you’re not a people-person, and you have no curiosity about human behaviour then, your ability to build user experiences that engage and excite will be severely hampered.

9. UX has to be new and creative

“Users choose usability over creativity. STANDARD UI patterns will benefit the user.”

The web’s been around for more than 20 years, giving us ample time to discover user experience problems — in fact, to discover “user experience” at all — and invent solutions.

The more you use patterns, the more users come to understand them, making them more valuable for designers to use. This reciprocal relationship has persisted since the first days of web design. Trends come and go, but the underlying ideas remain timeless.

10. UX Designers work on their own

There is a common misconception that UX designers are lone wolves that work in isolation. Since designing the experience for a product is such a multifaceted endeavor most projects would require an interdisciplinary team of researchers, usability testers and project managers and business consultants. Designers rely on every member of the team to influence design to come up with an experience that is optimal and aligned with the business model and organizational goals of the company. It is important for designers to understand the environment and the technicalities in which their design will be implemented to come up with a user experience that is product defining.

11.UX is about asking users what they want

There is a famous quote by Steve jobs saying

“It’s not the customer’s job to know what they want”.

Though this quote may appear contradictory at first the wisdom behind this becomes apparent when you base your design experience around only what the user tells you. The user is looking for quick wins and temporary solutions to problems. It is the job of a UX designer to dig deeper into the source of a customers problem and come up with solutions to the root cause of the user’s problem and not just a temporary fixes that could prove to be product breaking later on the development cycle. Relying on users to articulate their needs, then running a business and being an entrepreneur would be a walk in the park.

A good UX designer never asks what the user wants upfront but instead probes with the following questions.

What motivates the user?

What makes the users feel good?

How do users form new habits?

How do users make their decisions?

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

― Henry Ford

A few questions that you should ask are

“What are problems you faced when performing this task?”

“What information helps you make an informed decision?”

“What is the goal of your task?”

“How does achieving this goal, contribute to your KPI?”

“Who do you rely on, to accomplish that goal?”

This helps steer the discussion from being feature-oriented to being user-oriented. After all, we’re not designing for a system. We’re designing for people.

Final thoughts

User Experience has countless myths and seemingly innocuous best practices associated with it. The rate at which technology is evolving has also contributed immensely to bring about rapid changes in UX. Best practices that were once the norm have now faded out into oblivion, giving rise to radical ideas and concepts that have become the new norm. A single rule of thumb when designing experiences for users is to figure what is right for your users and steering the development of the solution in that direction.

Finding the right UX designers can seem to be a daunting task and we at Dtale believe in keeping user centricity at the heart of the design experience. Reach out out to us at contact@dtale.io to kickstart your design journey.

Let us know by sharing and leaving a comment.

We are DTALE, a UX UI agency from Bangalore. We design digital experiences that tell a story. Here are some interesting UX Tips for your Startup. Download them for free.

Link: 10 UX TIPS Startup Should Know.zip. Thank you for visiting our blog and come back soon!

11 UX myths you need to know. The Comprehensive UX Designer Hiring Checklist was originally published in DTALE Design Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Let us know by sharing and leaving a comment.

We are DTALE, a UX UI agency from Bangalore. We design digital experiences that tell a story. Here are some interesting UX Tips for your Startup. Download them for free.

Link: 10 UX TIPS Startup Should Know.zip. Thank you for visiting our blog and come back soon!

Design inspiration of the week #1 via DTALE Design Studio was originally published in DTALE Design Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Definition:

UX : juːˈɛks/ noun

A holistic, multidisciplinary approach to the design of user interfaces for digital products, defining their form, behavior, and content.

The term UX (User Experience) was coined by Don Norman while he was Vice President of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple. In his own words: “I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow.”

Initially, UX was centered around simplicity. The focus on simplicity was not a choice, but dictated by technology that provided rudimentary functions and layouts. User Interfaces on websites were minimalist and uncomplicated. The advancement of technology brought with improved software and hardware, that helped integrate multiple processes and made complex processes simpler. In time, there was the realisation that exiting interfaces had gotten overly complex for the average user. This lead to the realisation that

“When creating for the masses, create interfaces that are easily understandable and usable by everyone”.

This eventually lead to the birth of User Experience as a field of study.

Being user-centric was now the focus of companies developing products and User Experience(UX) became an integral part of the design process. UX became a buzzword amongst design communities around the world. Websites now focused on making their layouts user friendly. User friendly websites flourished, whilst websites with complex and confusing layouts faded to oblivion. It was found that easy of use was an essential part of user retention.

During the 1990’s, Europe and America were at the forefront of the UX design revolution contributing to the direction, vision and momentum of the UX design process. In Asia, the vision and importance of considering UX as a an essential part of product design was still in the nascent stages.

UX beginnings in India

India took some time to jump onto the User experience bandwagon. There was a time when design in India was confined to ensuring that all the information was available at once to the user and the study of User Experience was non-existent. (One can imagine how crowded the sites and interfaces looked!!)

There was a lack of awareness of the global contemporary design trends and best practices in user experience. This could be attributed to various reasons: a) Low penetration of the Internet in the 90’s.

b) Adhering to the dogmatic ideology of “more for less”. A prime example of this would be cramming all the buttons and content onto a single page to supposedly make the page look tech savvy.

User Experience practices did eventually trickle down into India in the late 90’s. Thanks in small part to the Y2K bug which brought India’s IT prowess to the forefront which attracted international IT companies to set up shop in India. Companies like Cognizant, Honeywell, Oracle, Phillips, Siemens being front runners in ushering in India’s IT revolution. The recognition that India had a talented labour force and a native command over English made India an attractive option for them to setup their offices. The influx of international companies in India prompted homegrown IT companies like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Satyam Computers( now Tech Mahindra) to expand their business to other countries, and inculcate new ideologies and processes in line with their global partners. User Experience was one of the ideologies that was imbibed as a result of this.

These ideologies, which focus on giving importance to User Experience, led to the rise of companies like Design For Use, Human Factors International, Kern Communications Pvt. Ltd., and Onward Research in the early 2000’s, with the mission of spreading awareness of good User Experience practices.

Current State of UX in India

India today boasts of around 5000 companies dedicated to UX and building UI that connects with the user in a meaningful way. With the exception of the government owned websites, Indian companies have understood the importance of adopting a user centric approach and have embraced the UX revolution. This has prompted a change of mindset from

“more for less`` to ``less is more”.

Simplicity with good functionality has now become the norm amongst web design companies and experts.

The emergence of Google, which quickly trumped Yahoo!, with its simple design and great functionality further cemented the notion that great UX can take businesses to greater heights.

UX in India — What lies ahead ?

If the Indian IT industry was kickstarted by the tsunami of international companies setting up shop in 1999. The next evolution of the Indian IT landscape was brought about in the 2012 with the influx of “The Start-up Culture”

“With great competition, comes great innovation” — Anonymous

Startup’s brought venture capitalists and hedge fund companies into India in search of fresh ideas and innovative inventions. This could be attributed in part to the West and Europe being in depression and the conflict in the Middle-East. The economic slowdown could also be another contributor towards this migration towards India. With India having the second largest population in the world and the having the highest number of graduates in the world, the attractiveness of investing in an untapped market helped infuse funds into startups. The value proposition of “starting-up” with ready availability of funds, prompted Indian entrepreneurs to chase their dreams and start their own companies.

Competition amongst companies vying for the same customer base prompted them to look for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. In a bid to retain their existing customers and acquire new customers, User Experience soon became an important tool. Companies realised that providing users a unique experience is a sure shot way to establish the product. Early adopters of user centric design were rewarded with a large chunk of the customer base while laggards paid the price for late adoption. Web-Design today is totally UX centric.

India is going digital at a scale that is unheard of and unmatched thanks to new collaborations between the public and private sectors. The mobile penetration in India is now estimated to have reached 1.27 billion and around a third of the them are active internet users. The appetite of the the Indian market for digital content is ever increasing.

2018 is shaping up to be an interesting year for Indian User Experience Design . It could well be the year where Indian UX design proves to the world it has arrived and forces the world to take notice.

Let us know by sharing and leaving a comment.

We are DTALE, a UX UI agency from Bangalore. We design digital experiences that tell a story. Here are some interesting UX Tips for your Startup. Download them for free.

Link: 10 UX TIPS Startup Should Know.zip. Thank you for visiting our blog and come back soon!

India and User Experience — The story so far was originally published in DTALE Design Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In recent times, design has been heavily driven by technology changes and advancements - 2018 will see much more. As designers it’s time to remain updated about the changes, and sharpen our axes to gear up for the next leap in User experience and User Interface Design. Here’s our list of the biggest UI/UX trends for 2018.

#1 Content Driven Design

It’s an end to the era where users look at design and say - “Its beautiful”, this is an era of utility and functionality. Good design allows the content to be revealed clearly, in proper sequence and does not get in the way of effective communication.

Everything has an intend — design, music, art or anything. Empathy is an integral part of design and every designer should ask themselves a very important question,

“Does the design solve users problem ?”

If the answer is “no” there is no point in adding frills and gradients even though it looks visually appealing.

Tips to visually achieve content driven design

1. Paper first approach: before starting your machine, take a pen and paper and layout your information on it. Emphasis on layout that helps users navigate easily to achieve the task
2. Minimalism: Remove unnecessary elements to provide a cleaner, more focused experience. Use more white space and give content more room to breathe.
3. Typography: Choose type that helps readability over visual appeal.
4. Read: Design of everyday things by Dan Norman and other books https://read.alore.io/#/

#2 Design for All Devices

Over 125 million units of wearable devices are expected to ship in 2018. There will be around 600 million connected wearables worldwide by 2018–2019. What does this say ? Designers have to think not only mobile first but be ready for layouts on multiple devices.

Designers have moved from paper to digital, desktop to mobile and its time making the to wearables.

Tip to design for multiple devices:

1. Context: Designing interfaces should be based on how consumers will use them and not the replicating smartphone or tablet experiences.
2. Design for Smallest Screen First: this forces you to decide on what matters the most and apply the same approach with careful selection to other devices.
3. Think Low Power for wearables similar to low memory for web and low ink for print.

#3 No UI is the new UI

We were learning how to interact with computers using punch cards, mechanical inputs, Graphical user interfaces, touch, gesture, and more. Its the end of we learning to interact with computers and now computers are getting trained to interact like humans with self and continuous learning.

So this ushers us to a fundamental question- how do humans interact ? Humans interact with multiple senses, humans converse and learn how to interact differently with different people. We interact with a kid, an adult, a teacher or a priest very differently. Hence we need to design systems that interact with different personas differently as per the context.

Tips to design for No UI:

1: Learn how users naturally live in their environment. Study the user well.

2. Use Natural User Interfaces: Try using gestures, voice, touch, mind recognition.

3. Think conversation: make every interface a conversation between the user and the machine

#4 Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

We have moved from print to digital, 2D to 3D and the next leap is moving to real like experiences.

At the recent Facebook F8 conference for developers, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that soon all screens will be replaced by lenses for the ultimate AR experience. Considering the efforts of Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft in this field, it sounds like a realistic possibility in the next few years. While the dominance of mobile phones won’t change anytime soon, we’ll see dramatic growth in augmented reality apps for mobile devices.

How to design for AR / VR ?

1. Learn Physics and Programming: Think and learn from real-life situations when designing an interface in AR. Try replicating the real life situations.
2. Apply 3D: Design for depth and keep the space around the user in mind.
3. Consider the environment in which the product will be used, research the environmental conditions in which the app will be used and how it will affect the user.

#5 Personalised Experience

One size fits all doesn't work on any other domain, then why in design?

Unless you’re a social media recluse,you’ve surely noticed how social media platforms recommend you products and services which you searched for or browsed through elsewhere(It’s called Re-targeting)

How do they get to know about your likes and interests? Netflix knows what kind of content you like to watch at what time of day, Google knows what information you’re looking for, Spotify plays musics based on your listening history. With technological advancements products will be able to cater to exact requirements of each individual.

Designing for personalisation is challenging as it involves designing experiences that look and act differently for every single user. This requires a deep understanding of how to create and use design patterns.

Tips to personalise design:

1. Define personas, create tasks and design for each of them.
2. Collect Data the users use like search and keywords, device type, Ad clicks, browsing history, location, day and time, click patterns and navigation history, demographics such as age and gender and learn how to provide personalised content as per the usage.
3. Allow Users to Create Profiles and provide freedom to customise how they want their product to be.

Conclusion

The rapidly changing world of technology is sure to keep everyone on their toes, and help designers design to engage users in brand new UX/UI experiences. In 2018, designers need to design keeping wearables in mind which is the next big thing in devices. Aim for clean and clear seamless experiences. With content marketing trends talking about videos being the top content trending 2018–19,UI/UX designers need to design interfaces which are light and refreshing — low power,low memory, low ink !

Remember business can’t run without great design, it’s high time we designers design with business in mind.

Let us know by sharing and leaving a comment what trends in design you’re looking forward to most or why that particular design will alter your life specifically in the future.

We are DTALE, a UX UI agency from Bangalore. We design digital experiences that tell a story. Here are some interesting UX Tips for your Startup. Download them for free.

Link: 10 UX TIPS Startup Should Know.zip. Thank you for visiting our blog and come back soon!

Top UX Design Trends for 2018 every design should be aware was originally published in DTALE Design Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.