What is UX Design?
User Experience Design Defined.
User Experience Design (UXD, UED), Interaction Design (IxD), User Interface (UI) Design and other web/application design professionals use the term User Experience Design to refer to the judicious application of certain user-centered design practices, a highly contextual design mentality, and use of certain methods and techniques that are applied through process management to produce cohesive, predictable, and desirable effects in a specific person, or persona (archetype comprised of target audience habits and characteristics). All so that the affects produced meet the user’s own goals and measures of success and enjoyment, as well as the objectives of the providing organization.
This is not the only definition of User Experience Design. The term 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. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with the system including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction, and the manual. Since then the term has spread widely, so much so that it is starting to lose it’s meaning… user experience, human centered design, usability; all those things, even affordances. They just sort of entered the vocabulary and no longer have any special meaning. People use them often without having any idea why, what the word means, its origin, history, or what it’s about.”
Given the persistent level of confusion about the meaning of User Experience Design, defining it by what it is not can be useful. It is not a trendy new name for, or in any way synonymous with
- Web design
- User-centered design
- Graphic design
- Human factors engineering
- User interface (UI) design
- Information architecture (IA)
- Interaction design (IxD)
- Usability testing
- Customer satisfaction
- Marketing
The most common or default interpretation of User Experience, of anything that we expect another will experience while using an interactive system, also falls far short of usefulness. A definition of it that does not encapsulate within it specific methods, techniques, and success metrics, is not useful to designers, producers, or managers. A user-centered mentality is necessary for the success of any interactive system, so perhaps the term is better used poorly than not at all. Yet, as with any definition, the more precise and widely agreed, the greater power and utility it provides us.
No discussion of User Experience or User Experience Design would be complete without acknowledging the profound and practical insights of Jessie James Garrett. In his easily absorbed diagram we can see how the elements of user experience relate to both “web as software interface” (interactive utility) and “web as hypertext system” (content delivery) site types. Shortly after Garrett’s diagram was published The Elements of User Experience arrived in book form, where his model of “planes” was expanded to include those of surface, skeleton, structure, scope and strategy, across a continuum of design effort. This is an extremely useful model which emphasizes the relationship between elements as a project takes shape. I strongly recommend Garrett’s landmark book to anyone involved in web design, in any capacity.
