What Does a UX Design Do?
User Experience or UX Design is a common term in the designing industry. However, it can also be a confusing term and sometimes interchangeably used as UI or User Interface. If UX design still gets you mixed up, then you are simply in the right place. In this guide, we will answer this common question: what does a UX designer do; their main jobs. Still, you should note that the task performed by a UX designer may vary from one company to another. You will also get to know more about the best tool that you should employ as a UX designer by the end of this article.
PART 1: What do UX Designers do?
Prior to understanding what UX designer do, it is important to know what UX design means. UX designs have been around for a while now, it can be traced back to the early nineties where it was first used by Norman, and he was Apple’s company employee. UX is a shortened form of User Experience and the design mainly focuses on how we interact with the product, service, or websites. An ux designer definition is simply a person who is acquiring and integrating the product accordingly by deciding the aspects of design, usability, branding, and functionality.
Generally, UX designers focus on why, what, and how the product, service, or website will be used. The first part, Why, is mainly about the reasons that will make the user go for the product and leave behind the rest. The UX designer should ensure that the product captivates the user to use it by engaging a task that they wish to perform with the tool. Secondly, What section, this address the main features of the UX design as well as the functionality. This should provide a solution to the user problem or quest. Finally, the role of the UX designer is to make the product more appealing to the users by making it more aesthetic and easily accessible to the users.
What a UX designer is accustomed to doing daily may be slightly varying from one company to another. Some of the common tasks of a UX designer include performing user research, designing personas, creating wireframes, and interactive prototypes. The UX designer may also be involved in testing the UX designs to determine how the users will be using the product and if it satisfies the needs of the user.
PART 2: The process and job executed by a UX designer
What’s a UX designer? Below are some of the tasks that can be executed by a UX designer. In some organizations, the UX designer performs all the processes whereas, in others, it is divided among various parties.
1.Performing User Research
This is the building block of a UX designer in designing a product, service, or website. This is where the designer gets into the mind of the user and learns what the user needs or expects from the product. This sets the pace and objective of the UX wireframe design. The designer may actively interview the user about the product or perform an online survey. The competitive analysis may be used in the user research process where a comparison between two products is drawn to find out what needs to be improved.
2.Personas and Information Architecture
This is a fictional representation of real end-users using information gathered during the user research process. Persona and information architecture comes in handy as it assists the UX designer to find out what needs to be added in the UX wireframe design as well as where to structure it in the App or website.
3.Designing
Based on the information obtained from the user research, persona, and information architecture, then the UX designer is now ready to begin drafting the user flows and wireframe. User flow is simply a flowchart indicating the beginning to the very end of the process and how the user will be interacting with the product. They visualize the complete path the user will be taking. After the user flow, the UX designer may now go forward and design a wireframe.
4.Prototyping
A prototype is a mimic of the final product. The UX designer delves into creating a prototype immediately after the product layout is done. The prototype may range from the simplest model to the high-fidelity and interactive ones. Prototypes are the best tools to use in testing for product functionality with the users.
5.User Testing
Several methods can be employed in this process such as surveys, questionnaires, presenting different versions, or simply observing the user as they interact with the product. This helps to identify and problems as well as recommendation concerning the product.
PART 3: The Best Tool for UX Designer
In this section, we will introduce the best tool that should be used by a UX designer to simplify their work in the product or webpage designing. A multi-program capable of performing most of the tasks required by the UX designer hence saving their valuable time moving from one program to another when designing a wireframe. Wondershare Mockitt has a simple and intuitive interface, however capable of performing wonders when you are creating your wireframe design. It has a bunch of amazing features that make it the best, most used, and popular in the designing industry.
Some of the incredible features of this program include;
- The program is cross-platform, supported, and accessible from multiple and varying devices such as windows and macOS computer.
- The tool has a high-security system that ensures the protection of your project from unauthorized access.
- Additionally, it has a powerful data recovery system hence you should not be worried anymore about losing data.
- Its library is rich in templates and elements that the UX designer can use in designing their wireframe.
- The program also allows you to export the project as an image and with varying resolution.
- This tool allows real-time collaboration of the team in designing a wireframe. This allows for timely feedback and recommendations concerning the project.
