The growing importance of UX 👨‍💻

Over the years, applications have become larger and more complex, which is because of the advances made in technology. Our applications have transformed into very interactice expierences for the user. For example the rise of digital wallets, like Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal. Ensuring our applications have a rich mobile experience as smart phones have become a popular way of viewing web pages. The American Government have this handy analytics page which shows a breakdown of the devices being used to access their websites and mobiles are overtaking desktops.

But despite the technological advances we have made, a success of an application relies not only on the technology used, but also on how a user perceives the application.

• Does the application give value?
• Is the application easy to use?
• Does the application give a positive emotional response?

This is where User Experience (UX) comes into play. UX looks at how a person feels when interacting with a system; whether it be a website, a desktop application or any other form of human to computer interaction.

What UX is can be broken down into several areas:

• Usability
• Design
• Accessibility
• System Performance
• Human Factors

And so on.

Let's look back on the digital wallets example as being part of the checkout flow:

• Do users find it easy and pleasant to use?
• How efficient is the experience of filling out forms?

UX doesn't just look at one system, it looks at sub systems and processes within a system - like digital wallets and other payment methods in an e-commerce system.

UX is relatively new if you think about it, websites used to look like the official Space Jam website from 1996!

The term UX was first coined by Dr. Donald Norman, who described the importance of user-centered design and how design decisions should be based on the needs and wants of users. UX looks at incorporating aspects of many other subjects such as psychology, computer science and cognitive science. But it can also involve communication design and game design.

So why is UX becoming so important? Because the applications we're making are becoming more complex and rich with features. And for these applications to be effective and successful, it needs good UX design.

Users can access web applications now in many different ways:

• There are different web browsers
• There are different devices
• There are different types of internet connections

And there is also accessibility, not just for those with screen readers but for those without broadband and other devices.

A key factor of how we create applications now is based on the experience we want to give to users. The main goal is to create a useful, simple and seamless interaction between a user and the application.

With this in mind, what would benefit from UX design?

If a system is large and complex, such as e-commerce applications or multi-faceted websites then that would benefit from UX.

It's all well and good wanting to design systems to have good UX, but there are several points to keep in mind:

• Everybody is different
• UX is different depending on the application
• The UX needs to be tailored to the production process, values and goals of the application

In my view, UX is a method of problem solving (much like how design is a method of problem solving).

So where can we see examples of UX in the real world?

That's easy to answer, UX is everywhere.

But what's important is to look for good examples of UX. It's important to get the experience right as there is a lot of choice out there!

If you're looking for good examples of UX, try and look for the following:

• What is the user using the application for? What's the core functionality?
• Does it achieve form over function?
• Is it being consistent with the product, design, brand etc?
• Is it overloading the user?
• Is it treating the user with respect?

If you're able to answer the above then you've found yourself an example of good UX.

Large companies will spend time looking at UX closely. Think of Apple for example, some people will describe their products as 'it just works' because it has good UX. Think back to how I mentioned how a user perceives the application, and if it gives a positive emotional response.

You can also look at other companies such as Twitter and see what the user experience is like, how easy is it to send a tweet?

Over the next few years, I think that UX is going to become an important part when it comes to building web applications.

Thanks for reading! 👏