Intuitive design
User experience (UX) research is also commonly referred to as design research, as its ultimate objective is to craft a completely user-centred design. The blueprints for any system that are presented to developers through UX research are innately tried and tested through the mere process of retrieving research data, so you know your end result will be well-received upon its debut because, in a way, it has kind of already debuted.
If your interface is able to cultivate a level of innate familiarity, then congratulations! You’ve attained one of the most valuable end products of design research and design thinking. Adopting an intuitive design, enables users to experience the most organic interactions with your user interface. Tinder is a perfect example of an organic and intuitive UI. The simple swipe-to-swipe set-up and the ease of switching from profiles to chats provide users with the instant gratification most users would expect from a dating app. In this way, Tinder’s UX is the secret to their success and longevity.
Revision before production
With the growing number of techniques for harvesting UX research, discovering roadblocks during the process of manifesting ideas is becoming less and less common. The reason for this is that even with the simplest UX research techniques, understanding the way humans interact with a system is naturally an easier feat to accomplish when that system is being designed around the user rather than expecting the user to adapt. In essence, utilising UX research will help you distinguish between good ideas and bad ideas well before you invest any egregious amounts of time in your bad ideas. To rephrase this in a more optimistic way, you can make good ideas better and work out any kinks in your bad ideas well before the kinks have time to even develop. And to rephrase this in a nerdy way, UX research is basically like the Precogs in Minority Report: they’ll help you see the future!
Utilising UX research will allow you and your intended audience to engage with your product before it needs to be fully established, allowing you to gain a greater understanding of the product or service as a whole, and providing you with sufficient evidence to be able to critically assess your idea before you even assign resources to its manifestation, saving you a whole lot of time and money.
Mapping for success
A major part of the UX process is creating user experience maps. As the name suggests, these are maps that document the entirety of your user’s interactions with your product or service, enabling you to pinpoint any specific action and finetune that action as it fits in with your user’s entire experience. But it may surprise you to hear that UX mapping isn’t just beneficial for finetuning your UX alone. Having a well-rounded understanding of your user experience can also greatly strengthen your overall business strategy, providing you, your developers and engineers, and also any potential stakeholders, with a more confident perception of the purpose of your product and service, as well as why your project is one that’s worth investing in.
It’s evident that from the bottom-up, UX research plays an integral role in the creation and continuous development of any worthwhile project. Be sure to consistently place care and attention into developing your UX strategy, and I promise you that you’ll be able to reap the rewards of all your hard work as your project comes into fruition.
