Welcome to EZtek’s Blog – a Blog channel about the latest tech trends and products. In this article, we’ll talk about the steps of the UX design process. You will find out ways of saving time and financial resources in the early stages and how to optimize the whole process. On our channel, we share thoughts on recent developments in the tech industry, follow us not to miss new articles.
UX design can be overwhelming because there are so many steps that have to be taken into account. However, you can make it easier by breaking down the process into smaller, manageable chunks.
#1 User Research
Besides traditional interviews, focus groups and surveys, the EZtek team uses such models as:
User Personas
Personas represent average users of an application. In the description, a designer should include needs, motivations, skills, demographic data as well as social and family status.
User Journey Maps
This is a model of typical users’ behaviors with the product or service. Here are the following types of User Journey Maps:
- Customer Journey Maps – that shows user interactions with the app or website.
- Service Blueprints – a simplified representation of functionality and interface.
- Experience maps – that provides all possible scenarios of user experience.
- Spatial Maps – 3D models with the description of typical user experiences.
- Mental Model Diagrams – that describes the user’s behavior, motivations, needs, and risks.
#2 Design: Wireframing and Prototyping
Wireframe
A wireframe is an essential mock-up with the main design elements and functionality of the product. A wireframe provides a presentation of the content, an outline of the page, the style of the interface for further improvements, then the team shares the prototype with the members of other departments.
After you’ve collected advice from them, you can also present the prototype to the focus group, don’t forget to record their feedback.
Prototyping
What is the effective prototyping you may ask? An effective prototype is able to fulfill the following goals:
- Testing basic product version
- Making sure the entire team agreed on the same functionality and key design elements
- Workload planning.
The EZtek UX team facilitates the process by breaking the prototyping stage into several steps. Based on the type of prototype deliverable, there are two main kinds of deliverables: low fidelity and high fidelity prototypes.
- Low fidelity models emit all details and provide the basic representation. These are typically either hand drawn images or geometric projections.
- High fidelity prototypes offer a more precise visual representation of the real screen version of the product.
Such prototypes are demonstrated to a focus group or stakeholder before passing a project to a development team.
#3 User Testing
User testing provides a transparent view of how other people see your product and get insights on how they think.
How does User Testing work?
Moderate user testing
A moderator is in the same room with a participant and carefully observes the person’s interaction with the product.
Remote moderated testing
It’s slightly less detailed than the previous type because you only get a limited outlook and can’t jump in immediately with a question or follow-up.
Unmoderated testing
This type relies on recordings and statistics but no one would ask questions or talk about errors.
A/B testing
This type relies on recordings and statistics but no one would ask questions or talk about errors.
- After the product UX is fully ready and accepted by the stakeholders, we can move on to UI design and further on to software development and testing.
- After the product is ready, it’s time for the Beta launch. You should release the product to a small group of people who will test the first version, detect bugs and report issues.
- After the beta release is completed and you’ve analyzed the feedback, reiterate your product with regards to receiving feedback.
- Once you’ve completed all the steps, it’s time to release your product to the market.
According to EZtek’s experience, if the company puts enough effort into researching the market and audience at the beginning, they will have no problem with making small edits later on when the project grows.
Thank you for reading this Blog, it was prepared by the EZtek team. Apart from UI/UX design services, we also provide software development, QA and testing as well as IT consulting services.
