UNIT V

A Brief Introduction to User Experience (UX) Design: Complexity and perception, What is User
Experience (UX), What is a UX Designer
What is Design Thinking and Why is it so Popular: What is Design Thinking, Design Thinking’s Phases
The 7 factors that influence user experience: Useful, Usable, An introduction to usability, Why does
usability matter, The 5 Characteristics of usable products How to conduct user interviews, What is User
Interview, Preparing for user interview, How to conduct a user interview, Reporting on user interview What
is interaction design?-Understanding of Interaction design, The 5 Dimensions of interaction design.

What is User Experience (UX) Design and UX designer ?

User experience (UX) design can be a complicated and overwhelming field for newcomers, as it encompasses
a wide range of topics (from accessibility to wireframing). Therefore, it's important to come to a common and
basic understanding of what the term “user experience” means in a design context.

“Humans have always been emotional and have always reacted to the artifacts in their worldemotionally.”

The questions that we as UX designers are concerned with are these:

• Does the site or application give the user value?

• Does the user find the site or application simple to use and navigate?

• Does the user actually enjoy using the site or the application?

A UX designer can say he's or she’s doing a good job when the answer is "Yes!" to all of the above.

Complexity and Perception:

User experience design, as its name suggests, is about designing the ideal experience of using a service or
product. As such, it can involve all types of products and services—think, for instance, about the design
involved in a museum exhibition. However, in the main, the term user experiencedesign is used in relation to
websites, web applications and other software applications.

Early websites were simple static pages that served up information to feed curious searchers; however, a few
decades later, what we can find a wealth of online are sites that are interactive and offer a much richer feel for
users.

UX Designer :
A UX designer is someone who investigates and analyzes how users feel about the products he orshe offers
them. UX designers then apply this knowledge to product development in order to ensure that the user has
the best possible experience with a product.

UX designers conduct research, analyze their findings, inform other members of the development team of their
findings, monitor development projects to ensure those findings are implemented, and do much more.
Q). What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?

Design thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom
we’re designing the products or services. It helps us observe and develop empathy with the target user. Design
thinking helps us in the process of questioning: questioning the problem, questioning the assumptions, and
questioning the implications. Design thinking is extremely usefulin tackling problems that are ill defined or
unknown, by re-framing the problem in human-centric ways, creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions,
and adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing. Design thinking also involves ongoing
experimentation: sketching, prototyping, testing, and trying out concepts and ideas.

Q). Discuss about Design Thinking’s Phases ?

The five phasesof design thinking, according to d.school, are as follows:
• Empathize – with your users

• Define – your users’ needs, their problem, and your insights

• Ideate – by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions

• Prototype – to start creating solutions

• Test – solutions

Q). Explain about the 7 Factors that Influence User Experience ?

The 7 factors are:

Useful 1. Useful

Usable 2. Usable
Accessibl
e
Valuabl 3. Findable
e
Findabl 4. Credible
e
Desirable
5. Desirable
Credibl
e 6. Accessible

7. Valuable
1. Useful
If a product isn’t useful to someone, why would you want to bring it to market? If it has no purpose,it is
unlikely to be able to compete for attention alongside a market full of purposeful and useful products. It’s
worth noting that ‘useful’ is in the eye of the beholder, and things can be deemed ‘useful’ if they deliver non-
practical benefits such as fun or aesthetic appeal.

Thus, a computer game or sculpture may be deemed useful even if neither enables a user to accomplish a goal
that others find meaningful.

Usable

 Usability is concerned with enabling users to achieve their end objective with a product effectivelyand
efficiently. A computer game which requires three sets of control pads is unlikely to be usable as
people, for the time being at least, only tend to have two hands.
 Products can succeed if they are not usable, but they are less likely to do so. Poor usability is often
associated with the very first generation of a product—think the first generation of MP3 players,

which have since lost their market share to the more usable iPod. The iPod wasn’t the first MP3player, but it was the first—
in a UX sense, at least—truly usable MP3 player.

3. Findable :
Findable refers to the idea that the product must be easy to find, and in the instance of digital and information
products, the content within them must be easy to find, too. The reason is quite simple: if you cannot find the
content you want in a website, you’re going to stop browsing it.

If you picked up a newspaper and all the stories within it were allocated page space at random, rather than
being organized into sections such as Sport, Entertainment, Business, etc., you would probably find reading
the newspaper a very frustrating experience.
Credible

Twenty-first-century users aren’t going to give you a second chance to fool them—there are plentyof
alternatives in nearly every field for them to choose a credible product provider. They can and willleave in a
matter of seconds and clicks unless you give them reason to stay.

Credibility relates to the ability of the user to trust in the product that you’ve provided—not just that it does the
job it is supposed to do, but also that it will last for a reasonable amount of time and that the information
provided with it is accurate and fit-for-purpose.

It is nearly impossible to deliver a user experience if the users think the product creator is a lying clown with
bad intentions—they’ll take their business elsewhere instead, very quickly and with veryclear memories of the
impression that creator left in them. Incidentally, they may well tell others, either in passing or more
intentionally, in the form of feedback, so as to

5. Desirable :

Skoda and Porsche both make cars. Both brands are, to some extent, useful, usable, findable, accessible,
credible and valuable—but Porsche is much more desirable than Skoda. This is not to say that Skoda is
undesirable; they have sold a lot of cars.

Desirability is conveyed in design through branding, image, identity, aesthetics, and emotional design. The
more desirable a product is, the more likely it is that the user who has it will brag about it and create desire in
other users.
6. Accessible
Sadly, accessibility often gets lost in the mix when creating user experiences. Accessibility is about providing
an experience which can be accessed by users with a full range of abilities—this includes those who are
disabled in some respect, such as the hearing, vision, motion, or learning impaired.

That’s one in five people in the audience for your product who may not be able to use it if it’s notaccessible—or
20% of your total market!
Valuable :
Finally, the product must deliver value. It must deliver value to the business which creates it and tothe user
who buys or uses it. Without value, it is likely that any initial success of a product will eventually corrode as
the realities of natural economics start to undermine it.

As designers, we should bear in mind that value is one of the key influences on purchasing decisions. A $100
product that solves a $10,000 problem is one that is likely to succeed; a $10,000product that solves a $100
problem is far less likely to do so.

Q). Write about Usability and its Characteristics ?:

Usability and user experience (UX) are not the same thing: the usability of a product is a crucial partthat shapes
its UX, and hence it falls under the umbrella of UX. While many might think that usability is solely about the
‘ease of use’ of a product, it’s actually more than that.

” Usability is hence more than just about whether users can perform tasks easily (ease of use); it’s also
concerned with user satisfaction—for a website to be usable, it has to be engaging and aesthetically pleasing,
too.

Q). Why Does Usability Matter?

Before we delve deeper into what usability entails, addressing the importance of usability is vital. Usability
matters because if users cannot achieve their goals efficiently, effectively and in a satisfactory manner, they
are likely to seek an alternative solution to reach their goals. Moreover, for websites and apps, alternative
solutions are abundant and easy to find. Quite simply: if your product is not usable, its UX will be bad, and
 users will leave you for your competitors.

“We tend to be distracted by the voices in our own heads telling us what the design should looklike.”

Usability is the outcome of a user-centered design process.

The 5 Characteristics of Usable Products :

1. Effectiveness

2. Efficiency

3. Engagement

4. Error Tolerance

5. Ease of Learning

1. Effectiveness
Effectiveness is about whether users can complete their goals with a high degree of accuracy. Much of the
effectiveness of a product comes from the support provided to users when they work with the product; for
example, fixing a credit card field soy different ways to provide support—the key is to be as informative as
possible in a meaningfulway to the user.

Redundancy in navigation can sometimes be beneficial; if users have multiple paths to their objective, they are
more likely to get there. This may reduce the overall efficiency of the process, however. So, always consider the
frustration of a user who can’t find the way forward, and strike abalance between that and the ‘overkill’ of
several alternatives.

2. Efficiency
 Effectiveness and efficiency have come to be blurred in the mind. They are, however, quite different from
a usability perspective. Efficiency is all about speed. How fast can the user get the job done?
 You’ll want to examine the number of steps (or indeed clicks/keystrokes) needed to achieve the
objective; can they be reduced? This will help develop efficient processes. Clearly labeled navigation
buttons with obvious uses will also help, as will the development of meaningful

shortcuts (for instance, think about the number of hours you’ve saved using Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V tocopy and paste text).

3. Engagement
Engagement is a bit of a buzzword, but if you cut through the fluff, you’ll find that engagement occurs when
the user finds the product pleasant and gratifying to use. Aesthetics matter here, and it’s why many companies
invest a small fortune in graphic design elements—but they’re not the onlyfactors in engagement.

Engagement is not only about looking nice but also about looking right. Proper layouts, readable typography
and ease of navigation all come together to deliver the right interaction for the user and make it engaging.
Looking nice isn’t everything, as Wikipedia (famous for its ultra-basic design) proves.

4. Error Tolerance :
It seems unlikely that, given the need to gain any degree of sophistication or complexity, you can completely
eliminate errors in products; in particular, digital products may be error prone becauseof the ecosystem in
which they dwell—an ecosystem which is beyond the designer’s control.

However, the next best thing is to minimize errors from occurring and to ensure that your users caneasily recover
from an error and get back to what they are doing. This is what we call ‘error tolerance’.

Promoting error tolerance, according to Whitney Quesenberry, requires:

• Restricting opportunities to do the wrong thing. Make links/buttons clear and distinct; keep language
clear and simple;

• Offering the opportunity to ‘redo’. Give users a way to reset what they’ve just done and go back and start
again. Similarly, provide a clearly visible ‘undo’ function. Consider the amount of data auser stands to lose
by inadvertently deleting items. That ‘railing’ or ‘safety ledge’ will keep users from panicking.
• Assuming everyone is going to do things you don’t expect them to do. Then, either facilitate thator offer
advice/support to get back on the right path.

5. Ease of learning :

If you want a product to be used regularly, then you want users to be able to learn their way aroundthat product
easily—to the extent that it comes as second nature when they use it again.

You also need to accommodate ease of learning when releasing new functionality and features; otherwise, a
familiar and happy user may quickly become frustrated with your latest release.

Utility + Usability = Usefulness

When you’re designing for usability, thinking about utility is important, too. While usability is concerned with
making functions easy and pleasant to use, utility is about providing functions that users need in the first place.

Q). what is user Interview ? Write about How to Conduct User Interviews ?
User interviews can be a great way to extract information from users so as to understand their userexperience
as well as the product’s usability and the design ideation. They are cheap and easy to conduct.

User interviews are where a researcher asks questions of, and records responses from, users. Wecan use these
to examine the user experience, the usability of the product or to flesh out demographic or ethnographic data
(for input into user personas), among many other things.
 Before we look at how to conduct user interviews, we need to examine some of the drawbacks ofinterviewing:
• Interviews, even if they are contextual (i.e., based on observing the interviewee using the product
prior to interview), tend to give insights into what people say they will do, and this issometimes (often
even) not the same as what they actually do.

• Human beings have memory issues and can often not recall details as clearly as they would like.
Unfortunately, it is a human tendency to try and create these details (this is not even a conscious process)
and to tell a story the way we think something happened rather than how it happened.

Conduct user interviews :

The ideal interview takes place with two UX researchers and one user. The first UX researcher focuses on
asking questions and guiding the interviewee through the interview. it’sreally the only way to capture and
condense what you need into a workable format.

Typical topics covered within user interviews include:

• Background (such as ethnographic data)

• The use of technology in general

• The use of the product

• The user’s main objectives and motivations

• The user’s pain points

Don’t feel limited to these topics. If there’s something you need to know that you can learn byasking
your users (as long as it’s not offensive or threatening), you can ask a question about it.

There is also a special type of user interview known as ‘the contextual interview’. This is an interview which
is conducted after (or during) the observation of a user using the actual product. It’s an interview ‘in context’
with usage.

Q). Discuss about Preparing for User Interviews ?

Preparation for user interviews begins with recruitment. In order to capture an accurate picture ofyour usership,
you will want to ensure that you recruit a representative sample of users for your interviews.

Then you will need to create a script from which to ask questions (unless you are doing a
contextual interview, in which case you may still create a script but are likely to wander off-pistefrom that script a lot during
the interview).
offer them a drink (non-alcoholic), conduct a little small talk (but only a little) before you start,etc.
• Try to keep the interview on time and heading in the right direction – the reason scripts are useful is
because you can reference them for this. Remember, though, that while they provide agood framework or
conduit, many key points can still come up spontaneously; so, keep an eye on how you ration your time,
especially because users tend to get irritated if they’re kept longerthan you had agreed.
• Try to focus on the interviewee and not on making notes – it’s just plain rude to bury your head in your
notes. Maintain eye contact, keep a conversation flowing, and record the interview instead of getting lost
in notetaking. Keep the users engaged in a living process; if they feel they’re giving descriptions to a
clerk at a lost property office, they’ll almost certainly switch off.

• Thank the interviewees at the end of the process – not only is this polite, but you can offer achance
for the interviewees to ask any questions of their own at this point, too.

Q). What is Interaction Design? Write and Useful Understanding ofInteraction Design ?

Interaction design is an important component within the giant umbrella of user experience (UX)design. In this
article, we’ll explain what interaction design is, discuss some useful models of interaction design, as well as
briefly describe what an interaction designer usually does.

Useful Understanding ofInteraction Design :

Interaction design can be understood in simple (but not simplified) terms: it is the design of the interaction
between users and products. Most often when people talk about interaction design, theproducts tend to be
software products such as apps or websites. The goal of interaction design is to create products that enable
users to achieve their objective(s) in the best way possible.

If this definition sounds broad, that’s because the field is rather broad: the interaction between auser and a
product often involves elements such as aesthetics, motion, sound, space, and manymore. Also, of course,
each of these elements can involve even more specialized fields—for instance, sound design for the crafting
of sounds used in user interactions.

Q). Explain the 5 Dimensions of Interaction Design ?

1D: Words
Words—especially those used in interactions, such as button labels—should be meaningful andsimple to
understand. They should communicate information to users, but not so much information that they end up

overwhelming users or slowing them down.

2D: Visual Representations

This concerns graphical elements such as images, typography and icons that users interact with. These
usually supplement the words we use to communicate information to users.

3D: Physical Objects or Space

Through what physical objects do users interact with the product: is it a laptop, with a mouse or touchpad? Or
is it a smartphone, with the user’s fingers? Also, within what kind of physical space does the user do so? For
instance, is the user standing in a crowded train while using the app on asmartphone, or sitting at a desk in the
office while surfing the website? These all affect the interaction between the user and the product.

4D: Time
While this dimension sounds a little abstract, it mostly refers to media that changes with time (animation,
videos, sounds). Motion and sounds play a crucial role in giving visual and audio feedback to users’
interactions. Also of concern is the amount of time a user spends interacting with the product: can users track
their progress, or resume their interaction some time later

5D: Behavior
This includes the mechanism of a product and involves two pivotal questions—namely, “How do users
perform actions on the website?” and “How do users operate the product?”. In other words, this dimension is
all about how the previous dimensions define the interactions a user should be having with a product. It also
includes the reactions—for instance, emotional responses or feedback—of users and the product.

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