The rapid development and rate of improvement of technology in the last few decades have been astounding. If we consider that just two decades ago terms like wifi, smartphone and apps weren’t used in everyday conversations feels hard to comprehend.
But with the rapid development of tech has come a new challenge that developers need to keep at the very front of their prefrontal cortexes. Tech is no longer reserved for specialists or the highly educated.
These days, tech is for everyone, meaning that the importance of user experience, and even more so, usability, has become paramount in the conquest to release the next best thing. Hours of work and research have gone into ensuring that not only is an app, website, or device beneficial, but also easy to use.
To clear up any confusion surrounding what User Experience or “UX” is, it is quite simply the way someone feels when interacting with a system. The system could be everything from a website or app, to an actual device such as a smartphone, tablet or laptop.
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Considering the number of people that engage with technology, both for work and for leisure, user experience really does encompass, and even define your time on a device, website, or app. Whether you’re interested in betting sites, bread making, or badminton, how you feel when you use an interface can often determine your outlook on the very topic you are engaging with.
As a result, UX design has become one of the more demanded emerging career paths, as it is posited directly along the cutting-edge of jobs in tech. This makes all the sense in the world, as while people interact more with tech, developers will need specialists to ensure that their products are well received by their customers.
As a result, the job of the UX designer is pretty tricky, because the feelings that are created from interacting with a device are highly subjective. Just like one advancement to the latest iPhone may cause one person to jump for joy, it may cause another to pull their hair out.
It is thus important for UX designers to ensure that they follow specified requirements when designing user journeys, and to realise that their opinion is just one of millions, shared by some, and most likely contested by more.
As a result, UX doctrine follows “Why”, “What” and “How” which are actionable questions that can help designers follow the right path, and create user journeys that will be well received and beneficial, with the ability to generate real and important feelings.
The “Why” focuses on motivations, values and views of consumers and essentially why they would adopt the product, while the “What” considers functionality and features and what users can do with the product. Lastly the “How” is concerned with aspects such as Aesthetics and accessibility, key factors when it comes to how users form relationships with products.
What is absolutely clear is that user experience has been one of the underlying forces behind the tech revolution. As newer and better products have been rolled out to users, the ease with which a person can use them, as well as the feelings that are created when they are being used, have been closely analysed, with an industry arising from this.
There’s no separating UX from Tech, and it’ll be fascinating to see just how this industry develops.
Staff writer
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