My UX Learning Journey
I started an introductory course on User Experience Design from Georgia Institute of Technology on Coursera and I find it totally fascinating, the core of User Experience is empathy, you'd need to put your legs in the shoes of the User and build to add value to the user.
The course also went on to discuss some basic features of good designs which are Affordances, Signifiers and Feedback.
Affordances are the users basic perception of a product feature or the product itself. This part of the design has to be the most crucial aspect for me. It deals with designing trust for the user, giving them a clue about what a particular in your design actually does.
Great affordance gives great power to the user and that ultimately will lead go free user experience.
Norman Doors must have had terrible affordance which is why the user could not grasp what it is they actually did.
Design that makes the user reliant on support by the designer will eventually make users leave.
Signifiers are symbols that signify what function the product or product feature has. This phase requires research on how to keep things simple and communicable. You need I ask yourself questions like: What icons can I express the process for the user to attain his or her goals on the app?
What pictures can tell the best story of my caption?
Proper use of signifiers will reinforce the user's perception about the design so it compliments Affordances.
The synergy of both concepts already gives the user a headstart to amazing user experience because their user journey was taking by them. They did not need anyone customer experience expert go guide them through the user journey.
Feedback simply communicates the output of every input made by the user. It’s about confirming the input the user made on the product.
In any part of the design where the design requires feedback, the accordance and signifier should make them confident about their input so when the output is out there is a release of the reward hormone (dopamine).
The whole design should be targeted at making the user excited about the whole process.
One of my study materials is the book; Design of Everyday Things, it’s not the first time it’s being recommended which makes it a must-read for me.
I glanced through the preface and took an in-depth study twice and came to the conclusion that not being able to give your designs good affordance would just wreck the user experience.
I’m sure it will be an amazing well of knowledge and point of reference in my design journey.
The next part of the course dealt with the design process being iterative and comprising of 4 things:
1. Requirements gathering
2. Alternative designs
3. Prototyping
4. Evaluation
The next few classes will treat all of these processes individually, I am particular about the alternative design section.
I have learnt so far that great design gives power to the user by aiding and confirming their perception.
I look forward to sharing more as I learn and I am actually learning by practising.
