User Experience: Expectation vs Reality Demystified
When it comes to user experience, people tend to believe that there are new trends and principles that need to be learned with changing user trends. But that’s not true. Why? Because humans are the same, there is a change in their behaviors and their behavior changes with the change in surroundings. The environment that people live is different, So the way they interact with the environment is different. That being said, the basic design principles shall never change but there may be new trends emerging with the change in user’s behavior.
How the User Experience is really perceived in society? Here are expectations and realities from different perspectives that we may encounter in our day to day life. Read on to discover these interesting facts which you might relate to your personal experiences.
Hiring Manager perspective
Expectations: In my experience, The hiring manager recruits a UX designer who is proficient in the design methodologies, principles, and tools. They expect user experience designers are skilled professionals who are specialized in drawing the user-centric designs that will be accepted by end-users. Companies also think these specialists know the kind of design techniques and methods to be applied for the type of project they are working on. They also assume designers are conscious about the time frame to deliver a project. Moreover, the stakeholders have their own objectives which are formulated by keeping the entire product life cycle in mind. Reality: The designers might not have enough resources allocated by the stakeholder to go through the entire design process for a project. In reality, a designer has to do one or all of the following to meet the expectation of a hiring manager. Ask Right Question: A designer should be able to understand the project goals and objectives during the project kick-off meeting by asking the right question so as to start designing at the earliest.Be Independent: Since the stakeholders are generally occupied in other aspects apart from the design phase, A designer has to solve problems independently with the minimum inputs or supervision from a stakeholder.Create Attractive Visuals: The inputs from the Kick-off meeting shall drive the designer in creating visuals, They shall not have time to experiment and apply the right approach in creating attractive visual so it’s always best to use known to practice to bring the value.
User Experience Designer perspective
Expectations: A user experience designer wants to get hired by a company that respects the UX process in its entirety. He/ she also wants to apply all the UX principles, methods or techniques they have acquired from a design course or from previous project implementation that will get the desired outcome. Reality: sooner or later, the designer realizes that they do not have enough time to implement the right methods and principles in deriving the desired outcome. They are on the constant knack from their team manager/stakeholders or clients to deliver the designs at the earliest possible opportunity.
Clients Stakeholder Perspective
Expectations: Most of the clients are under the impression or at least expect User Experience will solve business problems which are not true at all, Building the right features that meet the goals of business objectives solve business problems. The clients also expect that User Experience is all about making their product look great by building great attractive visuals which is not completely accurate. The clients are generally business people who have a business mindset and expect the products that are being designed to be shipped quickly to the market for them to be sold. Clients also expect that a better-designed product is the ones that are widely accepted in the user community. Reality: User Experience is a resulting intersection of solving business problems combined with user problems. A designer while working on a problem gather business objective during a kick-off meeting which is a trigger for creating further designs and prototypes. In the design phase, the designer actually tries to meet the user goals combined with a business goal and at the same creating intuitive designs that have great look and feel. Due to the time constraint in shipping products to market, Designer might not Brainstorm, do workshops, get insights from the actual users to build a design that is actually accepted by the actual users. However, the designer perfects their design when the product hits the market, get feedback from users and iterate their design to be successful in the market. The designer would rather sit and discuss fictional visions in a meeting room, once they got and test the designs in the real world, Live the life of a user to see what clearly to be improved or added cannot make products that are widely accepted.
End-Users Perspective
Expectation: End-Users of a product expect that great looking product is easy to use, easy to navigate and can easily find information for what they are looking for without much product knowledge. End-users also expect the product to interact with them to suggest what to do next. Reality: Actually greatly designed product/application may look great in terms of look and feel but may not necessarily great user-centric product/application. The difference can be made from the example of the Airbnb website which is no doubt a great product. The user can find for the Homestay basing on the location, type, budget with no many clicks. To conclude, The User Experience: Expectations and Reality check varies from person to person. The influencing factors can be attributed to the type of application be it a mobile app, product, web application and type of working environment of a UX designer may be designed agency or in house organization. Read the full article