When thinking of UX/UI, the majority of people think of the finished applications and designs associated with it. The actual UX processes that go into this design are often more involving than people think. Many of these steps involve user research, which can take months if done thoroughly.
When starting the UX journey, many designers will first look at product reviews. Whether they are updating their existing app or creating a whole new one, product reviews help get a glance of what real users are saying about the product. Taking the time to research the reviews of your own app and competitor apps will make all the difference.
Once this research is complete, you can dive into a competitor analysis. This process takes the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor and analyzes them against your product. The goal of this process is to walk away with new insights based on what users are looking for and what they don’t want.
After analysis, a designer can begin user interviews. This part of the process is where the real user research comes in. These interviews can include a wide range of target audience members and be very thorough. Most often, UX designers will compile a list of interview questions before interviewing. A tip for this process is that once the interview starts, let the user talk and make sure to ask follow up questions (How To Conduct User Interviews Like A Pro (UX Design)). As a designer, you should be gearing these interviews toward those who you anticipate being users of your application, holding the same interests and needs it entails.
Conducting user interviews can lead into the empathy mapping process. This is where you take users from your research and analyze their mindset. Most empathy maps involve what the user observes, feels, thinks, says, does, their goals, and their frustrations. All of these things involve taking what the user said and putting that into their individual mindset. These empathy maps allow designers to further analyze interview responses and organize them accordingly.
The persona is created after the user interview data has been completed as well. The point of a persona is to encompass all of the cold data into a familiar face. These personas can be easier for companies to focus their attention on and figure out what their user needs rather than focusing on all of the data (How to create a user persona). The persona is often not based on one individual but rather different patterns and groups that are shown in the research (Personas – A Simple Introduction). You may end up with one persona or multiple depending on how your target audience has similarities.
All of these steps in the UX design process prove to be important. They are about gathering and analyzing data in order to understand the user. If this process is skipped, the user may not be known and in turn, the app won’t be a success for that specific group. UX/UI is a whole process that goes way beyond the screens of an application.
References & Resources
https://usabilitygeek.com/how-to-do-ux-competitor-analysis/https://www.toptal.com/product-managers/freelance/product-designer-guide-to-competitive-analysis
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/how-to-conduct-user-interviewshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tVbFfGDQCk
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/empathy-map-why-and-how-to-use-it
https://uxpressia.com/blog/how-to-create-persona-guide-exampleshttps://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/personas-why-and-how-you-should-use-themhttps://99designs.com/blog/business/how-to-create-user-personas/
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