User experience design (UXD or UX) is a process a process of using a product to improve user satisfaction. It can be done by improving the usability of a product or making it more accessible to them easily or sometimes it involves making the product pleasurable to a user by helping create an interactive link between a user and the product.
The main goal of implementing and developing user experience is to help solve and end users problem and this tie the success of the process to communicating the design to both the developers and the stakeholders.
In this article, we would be exploring the importance of user experience design, and how we can drive user experience in our world. At the end of this article, we would have come to appreciate user experience designs and look for ways to adopt it.
THE USER EXPERIENCE DESIGNS TRENDS
In the web design and mobile app design world, advancement keeps coming each day, to succeed in this field, a designer must be prepared to face the challenges that come with those advancements and also have a foresight of things to come. The more prepared he is, the easier it will be for him to deliver jobs that satisfy his users.
But why is user experience regarded as one of the most important parts while going through the design process of apps and web for user engagement? Here are few reasons:
THE USE OF JOURNEY SIMPLIFICATION
Whenever we interact or surf the web there is a reason attached to it, the easier it becomes to complete that journey or in another word, the easier it gets to find what we are looking for, the better the experience, but if we need to jump from one web page to another in search of a solution or have to run around in the application to reach our aim, it becomes boring.
Here are few reasons why the use of journey simplification is easy.
Linear user flow
This allows the user of an application to complete an action with each step, it is a linear design experience with a specific beginning, middle and an end which makes completing of tasks easy. With linear user flow, a user can estimate correctly how much time he will need to complete a specific task.
Progressive disclosure
During a web design or a mobile app design process, useful information might be deposited into the app or the web page; everything should not be shown at once though. During the web design process, a technique called progressive disclosure will be used to help make only the useful information visible. This will make the information more comprehensive and reduce improper loading of the interface.
ANIMATIONS ENHANCED WITH IN-APPS GESTURE.
Another advantage of the User design in our day is the use of gesture. Most mobile app design now removes the home key from their device an example is the iPhone X recently released with no visible home button. All this device need to be interacted to using gestures, and this has made communicating with them very easy.
Although there are issues like ability to discover and learn gesture, a mobile app design and web design must endeavor to focus on motion design and micro-interaction. The function of animation will include
- Making of clear interaction or animated hints when they are available.
- It helps in clarifying the relationship between the elements of a user interface.
- It helps provide reasonable feedback on interaction
CONTENT-CENTERED EXPERIENCE
With advancement in the development of User experience for both mobile app development and web development, accessing information needed by a user is now easy. The easier this gets, the more will users enjoy using an application. Here are few ways of achieving this:
Removal of Clutter
User experience designers today have one common goal, to remove clutters that are visible and improving the comprehension of their contents. The presence of non-relevant information or noise must treat and removed, and the more important information or signal must be prioritized by putting content first and by elaborating clearly the visual language.
Clearing of Visual Hierarchy
There must be a clear arrangement of how each element of the user interface will suffice. With the aid of visual signifiers, users can be directed to the more important information needed by them an example is the use of contrasting color for a call to action button.
FULL-SCREEN EXPERIENCE
Thanks to advancement in user designs, mobile app design is now encouraging the frameless designs, freer screen space is now becoming available to mobile device users and this will help them have a full-screen experience.
Mobile app design must provide full-screen space experience for mobile phone users, and this will bring more quality to their work and will impact user experience positively. Pixelated images should be discontinued on the mobile screen.
THE USE OF VIBRANT COLORS
In both web design and mobile app design, color is one of the most important tools in the toolkit. The use of color cannot be overemphasized, it helps attract users, it influences their actions and their emotions, and it affects their mood. In the mobile app design world, color is very important. Here are few ways:
Useful as a functional element: Colour is an important part of the functional experience not just for aesthetics alone, a good mobile app designer will separate notification using a different color for them, this will make it easier for a user to pick what he wants.
EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES
Emotional intelligence can now be integrated into mobile app design and web design due to the user experience designs. Emotional intelligence makes a user experience more powerful and delightful. When one is emotionally captured in what he is doing, he tends to concentrate more. How does emotional experience play its part?
- Humans express emotions naturally when most human chat or text each other, they largely make use of emoticons or emojis to help people understand what they are saying better and to help others see clearly how they feel. With the development of face recognition, more reactions will be made and captured easily; animoji (Animated emoji) is one of the latest developments that capture emotion via camera.
- Natural interaction with applications will be made possible with the development in the gesture world. Drawing a shape could now be used to select our favorite application easily instead of scrolling in search for the application.
IMPROVEMENT IN USE OF VIDEO
Video usage has now become popular, most mobile and web users love using video, so a web designer or mobile app design might use a short video to arrest and catch the interest of a user, and this has positively contributed to the success of user experience design. With video, humans can see things clearly, that is they can get a clear picture of what a designer has in mind.
ADVANCEMENT IN BIOMETRIC AUTHORIZATION
The traditional login process is tasking and most think it is not efficient, mobile app design that uses the biometric authorization technology tend to interest user more. All it needs is some behavioral or physiological characteristics that can be captured through facial recognition, fingerprint or through voice recognition. Why should this be encouraged?
- It is easier and faster than the use of a password. A recent survey shows that most phone user will lock and unlock their phone more than 80 times a day, and most prefer to use touch ID for unlocking their device (A report by Apple). The use of biometrics for authentication and as a means of identification will help enhance the security of mobile phone contents or user contents. And those using this method will get to have more people use their service.
- Touch ID is very easy and very secure since no two people can have exactly the same pattern on their finger.
ADVANCED PERSONALIZATION
Personalized user experience designs keep advancing, if employed in designs it will
- Provide genuine content based on the location of the user. Our devices are always with us, by identification of a location by a user’s application, relevant information based on the location that might be needed by him will be provided. This will help a user adapt quickly to his present environment without much stress.
- Provision of a tailored user interface. User experience should not be about content alone since the conditions of users differ from each other, web design and mobile app design should be able to adapt to everyone circumstances. There should be a difference in layout, and content and all these must be based on the information supplied beforehand by the user.
A MORE CONSERVATIONAL DESIGN
Both for a web developer, a business person, a writer, or anyone using a mobile phone, the messaging application is one of their most important applications. Humans can’t stop chatting, it is a medium of communication between two people, but there are times when one won’t be available to reply his messages, the introduction of a better conversational medium might be of help.
- With user experience design in application design, a conversational assistant that can help interact with customers when not around can be created to make conversation easier. A user will decide what response to be received when he is not around, and this will be safer than not getting any response when contacted for a serious business talk.
DEVELOPMENT OF AUGMENTED REALITY
The use of augmented reality is fast changing the world and gradually becoming popular. A recent comment given by Mark Zuckerburg shows that soon all mobile phone screens will be replaced with the lens.
This shows that humans love and will appreciate things the more real they are. Here are few ways in which humans will appreciate the advancement in augmented reality especially in the user experience design world.
Augmented Reality is Easier to Create
The mobile application marker is filled with several applications using the augmented reality technology to create their augmented reality based applications. With a framework released recently by Google and Apple, user experience designers can easily implement those methods to get a better and desired result.
Augmented Reality is a Better Option for Entertainment Lovers
This is shown clearly by the birth of Pokémon Go. It made it become obvious how good AR technology can be when used in the entertainment world. If the idea is adopted by user experience designer and web designers then they can get a better result. With the use of augmented reality lenses integrated into messaging applications, a user will be able to have better experience interacting with other users.
Solution to the real-life problem:
This is another benefit that comes with using augmented reality technology. Augmented reality help solve humans problems by delivering real values to their problems. With the application of augmented reality in the measurement world, real objects can now be measured and done easily without making use of the real-life physical measuring objects like tape.
CASHLESS PAYMENT
The use of money has been seen as old-fashioned by many, many more now prefer not holding money as this helps control their spending. Cashless payment is gradually becoming the new order of the day, a new standard for many people.
Based on the result of a recent survey, it was seen that yearly, the number of people using cashless payment doubles the number of people using it the previous year.
Advancement in user experience design has aided this, so a web design or mobile app design can incorporate this into their work as this will help their users make payment for services both when online and when offline. It can be used as a default payment method in the soon to be developed Apple and Android phones.
CONCLUSION
User experience design when used in the web design and mobile app design tends to give a user the best experience but only when used well. Soon so many applications will not be widely used if they are lagging behind in creating an application that will move at a speed the technology world is moving.
A web designer and a mobile device designer must always look for ways to improve their services. We have seen clearly how user experience has changed the mobile app design and web design world, by applying the points discussed in this article a web designer will be able to achieve their goal.
The more they deliver jobs that suite mobile phone users, the more interesting functions that will capture the attention of an application user, the more flexibility and uniqueness they deposit into their work, the more animated and gestured filled their work is, the more a user will be interested in using it.
