UX to make it simply understood
More loyal customers and users, higher user satisfaction, and save money in the projects. Those are some of the benefits with User Experience (UX). But despite the upsides, not everyone takes UX into consideration. Our UX Architect Fredrik Håkansson shares his knowledge about the good, the bad and the ugly of user experiences in Aleido voices.
Coming from a technical background in the time when internet emerged, I was interested in the intersection between tech and humans. And the fascination in that tech could be beautiful, turned into an understanding that a user experience design could make the tech adopt to humans - not the opposite.
UX is design for less friction. When we author a text, architect information, or create a product or service we have an intention and idea of its value for a person. Designing the experience, we look at factors like: Useful, Credible, Findable, Useable, Accessible and Desirable. That will decide how a person thinks, feels, and use the things we create.
Changing perspective
Unfortunately, not all user experiences are great. A terrible UX example (old but strong) was the Florida's “butterfly" ballot for the 2000 U.S. Presidential election between W Bush and Al Gore. People voted for a candidate but pushed the button for a different candidate because of bad UX design. This effected the election in that state and country as well. Take a look at the ballot here.
When we don’t take the user experience into consideration, we tend to have an in-side-out perspective. You might even put in a lot of effort into the design, and it all seems good in your eyes, but in a deceiving way, because your reference point is not set on the end user but yourself, your company or service and your design is really not less friction. My experience is that you need to work specifically and intentionally with the user in mind throughout the projects to ensure a good UX.
"When the end-users are made an active part of the design process, the product gets better along the way. With good UX the customer reduces its support cases. Taking UX into consideration really should be a no-brainer."
Perks of taking UX into consideration
Designing good user experiences is not just for the users, it is also good for your business. The long-term return of investment (ROI) of UX is loyalty and user satisfaction. It creates greater value, help us do the right things and also do things right. UX is an investment but in total it is saving money in the projects, since the UX process reduces development time. The practice of research and prototyping is not only raising the quality but is an effective way for all stakeholders and project members to get a clear understanding of purpose, challenges, and vision of the end-result for the project. When the end-users are made an active part of the design process, the product gets better along the way. With good UX the customer reduces its support cases. Taking UX into consideration really should be a no-brainer.
UX for making it simply understood
At Aleido, our purpose in aftermarket information and learning is to make the advanced simply understood. In parallel with understanding the advanced, UX is a big part of being able to make it simply understood. We need to understand the user’s needs, behaviours, and context. We need a user experience design in order to know how to author information, to architect and distribute information and to create interfaces for the best user experience. As the aftermarket information is more and more fully digital the need for UX is increasingly important.
three questions to ask yourself to start having a UX mindset
- What would an end user do, see, think, feel?
- Why is that?
- What are the needs to be met?
FACTS
Name: Fredrik Håkansson
Title: UX Architect
Education: Studied at Interaction Design Foundation
Worked at Aleido since: 2015
What kind of possibilitarian are you: Together-type
About Aleido Voices
A series of articles for everyone wondering what it’s like to work at Aleido. With Aleido Voices our employees get to highlight certain exciting aspects of their jobs.
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