OUGD504 - Studio Brief 02 - What is User Experience?

HCI - Human Computer Interaction
The ways in which people interact with digital systems.
Usability refers to the ease and efficiency by which a user operates a system. Interaction design is, then, the organisation and construction of interactive elements.

User experience (ux) refers directly to the ways that the user, customer or operator experiences using the product, system or interface on their own terms.
User experience design (uxd) is the informed manipulation and development of the factors that influence the user's experiences. This means that user experience design precedes visual design, it informs visual interface design.

- Analyse: business research, user research, data analysis and conceptualisation.
- Design: creating concepts, interaction behaviours, look and feel.
- Prototypes: realising design alternatives.
- Evaluate: verifying and refining.
- Iteration.

TECHNIQUES

Personas:
Personas are characteristics of archetypal users. User experience designers aim to design the most appealing interface for one or a handful of users. Personas are fictitious since they likely combine aspects informed from numerous sources, however must appear to reflect real people.
What characteristics are included in personas varies depending on the project. However, they should:

- Reflect data found in user research.
- Focus on the present.
- Be realistic not idealistic.
- Describe a challenging target user.
- Provide insight into the users context, behaviours, attitudes, needs, challenges, goals and motivations.

Task/user flows:
Work flows visualise (flow charts) the stages involved in completing certain tasks (task flow) or the journey a user takes through the system (user flow).

Wireframes:
Wireframes are the first step towards putting all the user research, personas, work flows, etc into a visual format. The aim of wireframes is to experiment and test hierarchies and informed layout strategies. User experience designers will always refer back to personas and work flows to test the wireframe layouts. Wireframes can either be low fidelity (quick to produce with little detail) or high fidelity (more detail and elaboration).