How to Obtain UX Requirements and Improve your Software’s User Experience Design (UXD)
User experience or UX is an integral part of software design. Often paired with User Interface (UI) design, UX focuses on the experience a user gets from interacting with a system, a website, or Software. It includes the ease at which they use the system, its efficiency, and the functionalities it offers.
It also takes into account the information structure of the system and the Human-Computer Interaction. It goes without saying that the UX design of a product determines the success of that product.
We will discuss the requirements needed when designing a system’s UX and how to improve the UX of an existing system below:
UX Requirements
When designing the UX of a system, every designer must understand what is required to ensure the users’ experiences are smooth and easy. In essence, the UX requirements always focus on the potential users. Before design commences, UX designers must take into account the following factors;
Who are the potential users?
What is the client’s objective?
What functionalities are required?
To obtain the UX requirements of a system, designers usually follow a similar blueprint;
• Understand the main goal
It is the most important step to cover as it is essential to understand the aim of the project fully. Designers are advised to meet with their clients to try to get an in-depth understanding of the purpose of the system, the problem it’s trying to solve, and the solution it offers. It helps them draw a somewhat accurate picture of what is needed.
• Organize all collected information and carry out some online and user research. User research is vital as learning more about the people the system is for help in the design.
• Design and test prototypes
Prototyping is essential in UXD, specifically early prototyping. It is because it helps visualize the client’s goals, especially when the requirements are unclear. To further emphasize, oftentimes, designers are faced with clients who clearly understand what they need, but are unable to explain it. Early prototyping helps give the clients options to choose from. If the client accepts the prototype, the final design can commence, but if they reject it, iteration comes into play.
How to Improve Your User Experience
You have an already established system, but the feedback you received was poor and discouraging for some reason. While a few factors may cause this, the most common is the UX of that system. Luckily, this is a fixable issue.
To improve the user experience of a system, you need to identify the issues users have with the interface. This can be done by carrying out a UX audit.
A UX audit is essential, as it helps designers understand the users, which in turn helps in redesigning a system that is satisfactory to both the users and the client. To carry out an effective UX audit, designers have to understand the business, but they also need to know the users and what they expect from the system, review the analytics data, complete a heuristic evaluation, and compile the results they get.
The compiled result is then used to make recommendations to the clients that would solve the issues detected. Other ways to improve the UXD of a system are by carrying out well-organized user research, ensuring the design of the system meets the client’s objectives, analyzing the user flow, ensuring the UI is visually pleasing, user-friendly, and accessible to all users.
UI/UX has become an important aspect of software design. While UI requires designers to be creative in a way, UX designers must take into account the potential experience users will have when using that system. This is necessary to avoid designing a system that might be visually pleasing but strays away from its goal.
