In the beginning, it is important to mention that there is no commonly accepted definition for UX design.

It is a multi-dimensional discipline which covers interaction design, information architecture, visual design, usability, and human-computer interaction.

To understand UX design, we should look into history. Here is a note from Wikipedia on history of UX design.

History of UX

The field of user experience design is a conceptual design discipline and has its roots in human factors and ergonomics, a field that, since the late 1940s, has focused on the interaction between human users, machines, and the contextual environments to design systems that address the user's experience.

With the proliferation of workplace computers in the early 1990s, user experience started to become a concern for designers. Donald Norman, a professor and researcher in design, usability, and cognitive science, coined the term "user experience", and brought it to a wider audience.

“I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person's experience with the system including industrial design graphics, the interface, the physical interaction and the manual. Since then the term has spread widely, so much so that it is starting to lose its meaning.”

— Donald Norman

UX design in era of mobile devices

Market is becoming competitive with me-too kind of products. Product teams and designers who create products in isolation without consideration for the actual end-users are not going to succeed. In this saturated digital environment where demand is increasing day by day and people are becoming digitally savvy, applying user-centered design is pretty much mandatory in order to gain their trust quickly and ensure their loyalty.

UXD, the user-experience design process—employed for great UX—ensures that the right content, features, and functionality are presented in the right place, at the right time, in the right way, providing optimum user experiences, effortless interaction, and ultimately business benefits.

Companies who focus on user experience can beat the competition to rise as a leader. User experience design is becoming a key competitive differentiator for products.

Companies like Airbnb, Mint, Uber, Google, and Apple are successful because of their user-centered design approach.

Ultimately, it’s about human engagement. Great companies like Google, Facebook and Apple visualize (or anticipate) how this engagement may conceivably be, and accordingly create devices and software to leverage the experiences.

Process of UX design

Designing exceptional UX isn’t a walk in the park. It starts with “knowing your user.”

It is not that simple as it sounds. What does the ubiquitous, “know your user” mean? It means doing your research, and digging deep to solve real-world problems for people.

Research on user and understanding the problem is just the beginning. There are many other variables to consider in a product’s user experience and market success:

Desirability, functionality, speed and performance, ease-of-use, visual aesthetics, clarity, simplicity and usability, structure and navigation, human psychology, accessibility, to name but a few.

Till date billions are lost by business due to poor UX. These lost because UX experts are not invited to development of product in initial stage and later when product is not living up to expectations and the ship is already going down, then UX experts are called in to patch the leaks but unfortunately, it may be too late because product has already lost its luster.

An expert UX designer will lead the product in right direction from the beginning. So, it’s very important to have one UX expert before you start product development.

Want to hire UX expert? Our team brought success to many businesses with user experience design. You can share your requirements here >>

UX design as mainstream contributor

Recent findings from Forrester Research suggest that a well-conceived, frictionless UX design could potentially raise customer conversion rates up to 400%.

Earlier user experience (UX) was considered as a competitive advantage. As company stakeholders begin to recognize the impact it has on the ROI of their online products, user experience (UX) is becoming more mainstream. Now it is considered as a key contributor to a company’s bottom line.

Insights on improving user experience (UX) for digital products

As a product owner or designer, you can’t ignore these insights and statistics. Don’t believe me, try to ignore at your peril.

Here is an infographic showing insights and statistics on UX design.

Find it interesting! Feel free to download. Click here to download

Insights & statistics on UX design

• 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience
• 90% of users reported they stopped using an app due to poor performance
• Slow-loading websites cost retailers more than $2 billion in lost sales each year
• Mobile users are 5 times more likely to abandon a task if a site isn’t optimized for mobile
• 53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than three seconds to load
• People who have a negative brand experience on mobile are 62% less likely to purchase from that brand in the future
• 51% of people 55 years old and older said a top reason for using their voice-activated speaker is “it empowers me to get answers and information instantly”
• Using infinite scrolling on certain sites can lower a site’s bounce rate. It's been adopted by Time, NBC News, and The LA Times
• First impressions are 94% design-related
• Judgments on website credibility are 75% based on a website’s overall aesthetics
• 83% of people say a ‘seamless experience across all devices’ is very important
• 9 in 10 smartphone owners who describe a mobile brand experience as helpful would purchase from the brand again
• 46% of people say they would not purchase from a brand again if they had an interruptive mobile experience63% of people would consider messaging an online chatbot to communicate with a business or brand.

Sources:
eConsultancy | Google | Forrester Research | AppDynamics | University of Surrey | Northumbria University | She­eld University

Infographic designed by:
Sirmind Patyal,
UX designer at Realmonkey