User Experience (UX) Design is an increasingly important industry and digital skill cluster. But many people don’t understand what it is, think it’s more complicated than it really is, or overlook it entirely – definitely not a good idea if you’re looking to grow your business! In this article, we’ll go through:

• What UX Design is

• Why UX Design is important

• What the role of a UX Designer involves

• How to pursue a career in UX Design

What is UX Design?

User Experience (UX) Design, also referred to as Ergonomics, UCI or UCD among other names, is a discipline that’s been around for almost 40 years in both the non-digital and digital world. The Nielsen Norman Group defines UX Design as:

“All aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”

If a product or service has been designed with a user’s experience in mind, whether that’s to make a physical or digital product easier to use, a service more streamlined, or the process of a financial transaction smoother, then UX Design is at play.

Find out more about the difference between UX Design and UI Design here.

Why is it important? 

UX Design already plays a hugely important role in our everyday lives; almost everything we interact with has been designed with our use or consumption in mind. There’s a couple of key reasons why UX Design is specifically important in the case of digital:

• The digital space is more crowded than ever before; as of January 2021, there are 5.22 billion unique mobile phone users – that’s 60% of the global population that are now internet users, according to Hootsuite. Users’ experience of digital in general is therefore more important than ever, too.

• Much of our everyday lives have now moved into the digital world. Where ‘real life’ use was once the most important element, users’ experience of the digital world is often just as, if not far more important. One significant example is the use of mobile and online banking; data from Statista shows that 76% of people in the UK used online banking regularly in 2020, compared to just 30% in 2007. Ensuring these users can control their finances, source support and make transactions with ease is critical, and that’s where UX Design plays a key role.

• Specifically for businesses, the digital world offers huge opportunities to build and grow your brand, including everything from creating a strong brand presence on social media to making sales through social and e-commerce, all of which involve UX Design. We know businesses that aren’t embracing digital are quickly falling behind in terms of accessibility, relevance and turnover, making the business case for UX a matter of survival. To put it plainly, companies that invest in UX Design have a far better chance of succeeding than those that ignore it.

What does the role of a UX Designer involve?

The role of a UX Designer is extremely varied and multifaceted, and involves many different digital and soft skills. One key area at the start of UX Designer’s process is defining the target audience through user research and creating user personas. User personas are a detailed outline of your target customer and will include areas such as:

• Demographics and personality

• Routines and habits

• Lifestyle/workstyle

• Pain points and motivations around those pain points (specific to you and your brand)

Another key area of a UX Designer’s role is undertaking user research. This comes in many different forms and can be employed at any point during the design process. It includes:

• Surveys, which can be done for free and produce quantitative data about how customers are interacting with your brand and services

• User interviews: a great way to generate ideas and see what your ideal client wants

• Rapid user testing: a form of user testing that’s done quickly and is good for iterative developments. Rapid user testing gives quick feedback that can be flowed back into the design process

• Usability testing: a more rigorous and expensive version of rapid user testing which involves looking at how each page functions and gives in-depth analysis

• User trials: provides a lot of detailed information about how something is being used. User trials can involve friends and family or be part of beta testing. 

UX Design testing can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. The earlier in the process you undertake research, the sooner you can smooth out errors and the cheaper it generally is. Many UX Design skills can be self-taught and implemented using the resources you already have, but hiring a professional UX Designer is a good idea if you have the budget.

How to become a UX Designer

If UX Design sounds like a career path for you, there are a few ways you can become a UX Designer:

• You will usually need a degree to enter into a career in UX Design, according to Prospects. This could be in any relevant degree subject, such as Computer Science, Digital Design, Digital Marketing, Graphic Design and more. You can also find specific BA and MA degrees in User Experience Design, if you’re certain this is the career path for you.

• If you don’t have a degree but have a keen interest in web and applications design, you can teach yourself the fundamentals of UX Design and become competent in HTML and the software used in UX work. There are plenty of online courses that can help you get your skills up to scratch.

• You’ll need to get as much work experience as you can and build up a portfolio of your digital design work. UX Design is a competitive field and you’ll find that many UX designers start out as graduate trainees, juniors or information architects to gain as much industry experience as possible.

Download our Digital Skills Guide for more

To read a summary of Anita Bellas’ session, User Experience Design 101, as well as other key digital skills and potential career paths, download our Digital Skills Guide for free here.