This week we were asked to read through a scan titled ‘The 5 Main Ingredients of UX’ written by Joel Marsh. I read through the scan, made notes and chose three key questions from each of the 5 ingredients.
The excerpt starts by suggesting that UX design is a process and that these 5 things should always be kept in mind throughout the process.
The first ingredient is ‘Psychology’ which says that UX designers study users subjective thoughts and feelings and these can make or break your design results. So ask yourself: “Are you thinking of the users needs and wants or your own?”, “What does a user expect when they click on this?”, “What was the users initial motivation to be here?”.
The second is: ‘Usability’ and this states that whereas user psychology is mostly subconscious, usability is on the other hand mostly conscious. Usability focuses on making the design as easy to use as possible so that anyone could use it. The questions to ask for usability are: “Could you get the job done with less input from users?”, “Are you being clear and direct or is it a little too clever?”, “Have you provided the user with everything they need to know?”
The third ingredient is: ‘Design’. Marsh distinguishes the idea of UX design from the idea of artistic design which Marsh says are different. Marsh states that UX design is not a matter of style, it is about how it works. The questions to ask for design are: “Do users think it looks good? Do they immediately trust it?”, “Do the colours, shapes and typography help people to find what they want and improve usability?”, “Does it represent the brand?”.
‘Copywriting’ is the fourth ingredient in which Marsh again distinguishes the idea of ‘brand copy’ from UX copy. Marsh suggests that brand copy supports the image and values of the company whereas UX copy gets things across as simply and directly as possible. The questions for copywriting are: “Does it sound confident and tell the user what to do?”, “Is the biggest text the most important? Why not?”, “Does it inform the user or assume that they already understand?”.
The final ingredient is: ‘Analysis’. Marsh suggests that this seems to be a lot of designers weak spot and suggests some questions that help you to analyse your work. These questions are: “Are you using data to prove you are right? Or to learn the truth?”, “Do you know why users do that or are you simply interpreting information?”, “Are you looking for bad results too? Why not?”, “How can you use this analysis to make improvements?”.
Overall this was a really informative read and I definitely think that I will come back to these questions when I am analysing my design choices and working on my future UX projects.