Let me start by repeating the concept of " User Experience Design" that we mentioned in the first lecture. " User Experience" or UX is the quality of experience a person has when interacting with a specific design.
Okie, from the concept, we all know that different person will have different expectations/ needs/ feelings when interacting with a specific design, thus different person will have different experiences with the same design.
So, a question raised here is that what a designer should do to design for UX ?
Let me borrow a Chinese proverb that Mr Reddy mentioned in class. That is " Walking ten thousand miles of world is better than reading ten thousand scrolls of book". The implication of that proverb in UX design is that as a designer for UX we should go into the world of the user, stand in the user's point of view, try to understand what user wants and needs , try to predict user's emotion, etc because the UX design is ultimately for the user, not for the designer.
How can a UX designer can do that? How should a designer do to create a product for many people while different people will definitely have different tastes, needs and wants?
After doing a group project in designing a happy website, namely SHmile, I have accumulated some experiences in designing for UX. Let me share with you !
- Defining your target audiences ( their profile, their need and appreciation pleasure, etc) will decide your product ( theme of product, content, appearance, functionality, etc)
- Designing skill is very important in delivering your ideas to the audiences in asking their opinions. If you can't deliver your ideas perfectly to the users, your product won't be improved in an effective way.
- Users' feedback are very important. No matter what/ how users feedback about your product, please listen and value all. There is no wrong or right feedback.
- However, as a designer, you should have your own stand also. You can't satisfy every user. You can change this feature to satisfy user A. But what might happen if your change for user A will make user B dissatisfied ? Hence, as a designer, you should take into consideration every feedback. And at the same time, you MUST decide what change should be made based on the majority of users' opinions Plus your own stand. So, can we say designing for UX is quite intuitive in that sense?
- Users' experiences are very subjective and unstable. At this point of time, user A might have a very good experience / emotion/ response with your product. But at other time, such response might change. As a result, good UX design will become bad UX design. Hence, I realize that creating a channel for users to keep sending their feedbacks ( these feedbacks might be how users' needs are changed , etc) is very important in improving/ implementing and sustaining the design. For SHmile website, I suggest that our group should enable a feedback channel for the users ( through sending email to the moderator, through voting, through ranking, etc). Then, based on that, our team will have some necessary improvements to satisfy users' needs in the long run.
