Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer - that the designers are handed this box and told, “Make it look good!” That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
A website exists for someone to see it, to interact with it, to experience it.
You might say “No, web design exists to sell something, show something, help someone. The experience the user has on the site is, or at least should be, important to the owner of the site, but their experience isn't the end goal. A website primarily exists to get a result.”
In fact my best friend recently did say that.
I'll agree that the purpose of a website might be to get a result, but I‘m claiming that the reason for the DESIGN is the user’s experience of the site.
Maybe the problem here is our definition of the user’s ”experience“. UX Design is a fairly specific process. It includes extensive research, creating personas, performing user testing and usability testing as well as A/B testing, etc…
I'm thinking more of a frame of mind, here, however. Everything you are hoping to accomplish with your website happens because a user is interacting with it. The user experiences your site from the moment she opens your web page until she leaves. If she clicks on a button, scrolls through images, watches a video, listens to songs, or purchases a product through the shopping cart you are providing, the design is basically the only connection to your site that she will experience. This is what I mean by the user’s experience.
This is just semantics, right? Well, yes, but this semantic distinction is at the heart of user experience centered design. UX designers put the needs of the user at the center of their design. This is a huge paradigm shift for most companies, even now.
It is common for companies (and designers, for that matter) to be thinking about their needs, their goals, the content they think is important, the actions they want the user to take when creating a web site. “We often forget that at the end of it all waits a person who wasn‘t in on all these decisions, and just wants to get the information she needs, buy the product she was looking for, or be entertained for five minutes while waiting for the train.” - UX Magazine The problem is that whether or not you have designed with the user in mind, they are still the ones experiencing your design. If they have a bad experience or a great experience, if they actually buy a product or leave frustrated because they can't do what they came to your site for, this is their experience of your site. This is the only reason for the design component of your website. The responsibility is awesome!
I can design something decent whether we involve users or not. The difference between the two is that if I don‘t involve them, we‘ll make mistakes and not know we‘ve made them. If we involve users at least we‘ll know what we screwed up.Back to Portfolio