User Experience Design: A Definition

User Experience December 25, 2007

When it comes to technology, "design" is a long-term engagement between the user and the product. It is the user's whole experience: from interacting with the product to how the product looks and feels to what the user takes away from it.


I've mentioned the mental model before in other posts: Goal + Action = Expectation. Design is about creating something that meets some expectation. It's the "Action" part of the equation. It's not at all limited to simply graphics or materials but rather, it encompasses everything. User Experience Design in particular is concerned with utilizing all aspects of design for creating just that - a great user experience, a satisfying emotion as the user accomplishes the goal.

Like all designers, creating a great user experience requires research and understanding. But it's not necessarily the same kind of understanding that artists or engineers have. Graphic artists will come to understand typography and digital design as well as color theory and techniques. Engineers will study the math foundations of computer science and how to think of fast and efficient algorithms to create complex tasks. But UXD (user experience design) includes two more elements: psychology and communication.

Psychology and Communication are two extremely big factors in UXD aside from art and engineering. From the psychology side, we want to observe people, try to understand what makes them feel good, what things they enjoy doing and how best to help them achieve their goals. The communication comes into play in our efforts to, in a sense, carry out a conversation with our users in their experience with the product.

UXD is not any one particular field. Rather, it takes aspects of art, engineering and humanity and bring it all together in the end.

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