A UX Designers Notes to Self

A lot has been written about the topic of User Experience Design on the web today, lots of books have been printed and lots of courses have been conducted. You may think it is enough to make anyone a UX Designer. But after working as a User Experience designer at Userspots the past year, I have come to realize that there are a few things that might only be learnt by experience, and I think they deserve their place under the blogosphere limelight too.

So, here are a few notes I would write to myself, some common mistakes of mine. I hope you can learn from them too.Content is the KingWhen you are in design school taking a graphic design or typography class, you are introduced to the wonderful world of Lorem Ipsum.

The dummy text which helps you focus only on your design without thinking much about the content. But, keeping the content out of the picture, especially in UX Design, is a big mistake. It is only when you put real content into the picture that you realise wrong assumptions you may have made.

While designing an e-commerce application for footwear, you may have written in your wireframes Adidas Womens Shoes. Well surprise surprise, the name of a real product is adidas Cloudfoam Vs City SS16 Kadn Spor Ayakkab. And before you know it, the product name has taken two rows of space (you naively had only planned for one) and your primary CTA is pushed below the fold.

Facepalm and proceed to pixel level adjustmentsDesign for Empty States, Errors & Use CasesThis is a mistake which I am guilty of making only too often. When you are chasing a deadline for a presentation to the client, it is easy to forget those screens that are not part of the users regular workflow. Such as error cases, or the case when the user buys an airline ticket with two stop overs and decides to purchase it with loyalty points rather than money.

Or what would the apps home screen look like when a user has recently made an account and there are no favourited items to show?Sounds too complicated ? Yes maybe, but these are real use cases which the user is going to encounter while using your interface.

Dont leave the job half done. Do Your HomeworkDesign Researchers are absolutely essential to any User Experience design team. They are the ones who get to know the users closely; they study the users motivations and expectations while using the interface; they also understand the clients needs and provide a neat bunch of analyses for the UX designers to base their work on.

But basing your work on the neat little bunch of analyses is hardly enough. As a UX Designer you need to be (obviously) aware of all the latest UX trends, new work released by leading design agencies or brands. You need to be aware of the developments in technology and any results observed from huge user-testing studies by reputed firms.

You cannot work in isolation, within the perfect square of your brief, you need to keep an eye on all the developments within your digital eco-system. Dont Forget the DeviceThe device you design for is much more than just a screen size. It comes with its own attributes which lead to a particular kind of behaviour among end-users.

For example, while designing for omni-channel experiences I came across this study showing that most users choose to do their pre-purchase research on mobile devices while they choose to complete their purchases on desktops. Mobiles are much more convenient for browsing through pictures and product details when the user is on the move, while the big keyboards of desktop computers afford a sense of security when you are typing in your credit-card details . Each device has its own speciality that as a UX Designer you need to be aware of and capitalize on.

Not considering the device while planning the UX is like planning for a journey without considering about the vehicle available to you. More Mistakes ?So these are four mistakes I make too often.

Maybe by writing them down, I can make a mental commitment not to make them anymore. I would love to hear from you too. Any bad design habits you wish to break?

Any mistakes you have seen other designers make that really get on your nerves? I am sure this list need to be longer and I would appreciate a little contribution from your side. Sign up for our weekly UX newsletterA weekly collection of UX-related links (like this one), brought to you by your friends at uxdesign.

ccux.email RELATED QUESTION What is the most epic long (at least 8 minutes) rock song ever? You can nominate one song and one honorable mention.

What is the most epic long (at least 8 minutes) rock song ever? You can nominate one song and one honorable mention.Woodstock - Ten Years After - I'm Going Home(Live) - YouTubeAs far as I know, this is the greatest rock presentation to date!

Below has 2 song parts that are from the same long album, Happy Trails, which, in its totality, is essentially a long jam. I include audio first, then related film footage for each part. Who Do You Love is a great cover song and the lyrics show such a spectacular sense of dark humor: the singer creates all these death-tinged descriptions of his belongings, then asks the girl to take a little walk with him and tell him who she loves!

Whats she gonna say, Actually, I love your best friend Max! Yeah right, and he remembers hes still looking for those Marquis de Sade designer chairs he saw at Lord Buckleys made from human flesh!Mona is such an amazing example of Love, Devotion, and Surrender, presented in a testosterone and estrogen laden rock anthem tour de force, and I still get chills from it; I find myself longing for consummation, in physical rapport with the song, through a form of dancing that may make the Tango blush!

YouTube