The Secret to a Great Product: Superb UX

Oh no. It’s happening.

You’re sitting in a meeting and one of those horribly awkward moments has arrived when no one knows the answer to an important question: how do we incorporate User Experience (UX) into this project?

Your company has heard about UX, realized its importance, and hired all the right people but…now what? Nobody in the meeting seems to know exactly how to make sure that your product promises a good user experience.

Don’t fret. Incorporating user-centered design techniques into a project isn’t hard. But it can present some challenges. You can’t just say, “Let’s add UX to this project” or, “Let’s include a few UX professionals to the team and call it a day.” It takes more than that. So here are a few things that the whole team should keep in mind as you’re building a UX strategy for your project.

Time

While most UX techniques can be accomplished fairly quickly, it’s important to develop realistic time frames for your project. Don’t forget to allot enough time for each technique to be conducted and analyzed.

Resources

A UX professional’s job is made much easier when they have access to the software and hardware necessary to conduct surveys, make prototypes, run usability studies, and develop user flows.

Users

Often, this aspect can be one of the hardest to fulfill, but without exception, your team needs access to actual users. Whether you learn about your users through site analytics or face-to-face interviews, do everything you can to better understand your users.

Compromise

Sometimes certain standards, best practices, and design trends can be at odds with what your users need and want. In these situations, creativity is required to find a compromise and come up with a solution that works best for your product.

Collaboration

Everyone on the team (e.g., designers, content writers, and project managers) needs to be open to the idea of collecting user research and allowing it to help guide the process. Otherwise, the work of the UX team will not be as effective.

By keeping the above criteria in mind, you can do the UX professionals, other team members, and yourself a big service. The result? A well-designed, usable product. Oh – and happy users.