UX Design Essentials Cheat Sheet

User Experience (UX) encompasses all aspects of a user's interaction with a company, its services, and products, focusing on usability, functionality, and overall satisfaction. It's a multidisciplinary field that requires understanding user needs through empathy and research to design effective and intuitive interfaces.

Core Principles

• UX is multidisciplinary, iterative, and a philosophy.
• UX is NOT just usability or a technology problem.
• Cost of fixing errors increases exponentially post-launch.
• Empathy is key to understanding user needs.
• Consistency and clear feedback are crucial for usability.
• Information Architecture (IA) guides user flow and structure.
• Visual design bridges information and interaction design.

Action Steps

• Define the problem: Is it Tame (solvable) or Wicked (complex)?
• Conduct user research: Interviews, surveys, focus groups, contextual inquiry.
• Develop personas and user scenarios to represent target users.
• Create user stories or job stories to capture user needs.
• Design Information Architecture (IA) using sitemaps and user flows.
• Create wireframes focusing on structure, hierarchy, and layout.
• Apply interaction design principles (e.g., Schneiderman's rules, Nielsen's heuristics).
• Develop visual design: Choose appropriate style (Material, Skeuomorphic, Flat).
• Test designs: A/B testing, tree testing, usability testing.
• Iterate based on feedback and testing results.

Key Terms

• UX (User Experience): All aspects of a user's interaction with a company, its services, and products.
• Tame Problem: Clearly defined, solvable, and measurable problem (e.g., bug fix).
• Wicked Problem: Messy, contested, complex problem with no single 'right' solution (e.g., mental health issues).
• Usability: Effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction of users.
• Functionality: Features must match user needs.
• Interaction Design: Designing the interaction between users and products (swipes, clicks, taps).
• UI Design: The visual aspects of the interface: layout, look, feel, consistency.
• Information Architecture (IA): The underlying organization and structure of content; the map of the site.
• Persona: A fictional character representing a target user group based on research.
• User Story: A brief description of a feature from an end-user perspective (As a [user type], I want to [action] so that [reason]).
• Wireframe: A low-fidelity representation of an interface's structure and layout.
• Affordance: What an object enables a user to do.
• Signifier: A design feature that communicates an affordance.
• Metaphor: Design language mapping real-world concepts to digital interfaces (e.g., desktop, trash can).
• Card Sorting: A research method to discover users' mental models for organizing content (generative).
• Tree Testing: A research method to evaluate the findability of content within an IA (evaluative).

Pro Tips

• For wicked problems, aim for 'better or worse', not 'right/wrong'.
• Use empathy and prototyping for wicked problems, but acknowledge limitations.
• Ensure functionality matches user needs; avoid overwhelming users.
• Typography affects usability and readability; use hierarchy.
• Content strategy includes planning, creation, and governance.
• IA informs UI; they are not the same.
• Keep users in control and reduce memory load.
• Mobile design requires simple navigation and large touch areas (44-48px min).
• Card sorting helps create IA; Tree testing evaluates it.
• Wireframes should focus on structure, hierarchy, and layout, not visual details.

Pitfalls to Avoid

• Confusing UX with just usability or technology.
• Underestimating the cost of fixing errors late in the process.
• Designing based on assumptions rather than user research.
• Over-reliance on design thinking for wicked problems.
• Creating too many features or irrelevant information.
• Ignoring accessibility and universal usability.
• Making users remember information between screens.
• Using technical jargon instead of user language.
• Neglecting content strategy and governance.
• Confusing Information Architecture (IA) with User Interface (UI).

Myth vs Reality

• UX is only about the visual design or the screen.: UX encompasses ALL aspects of a user's interaction, including services and company interactions, not just the interface.
• Design thinking can solve all problems.: Design thinking is effective for tame problems but has limitations with wicked problems, where empathy doesn't solve structural issues and scaling is difficult.
• Users know what they want and will tell you accurately.: What users say (interviews) and what they do (observation) can be different. Uncover unconscious behavior.
• Visual design is the same as branding.: Visual design is a bridge between information and interaction, based on all user perceptions, not just the logo or slogan.

Real World Examples

• A user needs to find contact information on a website.: Good IA and clear navigation (Session 7) ensure the user can easily locate the 'Contact Us' page, demonstrating successful Information Architecture.
• A user accidentally deletes an important file.: Implementing an 'undo' function or a confirmation step (Schneiderman's Rule 5 & 6) prevents user frustration and data loss, showcasing good Interaction Design.
• A mobile app has buttons that are too small to tap accurately.: Failing to adhere to minimum touch target sizes (44-48px) leads to errors and frustration, highlighting a flaw in Physical aspect of UI design.

Statistics

• Cost of fixing errors (Design phase): 1 unit
• Cost of fixing errors (Development phase): 10 units
• Cost of fixing errors (Testing phase): 100 units
• Cost of fixing errors (Post-launch phase): 1000 units
• Short-term memory capacity: 4-7 items
• Minimum touch target size (Mobile): 44-48px

People

• Don Norman: Coined the term UX (Apple, 1990s).
• Frank Chimero: Author of quote: 'People ignore design that ignores people.'
• Jakob Nielsen: Developed 10 Usability Heuristics.
• David Schneiderman: Developed 8 Golden Rules of Interaction Design.