UX Design charging down the beaten path

    This past Tuesday, March 21st, my ADV 4310 Professor brought in an old colleague to give a presentation about his career as a Digital Designer at Qgiv. The guest lecturer was able to dive deep into the User Experience, UX, and its relationship with empathy, heuristics, and mobile design. The User Experience focuses on having a deep understanding of users, what they need, what they value, their abilities, and also their limitations. 

    Before, I had a limited amount of knowledge of what UX was and how it was tackled by designers. I had previously thought that UX was the decision-making process which is actually the process of making choices by identifying a decision, gathering information, and assessing alternative resolutions. However, I no longer believe that, and it is thanks to the guest lecturer. He was able to shed light on what UX is and how prominent it is in the digital world in solving problems. 

    He began the lecture by showing a picture of a curved road with a dirt short-cut path beaten into the grass area in between the road. He made a connection that the beaten path and UX design are similar, stating that people want to follow the path with the least amount of friction possible so they will actively gravitate toward the said path. Now, intentionally that concept was difficult for me to grasp, however, as the lecture continued the dots were connected in my head. 

    He then went on to discuss how empathy and UX research are connected because the design needs to be built on the designers' ability to put themself in the user's shoes. One of the best ways to have empathy when developing UX design is by creating a Journey Map. This map is a visual representation of UX and ensures that every step of the UX is addressed by designers. Along with that, it also promotes cross-department group coordination, and it allows new ideas and perspectives to be brought into the design. 

    After, he went on the discuss heuristics for UI design and how we experience them daily without even realizing it. He stated that a big part of website design is to match the system to the real world, which means that the website language needs to speak the user's language and information needs to appear in a natural order. Although, in my opinion, the most important heuristic is creating an aesthetic and minimalist design, which means the website space is visually appealing with limited competing elements while still keeping high visibility. 

    As a soon-to-be digital advertiser, I believe that it is important to be knowledgeable about UX because, as I have discussed, it is vital for my future career. Furthermore, I believe the most important part of UX design is making sure the software is compatible with mobile devices; the system code needs to adapt the content, so it is consistent with the website hierarchy and format.