What is UX Design?

When i first heard the term “User Experience Web Designer” i though it was just about laying out the web page in a way that gets the information to the end user in a intuitive manner.

Although this is close, it is not quite right. There is a lot more to it than what the simple statement above is saying.

Usability and research are key to this process. When i first started off down the road of designing and developing sites for clients my designs looked good but often i would build a site to the client specification and not dig deeper into the process.

As time moved on i found myself asking more and more questions on what they actually wanted from the site, these question all came about through the constant reworking of site at the start. Clients would ask for ‘XYZ’ to be delivered and not really know or fully understand what they wanted from the site or how users would work with it.

This is no reflection on past clients as when they approach Polaris Design they would have a vision of what they would like, but may not know what is available or have carried out end user questioning of how they intended to use the system. If this is a public facing website we can learn from the current site about user activity, and if it a new build we can also learn from previously built sites as to how future user will use the site. And leave them with a positive feeling about their experience.