The UX process is a map to building great products. It guides you from zero knowledge about a product, user, and business to a fully designed experience your users love.Â
The UX process is the cornerstone of good UX design. The only problem is that UX designers (and many educators) donât make it easy for new UXers to learn it! They use different terms and phrases for the same thing and confuse beginners with complex-sounding methods like "heuristic evaluations" and "affinity diagrams."Â
Weâre here to change that.Â
Over the past decade of practicing and teaching UX, weâve found a simple way to describe the UX process for absolute beginners and those designers in need of a quick reference.
Hereâs what weâre going to cover in this guide:
UX stands for User Experience and is the process of making a product or serviceâboth physical or digitalâuseful, relevant, and meaningful for its users.Â
Simply put, if youâve ever gotten frustrated, lost, or confused using an app or product, the UX designer wasnât doing their job properly.
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That still might be a little high-level, so letâs use a simple example: a door.Â
Imagine youâre walking up to this door. What would you do?
Push? Pull? Thereâs no clear indication of what you need to do in order to get what you want (i.e., go inside!)
Even if you put a big sign that said PUSH it might not be enough. The design of the handles screams for users to try and pull. Thatâs bad UX.Â
Instead, a UX designer would look at this door, talk to users, and design ways to change its core elements so that people know what to do right away. If they do their job right, every person who opens that door should do it without thinking. Thatâs good UX.
The golden rule of UX design is: the user > anything else.Â
(The person who built those doors above cared more about their aesthetics than functionality!)â
However, UX isnât just about making everyday products and services easier to use. The UX process is so important because it helps you to:â
âBuild empathy with the people using your productâ
âDifferentiate your product from the competition
Validate your ideas before committing to code
Create products that are accessibleâ
So how do you manage all those responsibilities at once? First, you need to understand the skills and tools that UX designers use, then, we put them all together into the UX process.Â
What does a UX designer do? The 6 core disciplines of UX
Before we get into the actual UX process, we need to talk through the tools youâll be using throughout it.
UX design is comprised of six core disciplines:â
As a user researcher, youâll be the voice of the user. Youâll conduct user interviews, usability studies, heuristic evaluations, and use all sorts of other user research methods.â
As a business analyst, youâll understand business goals and strategies and why they matter. Youâll help ensure business objectives are being considered throughout the design process.Â
As an information architect, youâll build the foundation and framework for your designs. Youâll design the navigation, create sitemaps, build the taxonomy, and organize information logically through schemes and structures.
As a content strategist, youâll use text and structure to guide users. Youâll help write copy and create, organize, and map out content.Â
As an interaction designer, youâll bring the design to life. Youâll create storyboards, sketches, wireframes, prototypes, and animations that map to usersâ mental models.Â
As a visual designer, youâll make your designs beautiful. Youâll create style guides, apply color theory, choose typography, create graphics, build icons, and design the final user interface.Â
Those are the core skills and responsibilities that every great UX designer has (although some people specialize in just some of them).
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UX Process 101: A step-by-step guide for beginners
The UX process is what brings all of those core disciplines together in a way thatâs repeatable and impactful. Think of it as your guide to making better experiences. When you get lost or frustrated, just return to the process and move onto the next step.
However, when you look up âUXâ or âUX processâ on Google, it can quickly get overwhelming. Especially if youâre just starting out or looking to transition from a different career like graphic design.Â
Rather than one clear set of guidelines, skills, and techniques, it feels like there are tons of different UX processes out there to choose from.Â
But hereâs the thing: no matter what terms or phrases you use to describe the UX process, the high-level steps are quite similar.â
The process boils down to four steps:â
âDiscovery: Find a problem to solve that helps users and works towards your business goals.â
Create: Build basic versions of a few potential solutions to that problem to see what works best.
Test: Get your solution in front of a few real users to get their feedback.
Build & Iterate: If all goes well, add visual elements and collaborate with developers to get it ready for the rest of your users! â
(If youâre familiar with the principles of design thinking, youâll see a ton of similarities between it and the UX process. That's because design thinking is baked into the process.)Â â
Now, if you just read about the core disciplines of UX design, this process probably sounds overly basic. Whereâs the user research? Or prototyping? Or affinity diagrams?Â
Jumping straight into those specific skills and tools can be unnecessarily confusing. Instead, we want to keep the UX process we just outlined top of mind and then talk about the specific steps youâll take during each phase.Â
Hereâs what that looks like:
âDiscover = Research & understandingâ
Create = Information architecture & wireframingâ
Test = Prototyping & usability testing
âBuild = Visual design & handoff
Now, letâs keep getting deeper and talk about the specific skills and tools youâll be using on a daily basis!
Want to get a better understanding of the UX process? Try our free UX design course!
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1. Discovery: Research & understanding
The first step in any UX project is to do research and understand the problem space youâre trying to work in. Thatâs why itâs critical, before anything else, that you fully understand your business, users, and product.â
Researching all of these elements will help you uncover how people use your product, how their behaviors impact business goals, and where theyâre having problems or issues. This is the launching point for the rest of the discovery phase of the UX process:â
âFraming the problem. Before you look for solutions, make sure youâre solving the right problem. This means talking to stakeholders like product managers and developers, as well as using âhow might weâ questions, thinking through your assumptions, and understanding the questions you need to answer. (We put together a free âFraming the Problem Templateâ to help guide you through this process!)
Create a research plan. Next, youâll decide how youâre going to approach the properly framed problem. A research plan can include all sorts of different research methods (we go through the most common ones here!) This could mean surveys, user interviews, usability testingâas long as the research method helps answer the questions you came up with when you framed the problem, itâs fair game.
Analyze your data. Now, dig through that data to see what it tells you. As a UXer, itâs your job to read between the lines of what users are doing and get to why theyâre doing it. This isnât always easy, which brings us to...
Use an affinity diagram to make it actionable. A really great tool that designers use to combine their research into actionable and understandable chunks is an affinity diagram. An affinity diagram groups your research data into categories that help you see patterns across all of your research.
[Optional] Create personas. Finally, use these categories to create personasâfictional representations of your target users based on your research. Personas help keep the user at the center of your process. If during the UX process, you get stuck, you can always look back and ask what your personas would need in that situation. We say personas are âoptionalâ because not everyone uses them. Personally, we donât fully believe in the usefulness of personas, but wanted to present them here so you can make your own choice!â
Whew⊠that was a lot to get through.Â
But thatâs only because what you do during the research and understanding phase will impact every other step in the UX process. If you get off course now or jump into solving the wrong problem, you donât know where youâll end up.
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2. Create: Information architecture & wireframing
Now that you have a better understanding of your problem and have done some serious research and analysis, itâs time to have some fun.
In the IA (Information Architecture) and wireframing phase, youâll generate and sketch as many potential solutions as possible. If you were building a house, this phase would be pouring concrete and laying the foundation to support the overall structure.Â
The tools youâll use in this phase include site maps, scenarios, storyboards, user stories, sketches, user flows, and of course, wireframes. â
Whatâs a wireframe? A wireframe is a simple, black and white âskeletonâ of a website or application. Wireframes structure the initial details and concepts to help clarify design direction and intended functionality.Â
Theyâre one of the most common and important deliverables in UX (and something youâll get really used to making as a UX designer).
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3. Test: Prototyping & usability testing
Once you have a decent grasp of the design and direction, itâs time to validate those designs with some real users.
In the prototyping and usability testing phase of the UX process, youâll create a test plan (i.e., how youâre going to approach testing), build a prototype (i.e., a low-to-mid fidelity version of your app, tool, or service), run usability tests with users, and then create a report based on your findings.Â
At this point, youâll be at a bit of a crossroads.â
âIf the feedback from your prototype was positive: Move onto the next phase.â
If the feedback from your prototype was negative (or just not very good): Head back to wireframing and incorporate your learnings into the next iteration. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.Â
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4. Build & Iterate: Visual design & handoff
You may go through multiple rounds of iterations on your prototypes and designs. But once youâre confident that your designs are usable and solve user pains, itâs time to move onto the next phase.Â
During the visual design and handoff phase of the UX process, youâll take your wireframes and add visual elements such as colors, fonts, images, and graphics.Â
This phase can get complicated because you have to balance new functionality with existing company design patterns such as color choice, button styles, and the controls you use. â
(However, this is also why we think creatives make such great UX designers! If youâre a creative looking to make the leap to UX design, check out our UX/UI Expert program. We built it just for you!)â
You can also use this phase to run usability tests and get another round of feedback on your designs.Â
Finally, when you feel like everything is just right and you have the approval from your project stakeholders, you'll hand everything off to the engineers and work with them to implement your designs.
Typically the handoff phase includes deliverables such as UX specifications of color, spacing, behavior, and animations. These can be handled through tools like Figma, Zeplin, InVision, and the cloud storage app of your choice.
As the designs get built into code, youâll test them out and give the developer feedback so that they can get the product to look and behave as close to your designs as possible.
Lastly: These steps donât always happen in order
Thereâs one more curveball we need to address before we move on.Â
The steps of the UX process donât always happen in order. In fact, itâs pretty common to jump back and forth between them. And while this may sound even more confusing, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it.Â
Letâs say youâve done a ton of research, discovered a problem space, ideated solutions, and built out a prototype. But when you test it with users, they donât do what you thought they would. Instead, theyâre even more confused and upset than they were before.Â
Now, would you take that prototype and start adding colors, fonts, buttons, and animations to it? Or would you head back to the discovery phase and see what went wrong? Â
That chain of events happens all the time in UX design. And for beginners, itâs often hard to realize that you donât know what you donât know. â
But thatâs whatâs so special about the UX process and about being a UX designer. If you talk to enough users, stay open-minded throughout each step, and continually test and iterate, you essentially make your job failure-proof.Â
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The UX process cheatsheet: Hereâs what the whole process looks like
To make things simple, we put together a free downloadable UX process âcheatsheetâ that quickly explains the steps of the UX process. Use it as a quick refresher or when you need to step back from learning UX and get a high-level look at each phase.
Enter your first name and email to download the cheatsheet:
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This cheatsheet covers pretty much every role and methodology youâll use as a UX designer. However, you donât have to use every method to solve a problem.Â
Instead, the UX process is dynamic and flexible. And a big part of your job is knowing which is the right tool for the job.Â
You wouldnât use a hammer to bash a screw into place, right?
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Whatâs next? You start all over again!
The work of a UX designer never really ends.Â
Depending on the product and your business goals, once itâs out in the wild, youâll see how it performs and follow the process again to improve it even more.Â
But thatâs the beauty of the UX process.Â
Itâs a low-pressure way to figure out the right solution.Â
Instead of being told to âjust go make a genius designâ, you get to talk directly to users and build the product they just told you they need!â
In short, if you continually follow the UX process, youâll have a foolproof way to build the right solution, and users will be super stoked.
Get your hands dirty and go through a shortened version of the UX process with our free UX design course!