Ultimate Beginners’ Guide — How to start a New UX Design Project
Updated: May 28
Simply, user experience means the user’s interaction with a product or service — how they feel. UX design project involves the creation of a product or service (interchangeable terms) that later on provides a meaningful experience to the users as per their perception. The UX designing process of acquiring and integrating the product comprises different aspects, including branding, designing, usability, and function.
The UX designer is bound to make the user experience the best. In the context of web development, it is about attracting people to the website and making their journey from the homepage to purchasing fun and exciting experience. Therefore, UX designers and web developers utilize this process to anticipate users’ needs for creating effective websites and landing pages. They are determined to lead to a conversion for business throughout the designing process.
1- Why is UX Design Important?
When we talk about the goals of UX design, they are two-fold:
UX design improves the user experience (how they feel using any product or software)
To increase the adoption of a product
Alignment of buyer personas to reader personas
To use that persona to design a product within constraints of technology and business
In the digital marketing era, UX design projects are high in demand as whatever you do, you need a website for your business. And a great website with a great user experience will lead your business to conversion.
2- What UX designers actually do?
Let’s picture it, you are booking a holiday ticket on a website, but crap! You do not know how to go to the booking page. That is because the website is not user-friendly, and you will leave with the decision not to return to this website again. This type of user experience is terrible for you.
Good or bad user experience does not happen by chance. They happen because of bad website designs. That is where UX designers come in. They are determined to analyze every aspect of the designing process for shaping the user experience regardless of whether it is a website smart app or a digital product.
Here are a few qualities of a new UX design project for a good user experience:
Useful: Your elements fulfill a customer’s need.
Usable: The overall website is easy to use.
Desirable: The design evokes an appreciation for the brand.
Findable: Relevant content is easy to find, online and offline.
Accessible: Website elements are accessible to all users.
Credible: All contents are factually correct and believable.
So, what kind of projects do UX designers work on?
Websites
Smartphone applications
CRM software
Voice design
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)
Service design
And this is not done. With the tech industry’s growth, UX designers will find themselves working on a wide range of projects in different contexts.
3- How does UX go beyond UI or usability?
The phrase “User Experience Design” is frequently used interchangeably with words like “User Interface Design” and “Usability.” While usability and user interface (UI) design are significant parts of UX design, they are subsets of it; UX design encompasses a wide range of other disciplines. A user experience designer is concerned with the complete process of obtaining and integrating a product, including branding, design, usability, and function. It’s a tale that begins before the user ever holds the gadget.
An Actionable Guide to UX Design Project
To start your first UX design project, four steps are involved; user research, design, testing, and implementation. As they are the main phases of the meticulous designing process, many individual steps are also applied to make the user experience exceptional with a product, service, smart app, or website.
Don’t be confused with that. The UX design process typically takes place in this order, but you should be aware that UX is never-ending. You may have heard that “Designing is never completed!” in the designing field. Ever wondered what the reason behind that is? This is because you uncover a lot of insights that lead you to rethink your design decisions. You will feel the need to revisit or repeat specific steps in the UX design process to optimize and improve your designs.
To create a good user experience, let’s dive into the step-by-step process to start your first UX design project:
1- Conduct Comprehensive User Research
Research is a backbone and integral part of every UX design project. Without it, we would only be working based on our assumptions. It is risky to jump into any project empty-handed. Starting a project based on our experiences makes us fail to notice what the target customers or users want. This can be disastrous as what we feel with our systems because our prior knowledge and experience might differ from users as they have never used this system before.
To cut short, the UX design process starts with research because we have to think from the users’ perspective. It will help us realize how our target customers feel while interacting with the product that is made to meet their goals.
So how will you conduct the research now:
One-on-one discussion with users of the product from the target demographic.
Online survey with a set of precise questions about navigation or usability of product sent to target users.
Personas are fictional customers that you already have and represent real people out there.
If you improve pre-existing products, then user testing will give valuable data. This will uncover the hidden facts about the users and what they are struggling with the product.
Putting it all together, we must say that thorough research is always needed before you start strategizing your product or service.
2- Build your Design: Wireframing and Prototyping
Sometimes, you will find yourself overwhelmed with this much information. So before starting designing, for your ease, you can layout the user flow of the website about the usability of the product.
Wireframes:
After that, UX designers establish wireframes of your UX design project. It is a diagram or a blueprint of the product that visualizes the website’s structure. This helps UX designers to imagine how important elements should be utilized for optimal user experience as specified b user research you have already conducted. Important aspects of wireframes for an app, software, or website page include:
The allocation of space on that page
The distribution of images and content
How content is prioritized
What functions are available
What behavior is intended and accommodated?
Some of the best tools for wireframing are Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Balsamiq, and Invision Studio.
Prototypes:
Now that you have established wireframes, you will develop your website through prototypes. This one is the most prolonged and complex process in UX design.
A prototype is a drafted version of your website before coding. This step takes you very close to a good representation and interface of your website before coding has begun. This helps the UX designers experiment and explore the functionality and usability of ideas before full-blown development. This is meant to repair any errors or inconsistencies. Some tools include Proto.io, InVision, and Adobe XD to create a digital prototype.
3- Conduct Multiple User Testing
Testing is the core and fundamental part of UX designers’ job in the overall UX design project. This step helps designers improve the interface or usability of the product to ensure that changes made in the designing stage are up to the mark to scrutiny. It is a must step to eliminate difficulties and problems.
User testing can be conducted through a lot of means, including:
Simple observations
Questionnaires
Surveys
Interviews
So, there are two types of standard testing methods that UX designers use:
Remote Testing: When you can’t reach the users physically.
A/B Testing: Quantitative analysis to compare two different versions of websites in terms of UX.
By conducting thorough multiple user testing, you will know whether the design strategy is effective or the usability of a website is friendly. The experience will assist you in validating your design.
4- Implementation
You have finally reached the point where you will launch your website. But your work is not done yet. You will have to stay updated with users’ latest needs and wants. That justifies the statement we made that UX designing is a never-ending process. The designing, testing, and implementation of a website is an ongoing procedure as per the demands of users.
So how do you do it anyway? You can update and upgrade the UX design project by listening to the feedback and experiences of users.
UX Best Practices to Keep in Mind
Being experts, we are going to recommend some best practices for any UX design project:
Follow visual hierarchy
Incorporate Divine proportions
Create a smooth flow for users with fewer options
Significant and close element for easy to use
Include images by following the rule of thirds
Simple design with white space
Conclusion
The user experience design process can be time-consuming and complex. To assure customer conversions, utilize an optimum, effective, and up-to-date design that satisfies user demands.