UX Design goes beyond UI Design.
“User Experience Design” is often used interchangeably with terms such as “User Interface Design” and “Usability”. However, while Usability and User Interface Design are important aspects of UX Design, they are subsets of it – UX design covers a vast array of other areas, too.
At User Centric, we are concerned with the entire process of acquiring and integrating a product, including aspects of branding, design, usability, and function. It is a story that begins before the device is even in the user’s hands.
“No product is an island. A product is more than the product. It is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences. Think through all of the stages of a product or service – from initial intentions through final reflections, from first usage to help, service, and maintenance. Make them all work together seamlessly.”
— Don Norman, inventor of the term “User Experience”
UX designers don’t just focus on creating products that are usable; we concentrate on other aspects of the user experience, such as pleasure, efficiency and fun, too. To do this, we use data gained via qualitative & quantitative research as well as looking at market trends to further enhance the design.
We follow UX design principles
As designers working in an ever-changing field, it’s important that we develop an understanding of the timeless design principles that underpin everything we do.
These principles, which should sit at the heart of everything we design and build, are critical and will stand the test of time:
01. Visual Grammar
How To Communicate Without Words, as designers, we work – at the simplest level – with an essential ‘grammar’ of elements: points, lines, and planes. These elements, which were defined at the influential Bauhaus school at the beginning of the twentieth century, remain at the heart of what we do today.
At User Centric, we live by these teachings and found them to be one of the essentials ingredients of how we work and design.
02. Language & Typography
Language – the words we choose to communicate – matters, and it’s important we give it thought as designers. When embarking upon any new project it’s important to start by defining the language that underpins your designthis together with the ‘tone of voice’, will shape your users’ perceptions. We ask ourselves: What’s the message? Then find the right words to communicate that message.
03. Narrative Design
A guide to the universal principles of user experience wouldn’t be complete without stressing the importance of narrative design. As designers, we are storytellers at heart, and we need to understand how stories work in order to tell them effectively. Above all as UX designers, we create experiences, and experiences unfold over time.
As UX designers do not create screens in isolation, everything we create unfolds over a sequence of screens. As such, an understanding of time, and how it can be used as an integral part of design, is critical.
04. Inclusive design
In digital product design, accessibility typically means designing products so they’re easy for users with disabilities to use. Since we design products for people, it’s crucial that our products can be used by as many people as possible. A unique part of the UX designer role is the focus on removing obstacles for people when they use the product, whether those obstacles are temporary or more permanent. A great bonus is that following accessibility guidelines often improves the experience for all users, since it steers us toward the most usable design.
Recent experiences
Our work shows us to be agile, flexible, innovative and determined to succeed, feel free to experience our past work.
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The Uniform Studio
Providing clients with a more unified uniforms solution
We truly believe, the only way to ensure a company’s success if by talking to those who need and use your services, that’s your users. By talking to them, analysing what they are saying/not saying and aligning those facts to your company goals.
We call this our “USER” framework.