Introduction to Design Thinking for UX Beginners: 5 Steps to Creating a Digital Experience That Engages Users with UX Design, UI Design, and User Research. Start Building Your UX Career

A UX designer is a person who discovers problems that users experience and solves them. In other words, a good UX designer should understand users and know how to find problems and solve them. ... UX design is about process, not just results. ... Design thinking provides a straightforward and clear explanation of discovering, defining, and solving problems you face through five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. (Page 10)

UX designers engage in a variety of activities, including user research to identify pain points and solve problems through prototyping and design. They are primarily responsible for advocating for users within the company… (Page 22)

…it has become possible to design apps and websites scientifically through data-driven experiments that cater to users' needs. (Page 24)

In the early and mid-2000s, the term 'web design' was more commonly used before 'UX design' became as popular as it is today. Back then, website design was often driven by subjective factors like aesthetics, without a quantitative understanding of how design choices impacted the product. However, designers now have a powerful tool in data, which enables them to objectively evaluate the effectiveness and usability of different design options. (Page 25)

In addition, qualitative feedback from user interviews and observations can provide designers with a more nuanced understanding of users and their needs. By listening to users and identifying their pain points, designers can create a better product that addresses those issues and provides a more satisfying user experience. (Page 25)

(Statistics Source: UXeria) 94% of a user’s first impressions are design-related. As many as 88% of online customers declare that they don’t really return to websites that were not usable / user-friendly. 60% of users don’t find the information they were looking for at a website. Only 47% of websites properly embed a "call to action" button, e.g. "Buy", so that users can notice it no later than 3 seconds after entering the website… (Page 26)

Once you understand UX, you will realize that it's not your fault or a mistake when you find the product difficult and uncomfortable. (Page 27)

Many people associate UX solely with digital experiences like mobile apps or websites. However, UX can also encompass physical experiences. Anything you do with your five senses, such as smelling, seeing, touching, and so on, can fall under UX. (Page 28)

What's important here is to plan and design a product or service from a user's point of view. ... Designers should prioritize whether they have fully understood and considered users rather than their own intuition or experience. ... create a product that is good for users, not for designers. (Page 29)

…the designer's responsibility to create a product that's easy and intuitive to use. Therefore, designers must prioritize designing experiences that minimize user inconvenience. (Page 30)

…emphasizes that it's the designer's responsibility if users make mistakes or experience discomfort. (Page 31)

What is a good UX design? It's a design that solves a user's problem. So what does it mean to solve a user's problem? It is about getting constant feedback from users and creating or improving products and services from a user perspective. As a designer, you should repeat and iterate until the user is satisfied, rather than trying to solve a problem at once. (Page 32)

The UI stands for User Interface, and UI design can be defined as follows: Designing the visual area of the product users interact with. When a user interacts with a product, there are various factors that can influence their experience, such as the color scheme, text, and layout of the screen. These visual elements can play a significant role in determining how easy and enjoyable it is for users to navigate and use the product. (Page 33)

UI design as the process of creating a set of rules that dictate the visual language of a product. ... With rules, users experience clarity and consistency when moving between screens in an app or website. For example, if the main buttons in an app are inconsistent, with some red on the screen and some yellow on other screens, it can be difficult for users to find buttons easily. (Page 34)

UX design tasks cover user research to understand users deeply. These include 1:1 user interviews, quantitative data surveys, user flow, wireframe creation, and user testing to evaluate usability. UI design includes most of the activities for visualizing high-fidelity prototypes based on the foundation created from the UX design phase. It includes color and font definitions, icons, layouts, and visual design systems. (Page 35)

If you subtract a user from the UX/UI design, it doesn't mean anything, and user research gives you access to understanding users. (Page 36)

'UX design' to refer to a broader concept that includes UX, UI, and user research. (Page 37)

No matter how great the technology is, it's useless unless it's what users want. (Page 40)

"Design thinking consists of 5 steps: Empathize - Define - Ideate - Prototype - Test." (Page 41)

Empathize. As a designer, you will discover several problems users experience based on their feedback, opinions, and data. The second step defines the core problem to focus on. You will also need to determine the target user. The third step, Ideate, is the time to come up with ideas about how to solve the target user's problem. The Prototype is used to develop and upgrade these ideas and create a prototype to test with the user. The Test is to show the prototype to the user and observe to see if there are any improvements needed, and if the product solves the user's problem. (Page 42)

The most critical out of the five steps of design thinking is the Empathize step. UX design is about solving problems that users experience. (Page 44)

Once you've set your goals, start with user research to understand users and find problems that users are experiencing. (Page 46)

…find out what people use the products, what age group they are in, what region they usually live in, and so on. (Page 46)

The data obtained from the demographic survey can also define the persona of the target user. (Page 47)

One-on-one in-depth interview is one of the most effective activities to learn about users' thoughts and intentions. (Page 47)

Creating a script to conduct an interview is essential. If you don’t have a detailed plan and the interview script, the questions you will be asking may not be consistent when interviewing multiple users. (Page 48)

I review applicants' UX portfolios with the following criteria. What effort did applicants make, and what activities did they do to define the target user and the primary user problem? Many applicants, however, only showed final design results and did not explain who they targeted, what problem they wanted to solve, or how they came up with the pain point from users. (Page 51)

No matter how cool or pretty, the finished product is meaningless if I don’t define the right problem. (Page 51)

You need to prioritize problems because you can only create and test prototypes for a specific problem at a time. (Page 52)

When creating a product, you must clarify who you are targeting. (Page 53)

…products targeted at young people in their 20s and those targeted at older adults in their 70s should be designed differently, including font size, color choice, and voice of the copy. (Page 54)

…it’s more likely that a better idea comes up when multiple people with different perspectives having a deep discussion, and validation with users and market, and refinement. (Page 56)

…if developers are involved in the idea-producing process, they can help come up with creative but practical ideas. And they can also provide immediate feedback on the feasibility of ideas. (Page 57)

Your team can ask questions like "How much value will this update bring to users?" and "How urgent is it to fix it for users?". It is always best to strive for maximum impact with minimum effort. (Page 63)

The applicant who is good at telling the story behind the idea, rather than just showing off how original the idea is, will be seen as a better candidate. (Page 66)

…doing competitive research and benchmarking can be a good skill if you can refine and use the ideas that already exist in the field to fit your products and solve the problem for your users. (Page 67)

A wireframe comprises text elements or shapes with minimal colors used. Those define how buttons, links, and elements work on a screen. (Page 75)

…workflow helps the reader of the wireframe understand how things are connected and interact on the app or a website. (Page 75)

The user flow summarizes what screen the user can go to and what tasks are given next. It provides details for all possible use cases when the user opens and interacts with the app. (Page 79)

Prototyping can connect multiple prototyped screens to give users the same feeling as using a specific screen of an app, so the team and you can naturally listen to user feedback. (Page 81)

…you should create the final design deliverables and share them with your developers. This is called design hand-off. Design hand-off should include everything from color codes and exact font sizes to detailed values (down to the pixel) for each object and precise spacing between objects. Once developers receive the hand-off, they can start developing immediately. (Page 83)

By letting the user see and use the prototype and observing them, you can ask them if they find the prototype challenging to use, and you can hear what they think while using the prototype. As you do this before the release of a new update, you can find problems or bugs and solve them before engineers invest their time. (Page 86)

Post-release is an opportunity to see how updated features or products perform. You can measure user traffic, conversion rate, and many other metrics to evaluate whether your product has achieved initial goals. (Page 87)

For an A/B test, you can modify the wording (copy), function, color, etc., from the previously released product version and make the revised version available to users on the app or website simultaneously. (Page 89)

…you can run a usability test before the product is released. However, you can also do it after the release. Bring in users to try out the released version, observe if there is any difficulty in using it, and listen to their feedback. (Page 91)

The principle of consistency in UX design is about creating a consistent and predictable user experience across all aspects of a product, such as the layout, visual design, and interactions. Users should be able to easily recognize patterns and familiar elements throughout the product, which helps to reduce confusion and increase usability. Consistency can be achieved by following established design patterns and guidelines, using consistent language and terminology, and maintaining a cohesive visual style. (Page 100)

In summary, consistency provides users with comfort, familiarity, and predictability, helping them to use the product without any hesitation. (Page 104)

Affordance refers to making it intuitive for users to know how to use a product just by looking at it. (Page 105)

Mental model refers to the expectations that users have for a product, based on their experience, training, and knowledge. A conceptual model refers to the experience or interface that a product provides. Sometimes, these two models may match with each other, while other times, they may conflict with each other. (Page 111)

"Information Architecture," which refers to the practice of organizing and structuring digital content to make it easier for users to find what they need. Information architecture involves creating a clear hierarchy of information and grouping related content together, much like how a grocery store categorizes its products into different sections. (Page 120)

In essence, information architecture is all about creating a clear and efficient "roadmap" for users to follow as they navigate through digital content. By carefully structuring information and grouping related content together, information architects can help users find what they need more quickly and easily. (Page 121)

User intent can be classified as high or low. High user intent means that the user knows well what they want to do and can follow a specific procedure to complete their task when they enter a website to buy a product. (Page 126)

In contrast, users with low intent have a rough idea of their goal but do not know what specifically they need to do to achieve it. In other words, they are in the research stage. (Page 126)

UX designers who create apps or websites need to consider both high and low user intent and design to satisfy both types of users. (Page 126)

…the top part of a web page is called the hero area because it is the most important and expensive area on the page that users can see without scrolling, like a hero. (Page 128)

One of the core competencies of designers is the ability to visualize ideas. (Page 133)

…wireframes do not require a fixed color scheme or font size, and visual elements do not have to be pixel-perfect. In fact, it's perfectly acceptable to create wireframes using office tools like PowerPoint or Google Slides. Ultimately, the purpose of wireframes is to provide a rough draft of the design, which can then be refined and improved upon in later stages of the design process. (Page 136)

However, once you get the hang of it, you can use Figma to create not only wireframes, but also UI designs, design systems, and more. (Page 137)

Portfolios can be created in website or PDF format. (Page 146)