Reframing the UX Role

The field of User Experience (UX) is burgeoning in the world of business. Frankly, working in "user experience"a bit of a vague job title. That fact, combined with the recent buzz associated with it, has drawn substantial intrigued confusion from my fellow non-marketing colleagues here at WWU.

So what, exactly, is UX? At its core, the phrase is self explanatory; the field is dedicated toward the study and improvement of the experience a customer feels when interacting with the company, especially on the digital landscape. There are many elements that comprise the digital experience of the consumer, so naturally, the field is split into several subcategories that focus on different pieces of one ultimate task: creating an enjoyable, convenient, and easy to use webpage experience.

Here's a quick overview on the different factions of the UX/Design field:

• UX Design: evaluates how the product feels for the customer. A quality interface employs a smooth, logical progression of content. Any inconvenience or disruption in a user's thought process breaks the immersion they have with the product. The role of UX design is to reduce interruption as much as possible.
• UI (User Interface) Design: Deals with specific details on individual webpages. UI designers focus on streamlining the interface for the benefit of the consumer. UI designers are concerned with the layout of the product. From placing content to designing the navigator bar, UI is all about the specificity of interface experience.
• Visual Design: main role is the aesthetic aspect of a webpage, rather than its logical flow. Visual designers work to make sure images/icons are pixel perfect and visually pleasing to the user.
• Interaction Design: Deals with the interaction a user has with a webpage or app, specifically when they are touching it or directly interacting with it. This line of work focuses on the crucial finer details that influence customer experience. User perception can be greatly influence be pleasing animations triggered by click, tap, scroll, etc.
• UX Research: Primarily concerned with data collected on user interactions with a webpage. Using A/B testing, UX researchers can determine which components of a webpage are disfunctional, therefore heavily influencing the consequential UX design.
• Front End Development: Deals with coding and implementation of user interface. In addition, front end developers program functions produced by interaction design.

While UX does place heavy emphasis on using personal creativity to produce design solutions, a valuable perspective to consider on all levels of UX is that of the consumer. Rather than hastily producing a conceptually sound product, one must first seek to understand the consumer. Who the consumer is, what the consumer wants... these factors are crucial to rendering a relevant product, yet are often overlooked by employees confident in their methods of design. To extend this notion even further, even greater comprehension can be obtained by empathizing with the consumer. Don't just observe their like's and dislikes, strive to become the consumer, share their preferences, and then determine the most satisfying way to address those needs and wants.

Like any apt marketer appealing to the consumer, it is strongly advantageous to conduct operations under consideration of the long term relationship between firm and user. Part of influencing user experience is offering a quality product with consistency and reliability. In order to attain an consistent level of excellence, it is imperative that departments like engineering and UX communicate effectively. With UX's recency in the business world, confusion over the exact function of the role is a common phenomenon. Sometimes, UX employees are assigned to cover several of the roles outlined above. While it can be a stretch for a specialist in one particular area, it is, for the most part, doable.

Landing Pages

One of the most common projects for a digital marketer/UX specialist is designing an effective landing page. What is a landing page, you ask? As Hubspot defines, it "has a form," and "exists solely to capture a visitor's information through that form." A "form" refers to an opportunity present on the webpage for interested users to enter their contact information. The use of a form on a landing page is one of the most effective tools for converting visitors into leads.

Note: although it is not a bad idea to add forms to a homepage, it is not a landing page since it wasn't designed specifically for that purpose.

So what elements comprise a good landing page? Focus on the larger factors like a headline that pops, a call to action, a testimonial, and a navigation bar.