Tools, UI/UX
User experience or UX is a term which entered into our lives relatively recently.
The sad statistic says that 28% of users leave app after the single use and never return to it again. Why it happens so and who could help to turn a new and cool idea into a successful and profitable business?
Probably, you heard a lot of times people referred to UX while discussing mobile apps, websites or any other interface. However, in this article, I will not tell you why you need an excellent user experience on your website. I am going to tell you about this industry and people engaged in it.
1. UX Designers — Who are all these people?
It is quite difficult to say exactly who is the majority in this area men or women. However, most evidently, we will meet a person between 25-44 age range with University or college education and females more likely than males will have masters qualifications level.
2. Wireframes design and prototype creation are essential parts of the product success
Research and analysis are important parts of UX creation, the very beginning stage of this process and of course each UX designer will suggest his own vision of this process to you. Nevertheless, wireframes design and prototype creation are the most common features of this stage. This is an essential part of the product success because the future of your mobile or web project will depend on this phase successful realization.
The final goal of this project stage is the understanding of your idea or business, strategic niche, product, your competitors’ deep analysis and understanding what they suggest to their clients, their advantages, and disadvantages. Design wireframes or clickable product prototype will be the final round of this process.
3. Design tools for UX creation
Design Tools:
Most Used Design Tools
1. Sketch
2. InVision
3. Axure
4. Adobe Photoshop
5. Adobe Illustrator
6. Figma
Most Common Pairings
1. InVision/Sketch
2. Axure/Sketch
3. InVision/ Photoshop
4. InVision/Illustrator
Top Prototyping Tools
1. InVision
2. Axure
3. Adobe XD
4. Marvel
5. Proto.io
6. Figma
Here we see the most popular design tools designers use during the design creation work process.
Principle and Balsamic are also quite common tools, however, they are not so widespread as the tools from the graph.
The company size has no influence on choosing the design tool and the strong leader in this field is the combination of InVision and Sketch. However, we also should not forget such condition as a location. For example, in India, we may notice Adobe Photoshop dominance of one over the Sketch.
4. Information resources
Self-education is a very important process for each UX designer. The things change fast and we should not lagged behind them. If you decide to look inside the UX world, you will understand that the most common informational resources UX specialists use are industry news sites and blogs, books, visiting conferences, articles in industry magazines and email newsletters. Among additional sources, we may see membership to professional groups, online conferences, and articles in academic journals.
On the graphs, you may find the most popular informational resources in the user experience area:
Top 5 Podcasts
1. Design Matters
2. UX Podcast
3. DesignBetter.co
4. UIE Brain Sparks
5. True North
Top 5 Newsletters
1. InVision Weekly Digest
2. UX Design Weekly
3. UX Notebook
4. UX Essentials
5. Designer Hangout
Top 5 Communities
1. IXDA
2. UXPA
3. Ladies That UX
4. UX Designer Hangout
5. Designers+Geeks
And among TOP 6 UX books you may find:
1. Don’t Make Me Think (Steve Krug);
2. Design of Everyday Things (Don Norman);
3. Lean UX (Jeff Gothelf);
4. About Face — V4 (Alan Cooper);
5. The UX Team of One (Leah Buley);
6. UX Strategy (Jaime Levy).
5. UX design cost
Before starting to review this paragraph, I’d like to admit that the average UX budget may fluctuate depending on different factors such as company size, country, etc.
The majority of companies considered this question is quite complicated and defined their monthly budget as «not fixed» however nevertheless we have the following statistics:
Despite the impossibility of clear understanding about the exact cost of UX the majority of companies agree on the importance of quality UX for their products and the majority of them are planning to increase their investments in user experience during the next year.
6. UX designer salary
The salary of user experience specialist may vary, and if you wish to hire a UX expert, you should understand that the price will depend on his qualification and experience. The final rate will also fluctuate depending on country and region, type of involvement (company, contract, full time or freelancer) and other factors. However, here you may find the list of TOP 10 positions in the USA:
1. Head of UX/CX
$135,000
2. VP of UX/CX
$122,500
3. UX/CX Design Lead
$120,000
4. UX/CX Researcher
$106,600
5. Web Developer
$99,000
6. UI designer
$97,000
7. UX/CX/Product Designer
$95,800
8. Product Manager
$95,000
7. Most common skills requirements for UX designer
A good UX designer should have the same skills as any other designer, however, he should have an additional focus, and this focus should be on — the user — the person who uses the product but not just on company business aims.
Among the most important skills for UX Professionals we may define:
- Research and analysis skills;
- Understanding the psychology of user behavior (user motivations and goals);
- Understanding the main usability testing methods;
- Knowledge of product design philosophy and its main principles;
- Deep knowledge of information architecture;
- Graphic user interface (GUI) creation nuances, principles, and tools;
- Prototyping and wireframing skills;
- Interaction design and its principles and concepts;
- Interactive prototype creation skills;
- Usability testing skills and the most common software/tools for its realization;
- Technical writing skills.
We may also place a little emphasis on programming skills, team and industry expertise.