If you've not heard of the term user experience (UX), the clue's in the title. It's about creating a great experience for the users of your website. And that's less about making it look aesthetically pleasing and more about making it easy and intuitive to use.
The secret to a good UX is not to make users have to think about what they're doing: it should come naturally to them to find what they're looking for and interact with your site. In a web design agency, user experience may be the responsibility of the team as a whole or a specific UX designer. There are even entire firms that specialise in user experience consultancy.
UX is not a last-minute consideration – it's something that you should be implementing from when you start planning and creating website mockups. And if this is all sounding a bit wishy-washy, you'll be pleased to hear there are plenty of user testing tools and processes around to help you objectively gauge how successful your user experience design is (check out how you can even learn a bunch of UX lessons from public toilets – yes really).
In this post we've grouped together the best articles, interviews and tips on the subject of user experience. Whatever your level of expertise, you're bound to find something to help your understanding and improve your technique. And we'll keep coming back to this post and updating it, so make sure you bookmark it.
After a basic introduction to the world of user experience? This article runs down six key things you need to make sure you're doing if you're going to offer a great UX. These six essential pillars form the foundation of a website that is intuitive and pleasant to use.
Bear with us for a second. If you're looking to get started in UX design, you can learn some fundamental lessons by focusing on... ahem... basic functions. In this amusing but super-useful article, Chris How runs through the UX lessons you can learn from public bathrooms.
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Fascinating insights into why we design interfaces the way we do
Laws of UX explores the links between UX design and 10 key psychological principles, to provide valuable guidance for designers building user interfaces. On this helpful site, each of the 10 vital UX rules is accompanied by an overview, explanation, and a selection of further reading to dig into. It's also beautifully designed and a breeze to navigate, with subtle animations that help the information shine.
We see these errors on websites time and time again
Not sure where to start improving your UX? This article outlines seven major mistakes we see on websites time and time again. Make sure you're not annoying your visitors by avoiding these major web design blunders.
Do you know what TED stands for? Technology, education, design. As such, there have been plenty of talks exploring the intersection of technology and design over the years. Here we've rounded up the best – starting with Tom Wujec's 'Got a wicked problem? First, tell me how you make toast'.
You don't need to be rolling in dosh to craft a great user experience. This post offers some advice for improving your UX workflow if when cash is in short supply – ideal for small teams and startups.
This in-depth article runs through the steps you need to take to successfully test the user experience on your websites. Learn how to figure out the right questions to ask, and what to do with the data once you've gathered it.
08. Unified UX
In this talk from the Generate New York 2016 conference, Cameron Moll takes on the challenge presented by the increasing numbers of devices and connected objects in the digital landscape. He offers advice for how to create an experience that flows seamlessly between different devices as the user moves from one to another.
Tailor your mobile experiences to keep your users happy
It's no secret that mobile browsing is still on the up. It's no good designing an experience that works perfectly on desktop but falls apart on mobile. So with that in mind, this tutorial rounds up advice for keeping your mobile users happy.
10. Building device-agnostic UX systems
Users increasingly switch between different devices to complete the same task, depending on what's convenient for them at the time. This means our UX strategy now has to transcend devices – offering a consistent experience no matter where the user is coming from. This Generate talk from Anna Dahlström will help you get started.
This long-read takes a closer look at the scientific theory behind user experience. It explores the type of data you can collect and how to find the right meaning in this data to inform the user experiences you design.
12. Conflict is the key to great UX
Many people would argue that good UX is about creating smooth, snag-free experiences, but in his Generate talk, Steve Fisher presents the idea that conflict is an essential ingredient.
Ruth spent a couple of years as Deputy Editor of Creative Bloq, and has also either worked on or written for almost all of the site's former and current design print titles, from Computer Arts to ImagineFX. She now spends her days reviewing small appliances as the Homes Editor at TechRadar, but still occasionally writes about design on a freelance basis in her spare time.
