Often when commissioning a website you can have a pre-conceived idea and a mental model already in your head about how your site or application is going to function, and how the key aesthetics are going to be rendered.

In some ways you can expect the “magic” just to happen and for your site to just appear, and for the designer to understand completely what you need.

Often the simple truth of the matter is you know what you want but you don’t know what you need

Enter the UX (User Experience) Process; a way of identifying key site needs which in turn compensate the over-all experience for the user. This process is essential to draw out key factors, which affect the site’s information architecture, hierarchy, visual appeal and coding processes.

So what are the advantages to a business if employing this method?

In most cases site goals can be split into 3 categories

1. Selling a product
2. Raising brand awareness
3. Advertising a key product/service

If any of these points fit into your goals taking time to develop a UX process will only make your site ever more valuable to you and your clients.

1+1=3

Designing a site without first thinking about your users, their goals and your brand is pretty much like signing a death warrant for your site. You are in effect saying that your not interested who is visiting your site and the effect your application is having upon them.

By spending more time, budgeting a little extra resource and employing solid UX methods you can achieve a stronger web presence and achieve your site goals.

Brain surgery 101

So by now you realise the importance of having UX process and it’s value, but your wondering how it’s done…

In my humble opinion this is where it can go pear shaped, a UX process can be as small or as elongated as you wish it to be, you can spend months devising user and stakeholder interviews, analysing competitor markets, compiling flow models, mental models, persona details, low and high fidelity mockups etc…

You can end up missing the whole point of why you started this in the first place. So unless you have a bottomless pit of money and time I suggest a refined UX process that you should expect and will allow you and your design counterparts to get key points in your sites conception.

You should expect:

1. Interviews with stakeholders/ findings
2. Brief/strategy compiled
3. Competitive analysis and criteria/findings
4. Persona details
5. User scenarios
6. A theme matrix developed
7. A timeline of processes
8. Mockups to comment on and to suggest your ideas/changes

I can assure you then, that if this process is followed and you put the time and effort in you will reap the rewards and reach your goals not only for your business but also for your users.

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