UX = Design? Not exactly! What are 3 directions that UXer heads to?

When we talking about UX? What are we talking about? Graphic designer？Coder? Marketing people who can do photoshop? Not exactly.

Actually, since I am doing marketing now and many times we will corporate with UX and UI person, especially these days , the world has become Digital. But UX to some people, existed as an alien word.

To know more about what UX, I started to take a pathway course on Lynda to know more.

For UXer, they will be focusing on ways to improve the interaction that people have with technology, in order to make sure that they can do what they want to do and need to do without difficulty and without frustration. They will help to assure that people can understand how the product』s technology works, that the product meets their expectations, and simply put, that the product delights them.

And all UX careers fall into following three categories.

Design Career

Interaction design is focused largely on how best to create efficient and effective interactions between users and an interface.

These interactions could happen within screens, between screens, or even beyond the screen. As an Interaction Designer, you may sketch out screen-based interactions or even interactions beyond the screen with a pencil or on whiteboard.

When designing for the web:

Where does test go?

What buttons will be present?

How will the menus be placed？

How are headers/ footers structured?

Visual Designer will often start with the output from an interaction designer and will artistically create meaning, elements, and understanding of interactivity on the screen through the use of fonts, colors, images and space.

Visual designers often hold following responsibilities:

Design controls

Help with branding

Establish guidelines

Update style guides

Service Designer looks to design the entirety of the interaction that a customer has with a company.

Service designers often hold following responsibilities:

Understand needs

Identify processes

Enhance interactions

Visualize improvements

Information Architect, or IA, is most concerned with how best to organize information both on the screen and behind the scenes so that it can be found and used appropriately when needed.

Groundwork for product design

Who are the users?

What do they know?

How do you structure information?

Is stakeholder information correct?

Information Design is focused on making sure that content can be consumed as intended.

Responsibilities

Work with experts

Design user-friendly content

Create meaningful content

Maintain style guide

The Technical writer is charged with the task of making sure that important technical information is understood by the intended audience groups.

User research

Heuristic (Expert) Review Using available information and UX best practices to identify problems prior to conducting research.

Ethnographic Research Observing users in their own environment

Contextually Inquiry Observing users as they demonstrate their typical behavior

Most associated with uses is the usability test?—?one on one research method while you will provide test to representative use and then observe as user attempt perform those tasks.

→ How the product should be updated with the identified issues.

Accessibility Making sure products are usable by anyone, regardless of any kind of disability.

Websites and mobile resources must be designed appropriately to be accessible.

When user experience goes beyond the screen, there are often human factors?—?How physical products are used in light of human capabilities.

Ergonomics Assuring that the intended audience can sue products both easily and safely,

Strategy careers

UX Strategy

UX professionals work to understand and then design such that people will not only be able to use a product, but will appreciate and feel satisfied with their overall experience.

There are mainly three aspects that included: UX Strategy, Content strategy and Customer experience.

UX Strategy. Aligning business goals with the user experience of products.

Mostly, UX Strategist need to understand the following points

Why is the business intending to create the products that they want to create Which business needs are the most important? What are the budgetary requirements of the product development?

Content Strategy. Aligning business goals with the content found in a product or website.

Consistency is important, but can be difficult with many contributors.

Especially for some content focused platform, content are from different users or bloggers, so that as mentioned above, consistency is quite a problem to solve. As a content strategist, you may need to create a guideline which normally documented that show 『Do』 and 『Don』t 』.

More specifically,

Define who the users are.

Define the 『『 voice』』 of the content.

Explain how to align content with business goals.

May document workflow and web governance.

Customer Experience. The interaction between users (customers) and a business.

CX professional not only focus on screen based devices but also many offline and in person circumstances.

CX professionals often ask these questions:

Are the expected users interacting with the company in the expected ways?

Are there pain points with user expectations and company interactions?

CX professionals often design Customer journey, and then try to understand difficulties and identify causes.

Thinking about UX Career

Resumes and portfolios to tell your story

Building your personal resume is like a telling a story. To be best prepared when seeking UX jobs, you need to represent a logical UX package. You need yo fit into one or more of those career pathways so that you can fit into a mold that employers will understand. Your resume is going to frame your skills as an Interaction Designer, or a User Researcher or as Content Strategist, or as any other pathway that we』ve discussed.

Resume is important, but only resume can not tell the whole story. Portfolio is a good way to complete your story telling.

you can share your portfolio by following ways.

Public site

Password-protected site

Physical portfolio

What if you just starting out and do not have much experience?

Provide school project samples

Volunteer with local charitable organization strategize , evaluate orredesign their resources. (This can provide a great NDA-free way to showcase your value and skills)

Branding yourself with social media and web

You can check out http://UXCareersHandbook.com where you』ll find links to a variety of other online and offline resources to learn more about specific aspects of the field.

想看更多有趣的文章？ 關注微信公眾號：SaltAndPepper鹽和胡椒

或者是我的知乎主頁 點擊這裡

歡迎讚賞，留言板見：)

推薦閱讀：