Digital Humanities Initiative
Fwd: Blog Post – Four Pillars of UX Design
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April 4, 2022 at 7:35 pm #127095Matthew K. Gold (he/him)Participant
Great post below!!
Best,
Matt
———- Forwarded message ———
From: Param Ajmera (GC Digital Fellows) <commons@gc.cuny.edu>
Date: Mon, Apr 4, 2022 at 4:36 PM
Subject: Blog Post – Four Pillars of UX Design
To: <mattgold@gmail.com>— Reply ABOVE THIS LINE to add a comment —
[image: CUNY Academic Commons] (http://commons.gc.cuny.edu)
Hi Matthew K. Gold (he/him),
——————————Param Ajmera (https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/members/paramajmera/) wrote a new
blog post Four Pillars of UX Design
(https://digitalfellows.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2022/04/04/four-pillars-of-ux-design/)
in the group GC Digital Fellows
(https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/groups/gc-digital-fellows/)::Remember when YouTube looked like this ….
[image: YouTube watch page from 2009. Shows a still from the viral
video]YouTube
watch page from 2009. (Source:
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/youtube-website)Today it looks much, much different…
YouTube watch page in April, 2022
Most people would even say that over time it has come to look better, with
a cleaner layout, many new and improved features, and better accessibility
functionalities that allow more people to use the platform. Who made these
changes? How did they develop their ideas? What did they use to plan and
prototype their designs?The answer to these questions lies in the theory and practice of UX (or
User Experience) design. YouTube’s look and feel has changed because of
advances in UX design over the past two decades.Illustration of UX Design
UX design is concerned with visually designing the digital interfaces that
shape our experience with software and websites. It is a strategic approach
to visually styling and creating blueprints for a digital product that
fulfills the user’s needs and expectations. In the software or website
creation process, UX designers work like architects and craft the details
of the completed product. UX Designers create technical drawings, or
wireframes, for different aspects of software or websites that act as a
plan, model, or template. The software developers then take over and work
like engineers who rely on the architect’s designs to build software and
websites and work towards their final goal.[image: Sample wireframes created for a generic smartphone app. Plans for
different screens are created showing different arrangements of content and
interactive features.]Sample wireframe created using figma. (Source:
https://www.lapa.ninja/freebies/wireframes-mobile-free-ui-kit-design-for-figma/)In this post I’m going to cover four basic pillars of UX design.
1. *User-Centered*: As is emphasized in its name, UX design, places the
“user” at the front and center of its methodology. The “user” refers to
specific groups of people for whom a digital project is being created. UX
Design aims to understand and serve these peoples’ interests. Placing the
user at the center means testing the digital product with these users and
making changes to the design based on their feedback. Placing the user at
the center also means creating a refined understanding of who,
specifically, these users are and what their cultural background might be.
The more clear-eyed notion of the user that you are able to articulate, the
better you can creates the designs that apprehend and satisfy their needs.
2. *Simplicity & Minimalism*: UX design prioritizes simplicity and
minimalism as aesthetic principles. The “less is more” maxim applies quite
handily to UX design. Simplicity and minimalism involve controlling the
flow of content such that the user is able to navigate the software or
website without becoming overwhelmed by choices or information. Simplicity
and minimalism encourage designers to use blank spaces, consistent color
palettes, fonts, and other aspects of page design to arrange a page’s
content such that a user is able to gain a pleasing and meaningful
experience.
3. *Planning*: UX design is a future-oriented discipline. It seeks to
create “design documents
(https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/principles/web-design/design-documentation/)”
that map the user’s needs, the software’s goals, and creates plans to
locate those areas where these two intersect. Among the primary ways in
which UX design creates its plans is through a process named “wireframing,”
wherein every page of a website or software is literally drawn out and
annotated to gain a sense of the structure and flow of different designs.
These visuals serve as prototypes that guide the project vision and scope.
4. *Tools*: In the past, UX design used pens, paper, whiteboards, and
sticky-notes because it was employed to create physical products and
experiences like board games, cars, and even the layout of stores and
airports. When working with digital products, however, a number of apps and
platforms exist to streamline the design process and improve the dynamics
of collaborating with other designers. These tools often contain templates
that replicate the dimensions of laptop and desktop screens, smartphones,
tablets, and other devices. These tools also contain libraries of color
palettes, fonts, and interactive plugins that allows consistency across the
project, as well as build in accessibility features. Some tools to check
out include figma (https://www.figma.com/), miro (https://miro.com/),
sketch (https://www.sketch.com/), and Adobe XD
(https://www.adobe.com/products/xd.html).These four pillars provide an insight into the theories and methods of UX
design. If you find UX design interesting, check out this YouTube series
(https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ux+design+for+beginners) on
UX design for beginners. You can even access more educational materials on
UX design on LinkedIn Learning
(https://www.linkedin.com/learning/search?keywords=UX%20design&u=73722380)
(accessible with a New York Public Library card). -
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