Sometimes you use an app and realize that it’s very convenient. And sometimes you go to a bank ATM and get angry because you have to push a lot of buttons to withdraw money. The way you interact with a program or system is called an “interface”. UI and UX designers design applications and services. Their job is to create an interface that is simple, clear, and responsive. They are hired by companies that create applications and the services where they will work – banks, startups.

UX is a concept that encompasses the entire path of human interaction with a product or service, including the process of use itself and its result. However, each person’s user experience will be individual, so you can’t create UX, but you can think about what will affect it. UX design is all about finding and designing solutions that affect the user experience.

The key goal of UX-design is for the product, the logic of its operation to meet the needs and demands of users. However, there are also specific tasks that depend on the purpose of the system. For example, the UX online store must meet commercial goals. And if users will be annoyed by the multi-step checkout procedure, then this nuance of the UX will result in a loss of customers and profits for the business. Meanwhile positive UX, on the contrary, increases loyalty and people come back to the product again. The company Forrester, which researches the IT market, believes that a good user experience can increase the website conversion rate by 400%.

Stages of UX-design
Every IT company has different approaches and practices in UX design. When developing a new product it is better to start UX design from the very beginning and involve all stakeholders. In web development UX-design can be broken down into several stages. Designer Jess Garrett suggested a clear concept – 5 levels of UX-design of a web application:

Strategic Planning.
Developing a general concept – figuring out what and who the product is created for, how the solution will stand out and differ from similar ones.

Definition of functional and content requirements
Finding solutions to users’ objectives and selecting the appropriate functionality and content requirements.

Organization of the framework
Designing the architecture of interaction and organization of the content. Description of the actions to be performed by the user and the system’s response behavior.

Prototyping
A visual presentation of the product structure – an arrangement of elements (buttons, fields) through which the user will interact with the product functionality.

UI creation
UI design – the visual implementation of all previous stages.

Who is involved in UX-design on an IT project
A UX and UI designer in one person is a frequent request in the labor market. One person can be engaged in two areas at once. But the larger the scale of the product being developed, the more tasks for UX and UI – and in that case it is better to distribute responsibilities between different roles in the team. Especially nowadays UX-design emphasizes the improvement of various processes through the use of the product. And this requires immersion in the area for which the product is being developed, an analysis of the whole industry and competitors. And it already goes beyond the usual tasks of a UI-designer.

A specialist who designs UX, in job vacancies may be called differently: UX/UI-designer, UX-analyst, UX-architect, UX-researcher. Each company will have different requirements and tasks for these roles. For example, at ScienceSoft, the UX specialist competencies are held by business analysts. While gathering requirements for a software solution, analysts study business and user needs, and understanding these issues is at the core of UX design.