I’ve been working with Sitepoint to develop a series of UX books and I’ve needed to try and define what is UX is and what the tasks and outputs are at each stage.
NB: The following is very much rough and ready and is full of so many holes.
1. Researching the user experience
Understanding your user and gathering requirements.
Work / outputs includes: all the kinds of qualitative user research like user testing, ethnographic, user interviews as well quantitive methods like analytics, surveys and desk research (a posh name for “Googling”).
Books in the Aspects of UX series:
- Researching UX: Analytics (Aspects of UX) by Luke Hay. Amazon UK | Amazon USA
- Researching UX: User Research (Aspects of UX) by Emma Howell and James Lang. Coming the summer. Amazon UK | Amazon USA
2. Planning the user experience
Deciding what to do, how to do it and when it should be done. This stage is often grandly called “UX Strategy” but this is classic product management.
» Work / outputs include: user journeys, customer experience maps, user stories, Jobs to be Done, prioritised user requirements, UML (ha!), user stories etc. It can go as far as product road mapping.
Books in the Aspects of UX series:
- Planning UX: User Journeys (Later this year)
3. Designing the user experience
Rolling up your sleeves and designing the product.
» Work / output include: Information architecture (should that be in 2 maybe?), wireframes, prototypes, forms, designing for mobile.
Books in the Aspects of UX series:
- Designing UX: Forms (Aspects of UX) by Jessica Enders. Amazon UK | Amazon USA
- Designing UX: Prototyping (Aspects of UX) by Dan Goodwin and Ben Coleman. Amazon UK | Amazon USA
All your base are belong to UX
Thanks to Fabien for that pun
It’s pretty clear that UX encompasses a lot and goes a long way to explaining why the user experience can’t just be the responsibility of just one, jack of all trades, person. That’s why the books are written assuming you are already doing some UX activities but want to learn more practical and successful techniques from experienced user researchers, planners and UX designers.
The books in the series can help your skill up in particular niche areas. We’ve designed them to be read over a weekend so you can hit the ground running on Monday.
All the books in the Aspects of UX series are available through the rather great Sitepoint premium
I’m sure you have something to say about my definitions above, please add a comment below (as long as it’s not a picture of a desire path or a urinal).
Also if there is a book you’d like to see as part of the series add a comment.