When my colleagues and I tell people that we are a UX/UI design team in an Artificial Intelligence company, we regularly get interesting responses or sometimes awkward silences.Â
Here are a few of the reactions and questions we get, hope it helps shed a light on what we actually do!
Misconception 1: UX and UI are the same thing
âOh, you must be very good at designing beautiful interfaces!â
UX and UI are not mutually exclusive, but absolutely not the same thing. Itâs nearly impossible to work on user experience without considering the user interfaces, and vice-versa.
âA beautiful product that doesnât work very well is uglyâ â Jonathan Ive, AppleÂ
Misconception 2: UX/UI design is about digital stuff
âWhat are the digital products you worked on?â / âYouâre surely good at all those design softwareâ
One of the most common misconceptions in design is that UX is exclusive to digital design. In fact, any discipline involves a user has some kind of experience, for example, the branding design is all about user perception; the industrial design can be how users interact and feel when using the products.
[Read: âUser in yer faceâ is an online museum of design horrors]
The design doesnât start or end at the edges of a userâs screen. Nor is it a layer or component of the product or service. It is the entire experience and an iterative process of the whole product cycle.Â
âYouâve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology â not the other way aroundâ â Steve Jobs
Misconception 3: User experience design is just about users
âIsnât user experience all about USERS?âÂ
Itâs true that we place users throughout the entire design process, design involves understanding usersâ needs, pains, goals and building user personas, planning of user journeys. It sounds right that the designerâs job is to meet users expectations and bring the joy of using the product.Â
However, UX design also has to meet business goals and objectives, it starts with an understanding of the product vision like, the reason for having this product from a business perspective, the target market to be considered, and the issues that this product can solve.Â
âUser experience design is the science and art of designing a product so that it is â easy to use â fits expectations and â meets business goalsâ â Susan Weinschenk, CEO at Team W
Misconception 4: Design is a single disciplineÂ
âDesign is an isolated principle, I donât know when and how to include design in my business.â
Many believe that design is a single discipline, the truth is UX design is like an umbrella term for a vast universe of disciplines, approaches, methodologies, and tools. All of these contributes to the success of a product or service.
My all-time favorite description of the UX designer is this UX Unicorn illustration by Conor Ward, the unicorns are 10 prime cuts of the unicorns are the disciplines that we should master to become an extraordinary designer.Â
Misconception 5: Design is optional/good to have
âCan we work on the functions first, and then your design comes after?â
People are misguided to think the design is an addition or something come after the âimportant stuff.â In fact, just like defining business goals, marketing strategy, sales, product requirements and development resources, integrating design into everything a company does is as crucial. Design is not merely an option, it is an absolute must-have if companies are to succeed in the long run.
Without UX/UI design, the product will struggle to solve both user and business problems to come up with good user experience solutions. Imagine interior designers building a homeâs interior design without understanding their clientâs functional and aesthetic needs, the outcome will not be satisfactory and there will be many iterations involved to derive the final outcome.
Misconception 6: The designer always wears black
âDo you always wear black?â
Google autocompletes âwhy do designersâŚâ with the suggestion âalways wear black.â Iconic designers such as Steve Jobs had championed black as the Zen-tech uniform, he contributed to a public image of the designer in a simple black t-shirt or turtleneck.
In my career as a UX designer, I canât recall coming across designers who always wear black (except for my teammate Lye Hoe, he occasionally wears other colors when he got no time to do laundry, but definitely no black turtlenecks, because of the hot and humid weather here in Singapore! ) Designers are mostly very stylish and love to dress up differently to express themselves.
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