What is user experience (UX)?

What is user experience (UX)

Ever clicked on a website and immediately wanted to throw your computer out the window? Or found yourself tapping aimlessly around an app, wondering why something so simple feels so impossible? Welcome to the world of bad UX (trust us, we've all been there).

But what exactly is UX, and why should anyone care? In this guide, we’re going to break down everything you need to know about the overall user experience, from its foundations to how it shapes the digital products we interact with every day. No jargon (well, minimal jargon), no fluff (seriously zero fluff), just practical insights into why some digital products feel like magic while others feel like punishment.

What is UX? (and why you should care)

UX stands for user experience. It's about how people feel when they're using a product. Not just digital products, UX principles apply to everything from doorknobs to car dashboards. But for our purposes, we're focusing on digital experiences and the processes behind them: websites, apps, software, and all those screens you stare at for hours every day.

Don Parker, a design leader at Figma, once said, "UX is about designing products that are useful, usable, and delightful." That pretty much nails it. Good UX means creating something that:

Solves a real problem (useful)
Is easy to figure out (usable)
Doesn't make you want to scream into a pillow (delightful)

What's important to understand is that UX isn't just about making things pretty. While visual and graphic design is certainly part of it (we'll get to that), UX encompasses everything from how a product functions to how it's organized to how it makes you feel when you're using it.

Think about the apps on your phone that you love using. What makes them different from the ones you only open when absolutely necessary? Chances are, the ones you enjoy have thought carefully about your needs, goals, and pain points.

What UX Isn’t (and why people get it wrong)

Myth 1: “UX = UI”

Nope. The user interface (UI) is the look (i.e. buttons, colors, fonts). UX is the feel; how those buttons work together. UI design prioritizes visual elements and usability while UX design prioritizes the natural intuitive flow of user interactions. Imagine a gorgeous restaurant app (UI) that crashes when you try to pay (UX disaster). UI design is the skin; UX design is the nervous system.

Myth 2: “UX is a quick fix”

Slapping a chatbot on your broken help center isn’t UX. Real UX digs into why users are frustrated in the first place. As one source bluntly puts it: “Most sites with bad UX need to start over, not get a Band-Aid”.

Myth 3: “one size fits all”

Your grandma’s medication tracker app shouldn’t work like a TikTok clone. Context is king. A fitness app used mid-workout needs big buttons and zero distractions. Save the fancy animations for the post-workout celebration screen.

Myth 4: “UX = making things cool”

Sure, parallax scrolling looks neat until it slows down load times. A study found 53% of users abandon sites that take over 3 seconds to load. Fancy effects mean nothing if they sabotage functionality.

The elements of UX: more than just shiny buttons

So what exactly goes into user experience design? Let's break down the key components of user experience design into some of its more fundamental core elements:

User research

The foundation of user-centered design is to create the best possible customer experience. All good UX starts with understanding the people who'll be using your product and optimizing for problem-solving before it happens. User research involves methods like:

Interviews: Talking directly with potential users about their needs, habits, user journeys, and pain points
Surveys: Collecting quantitative data from larger groups
Usability testing: Watching people try to use your product (or a prototype) and noting where they struggle
Analytics: Looking at how people actually behave when using your product

Through this research, UX professionals build empathy for their users and identify opportunities to serve them better. This isn't just touchy-feely stuff; it's practical design thinking that prevents you from building products nobody wants or needs.

Information architecture

Information Architecture (IA) is about organizing content in a way that makes sense. Think of it as creating a map for your end-users so they don't get lost.

Good IA answers questions like:

How will users navigate through the product?
How should information be categorized and labeled?
What mental models do users already have, and how can we align with them?

Ever visited a website where you couldn't find what you were looking for, even though you knew it was there somewhere? That's poor information architecture at work.

Interaction design

Interaction design focuses on how users and products communicate with each other. It's about product development that prioritizes intuitive, seamless interactions that feel natural.

This includes designing:

Microinteractions: Small moments like what happens when you like a post
Navigation systems: How users move through the product
Feedback mechanisms: How the product communicates what's happening

Great interaction design often goes unnoticed because it feels so natural. It's only when something behaves unexpectedly that we tend to pay attention.

Visual design

Visual design is what most people think of when they hear "design"; the colors, typography, imagery, and overall aesthetic of a product. While it's just one component of UX, it's an important one.

Effective visual design:

Creates hierarchy (helping users know what's most important)
Establishes brand identity and emotional connection
Improves readability and reduces cognitive load
Guides users through complex processes

A beautiful app that's impossible to use isn't good UX. But neither is an incredibly functional app that looks like it was designed in 1997 (unless that's intentionally part of its charm).

Product design

Product design is the process of identifying a market opportunity, clearly defining the problem, developing a proper solution for that problem, and validating the solution with real users. While traditionally associated with physical products, today it's equally applicable to digital products like apps, websites, and software.

Here's what product design encompasses:

Discovery and Research: Understanding user needs, pain points, and behaviors through methods like interviews, surveys, and observation.
Problem Definition: Clearly articulating the problem to be solved and who it affects.
Ideation: Generating potential solutions through brainstorming, sketching, and other creative techniques.
Prototyping: Creating working models that represent the solution, from low-fidelity wireframes to high-fidelity interactive prototypes.
Testing and Validation: Getting feedback from real users to validate assumptions and refine the solution.
Implementation: Working with engineers and developers to bring the design to life.
Iteration: Continuously improving the product based on user feedback and behavioral data.

In digital contexts, product design often overlaps with the UX design process but typically has a broader scope that includes business requirements, technical feasibility, and long-term product strategy. Product designers need to balance user needs with business goals and technical constraints, finding the sweet spot where a product is desirable to users, viable for the business, and feasible to build.

The best product designers combine empathy for users with analytical thinking, creativity, and business acumen. They're concerned not just with how a product looks, but with how it works, how it feels, and ultimately how it creates value for both users and the business.

Usability

Usability is the measure of how easily users can accomplish their goals with your product. It's influenced by factors like:

Learnability: How quickly can users figure out how to use it?
Efficiency: Once learned, how quickly can tasks be completed?
Memorability: When users return after a period of not using it, how easily can they re-establish proficiency?
Error prevention/recovery: How does the product prevent errors or help users recover from them?
Satisfaction: How pleasant is the experience?

Jakob Nielsen, one of the godfathers of usability, developed heuristics (rules of thumb) for evaluating usability that are still widely used today. For example, things like visibility of system status, user control and freedom, and error prevention.

Accessibility

Accessibility ensures that products can be used by people with a wide range of abilities. This includes considerations for users with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive impairments.

Beyond being the right thing to do ethically (and often legally required), designing for accessibility typically improves the experience for everyone. Features like clear navigation, good contrast, and keyboard shortcuts help all users, not just those with disabilities.

UX in the digital product lifecycle

Now that we understand the components of UX, let's look at how it fits into the broader process of creating digital products.

Discovery

The discovery phase is all about understanding the problem space. UX professionals work alongside product managers and other stakeholders to:

Conduct user research to understand needs and pain points
Analyze competitors and market trends
Define key user personas and scenarios
Establish business goals and user objectives

This phase is critical because it ensures you're solving the right problem before investing resources in building a solution.

Definition

Once you understand the problem, it's time to define the solution. This involves:

Creating user flows that map out the journey through the product
Developing information architecture
Establishing design principles and constraints
Defining success metrics

The definition phase translates user needs into a concrete plan for what to build.

Design

The design phase is where ideas start taking tangible form. This typically progresses from low-fidelity to high-fidelity:

Sketching: Quick, rough drawings to explore multiple concepts
Wireframing: Basic outlines of screens showing layout and information hierarchy
Prototyping: Interactive models that simulate how the product will work
Visual design: Adding the visual layer; colors, typography, imagery, etc.

Throughout this process, UX designers are constantly testing with users, getting feedback, and iterating to improve the design.

Development

During development, UX professionals work closely with engineers to ensure the design is implemented correctly. This involves:

Creating detailed specifications and assets for developers
Reviewing implementation to ensure it matches the design intent
Making pragmatic adjustments based on technical constraints
Continuing to test the product as it's being built

The best digital products come from close collaboration between design and development teams.

Testing & iteration

Once a product (or feature) is built, the work isn't done. Testing with real users in real contexts reveals opportunities for improvement:

Usability testing to identify pain points
A/B testing to compare different approaches
Analytics to understand user behavior
Customer feedback to uncover pain points and desires

Great digital products are never truly "finished". They continuously evolve based on user needs and feedback.

UX in different contexts

The principles of UX apply broadly, but how they're implemented varies across different types of digital products. Let's explore some key contexts:

Website UX

Websites often serve as the first point of contact between a company and potential customers. Key UX considerations include:

Navigation: Can users easily find what they're looking for?
Content strategy: Is information presented in a clear, useful way?
Performance: Do pages load quickly and work well across devices?
Conversion optimization: Are key actions (like signing up or purchasing) frictionless?

For websites, there's often tension between business goals (like generating leads) and user goals (like finding information). Good UX finds the balance where both can be achieved.

Mobile app UX

Mobile apps present unique UX challenges. Users are often on the go, using your app while doing something else, on smaller screens, and with less reliable connectivity. Successful mobile UX focuses on:

Simplicity: Streamlining functionality for mobile contexts
Touch interactions: Designing for fingers rather than mouse pointers
Offline capabilities: Functioning even with spotty connections
Device integration: Leveraging device capabilities like cameras and GPS

The rise of mobile has pushed designers to focus on core functionality and eliminate everything non-essential.

Enterprise software UX

Enterprise software (the tools people use at work) often deals with complex processes and large amounts of data. UX priorities include:

Efficiency: Optimizing for frequent, repeated tasks
Learnability: Helping users master complex functionality
Information density: Displaying sufficient information without overwhelming
Consistency: Creating predictable patterns across the system

While consumer apps often aim for "delight," enterprise software users typically value productivity and reliability above all else.

Emerging technologies

As technology evolves, so does UX. Areas like voice interfaces, virtual reality, augmented reality, and wearable devices are creating new UX challenges:

Voice UX: How do you design intuitive interactions without visual cues?
VR/AR: How do you create immersive experiences that don't cause discomfort?
Wearables: How do you design for glanceable information and minimal interaction?

These emerging fields require rethinking UX principles for new modalities and contexts.

The business value of UX

If you're trying to convince your boss or client to invest more heavily in UX, you’re not alone. Everyone from product teams to marketers and engineers understand the value of good UX (and, perhaps more importantly, the pitfalls of bad UX).

Cost savings: It's significantly cheaper to fix problems during the design phase than after development. Studies suggest fixing a problem after product release costs 100 times more than fixing it during design.

Increased revenue: Good UX directly impacts financial outcomes:

Higher conversion rates for e-commerce and subscription products
Increased customer retention and lifetime value
Premium pricing power (people will pay more for better experiences)Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantage: In crowded markets, user experience often becomes the differentiator. When products have similar features, people choose the one that's easier and more pleasant to use.

Reduced support costs: Intuitive products generate fewer support tickets. Every confused user who contacts customer service represents both a direct cost and a sign that something could be improved in the product.

Brand loyalty: Great experiences build emotional connections. Users who love using your product become advocates who recommend it to others, which is the most valuable marketing there is.

Common UX pitfalls: What not to do

Even with the best intentions, teams often fall into these UX traps:

Designing for yourself, not your end-users: When you're deeply immersed in a product, it's easy to forget that users don't have your knowledge or context. What seems obvious to you might be confusing to them. This is why continuous user testing is essential.

Feature bloat: There's always pressure to add "just one more feature." But each addition increases complexity and cognitive load for users. Great UX often involves saying no to features that don't serve core user needs.

Ignoring performance: No matter how user-friendly your design is, users will hate it if it's slow. Loading times, response times, and general performance are fundamental aspects of the user experience.

Inconsistency: When elements behave differently in different parts of your product, users have to continuously relearn how things work. Consistency in design patterns, terminology, and interactions reduces cognitive load.

Deprioritizing UX research: "We don't have time for research" is a common refrain, but it's shortsighted. Without understanding your users, you're essentially guessing at solutions, and the cost of guessing wrong is too damn high.

The future of UX

AI and personalization: Artificial intelligence is enabling more personalized experiences that adapt to individual user needs and behaviors. This creates both opportunities (more relevant experiences) and challenges (avoiding creepy experiences that feel too invasive).

Ethical design: As digital products become more influential in our lives, questions about their ethical implications are growing. Concepts like digital wellbeing, privacy by design, and attention economy critiques are pushing UX professionals to consider the broader impact of their work.

Cross-device experiences: Users increasingly expect seamless experiences across multiple devices such as starting a task on their phone and finishing it on their laptop, for instance. This requires thinking about UX holistically across ecosystems rather than as isolated touchpoints.

Democratization of design: Tools like Figma, Webflow, and no-code platforms are making design more accessible to non-specialists. This is expanding who contributes to UX decisions and blurring the lines between design and development.

Conclusion: UX is for Everyone

Whether you're a designer, developer, product manager, or just someone who uses digital products (so, everyone), understanding UX principles makes your digital life better.

For creators, UX provides a framework for building products people actually want to use. For users, understanding UX helps you recognize when products are working against you and advocate for better experiences.

In a world increasingly mediated by technology, good UX isn't just a nice-to-have... it's essential for creating technology that serves human needs rather than the other way around. By putting people at the center of the design process, UX ensures that our digital tools enhance our lives rather than complicate them.

So the next time you find yourself cursing at a website or marveling at how effortlessly an app works, you'll have a better understanding of what's going on behind the scenes.

And maybe even some ideas about how to make it better.