User experience design involves creating and coordinating all digital and physical elements that affect a user's experience with a company to influence perceptions and behaviors. Starting a new project requires understanding the company culture, types of websites, and people involved. Well-written proposals provide stability and protection by outlining the project overview, approach, deliverables, costs, and payment schedule. Defining user groups involves researching attributes and prioritizing which groups to focus on. Prototyping and testing designs with users helps improve the design by synthesizing feedback. After launch, log file data and customer feedback are analyzed to identify issues and plan further testing.

1. A project guide to UX Design | Russ Unger & Carolyn Chandler
Presentazione di Valentina Marzola

2. What is User Experience Design?
Userexperiencedesignisthecreationandsynchronizationoftheelementsthataffectusers’experiencewithaparticularcompany,withtheintentofinfluencingtheirperceptionsandbehavior.Theelementsincludethingsthattheusercan
TOUCH
HEAR
SMELL
and the things that users can interact with
DIGITAL INTERFACES
PEOPLE

3. Starting a new project
It is necessary to understand of the project ecosystem: the environment you’re working within (the company culture), the general type of work you will all be engaged in (such as the types of sites you’re designing), and the people who you’ll be interacting with (including their roles and responsibilities).
COMPANY CULTURE
TYPES OF WEB SITES
PEOPLE WITH WHOM INTERACT

4. Writing a proposal
Well-written proposalsprovide clients with a sense of stability and protection, which can help alleviate many of the concerns that might arise, and it also allows you to define terms that protect both sides in the event that something changes.
The core components of a good proposal are: 1.Title page | 2.Revision history | 3.Project overview | 4.Project approach | 5.Scope of work | 6.Assumptions | 7.Deliverables | 8.Ownership and rights | 9.Additional costs and fees | 10.Project pricing | 11.Payment schedule | 12.Acknowledgement and sign-off.

5. What the project will accomplish?
A solid objective is
Easy to understand. Avoid insider terminology.
Distinct. Avoid vague statements; instead, use wording that seems like it will be useful when you’re prioritizing requirements.
Measurable. Make concrete statements that you can set an independent measurement against to determine your success.
How can a UX Designer help?
Doing a SWOT analysis = bringing out information of the company’s strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats.

6. What’s the project approach?
Themethodologyyouchoosecandependonmanythings,includingthestructureandlocationoftheprojectteam,thetechnologiesbeingusedontheproject,andthedegreetowhichcollaborationisapartofthecompany’sculture.
WATERFALL APPROACH
AGILE APPROACH
MODIFIED WATERFALL APPROACH WITH BETA RELEASE

7. Project requirements
REQUIREMENTS = statements defining what the site or application needs to do.
Getting to a consolidated list of project requirements involvesthe following steps:
1.Understand the current state of the site or its competitors. (heuristic analysis)
2.Gather needs and ideas from business stakeholders as well as current and potential users.
3.Coalesce ideas into requirements.
4.Prioritize requirements based on project objectives.

8. Define the user groups
1.Define your user groups = Create a list of attributes and discuss it at the company’s project, prioritize the attributes and define the user groups that you will focus on.
2.Plan for user involvement
3.Conduct the research (tab. 6.1 –A project guide of UX Design, p. 92)
4.Validate your user group definitions
5.Generate user requirements

9. Personas | Find the best way to put your team or your client in your users’ shoes
With appropriate research and descriptions, personascan paint a very clear picture of who is using the site or application, and potentially even how they are using it.

10. UXD and SEO
Search Engine Optimizationis the process of developing and maintaining a Web asset with the intention of gaining and keeping top placement on public search engines for specifically targeted keyword phrases.
UX design is critical to search engine optimization and you must take into account so that the environments you create will have a fighting chance on Google.
An optimized Web site relies on a structure and technology that facilitates the movement of the search engine spiders.
Elements that matter: Flash, Ajax, JavaScript, domains, directories, content, metadata, keywords, and link popularity.

11. From defining to designing
This point in the process is the right time to:
1.Ideate and visualize features that did not emerge during stakeholder interviews or user research.(many conceptual techniques helping visualize the context. Ex. Storyboards).
2.Prioritize project requirements.
3..Plan the activities and documentation you’ll be using during design.

12. Site maps and Task Flows
A site mapis simply a visual way to display representative pages of a Web site. It generally fits on a single sheet of paper and ells you the visual hierarchy of a site’s or application’s layout.
Task flowsidentify paths or processes that users (and sometimes a system) will take as they progress through your Web site or application. It gives you details of users’ options and the paths they will be able to take.

13. Wireframes and annotations
A wireframe is a low-fidelity prototype of a Web page or application screen, used to identify the elements that will be displayed on the page or screen, such as navigation, content sections, imagery and/or media needs, form elements and calls to action (CTAs).
To create a wireframes, it is necessary to understand what it is that you are trying to create for a user, what the connections are, and a general understanding of the technological limitations and expectations.

14. Prototyping
In the context of user experience design, prototyping is the art (not an artifact) of creating and testing all or part of the functionality of an application or Web site with users, and depending on time and budget, it can be made with analog, digitally or with other technology-based tools.
What Happens After Prototyping? Synthesize your results and turn them into something actionable. If you were paper prototyping, create digital wireframes based on the feedback you received. If you are already in a digital wireframe mode, update your wireframes and proceed through your project process. Or, you may need to take your feedback and update your prototype for another round of reviews.

15. Design testing with users –Find out how they think
CONCEPT EXPLORATION
Conceptis generally the word used to describe an abstract idea, but in the field of UX design, it is also used to refer to a conceptual design element that can be visual or text- based.
CONCEPT EXPLORATION: typically happens early in the design process, after you’ve defined your user groups but before you’ve gotten into the detail of each page or screen, and it needs to understand the kinds of responses and ideas that are elicited from your user groups when faced with a set of design elements. (one-to-one discussions or other activities)
Other methods: Usability test

16. Launch and postlauch
Once you identify your target set of users, you can test the Web site against any scenarios that appear to be high risk or that may have issues in previous iterations of the site.
AFTER THE LAUNCH? After you’ve launched your site, one of the first things you should do is begin to accumulate data on site usage.
THE BEST SOURCE: THE LOG FILE.
This information can help you understand where users are having problems by highlighting trouble spots on the site.
After you accumulate data from your Web site analytics and gather information from customer support or other departments interacting with users, you can begin to compile a list of questions to use in another round of design testing with users. analyzing the differences in responses may also help you identify new questions that were not considered previously.