When it comes to aesthetics people have different perceptions and misconceptions. Same is with web designing, as it is a form of art and art certainly comes with misconceptions.

Perhaps, after quite a lot of analysis web designers have reached to a consensus that the Consumerization of web development is the ‘ne plus ultra’ for success in web design.

We have seen its positive impact on business and it can also be seen in the graph mentioned below.

This was the upper crust of the web designing with which everyone do agree but speaking of the inner intricacies in web designing there are various misconceptions which still have strong roots. In this article we will discuss them and try to understand the discipline of web designing more clearly.

1. Intermixing designing terms

The biggest myth in the industry is that designers fail to understand the difference between the terms called as user experience, service design and customer experience.

User Experience

Being into designing from quite sometime, I figured out the difference between the basic designing terms. User experience primarily focuses on the design pattern and implementation of a single customer touch point. The main aim is to make the touch point more intuitive. In a website and mobile app, a touch point means the experiences and they can occur in the form of paper invoice, kiosk or interactive voice responder. There are times when people perceive touch point as channels, such as a website or an in-store, where in a touch point is the single point of interaction. The firms use them to provide their customer an optimal experience with its products and services. It definitely works on user’s behavior with minimizing the time and efforts for a task.

Competency:

In order to create good user experience the users need to have different competencies. User research and analytics, interaction design, information architecture, content strategy, visual design and front-end developers are the requisites of a strong team for creating a good user experience website.

Customer Experience

On the other hand customer experience aims to design and place the touch points aptly throughout the entire journey of the users. However, the customers can not differentiate between a touch point and a channel; all they need is a flawless experience. Thus, in order to accomplish this we need to see that how they hop form one touch point to another. So, you need to craft brilliantly what each of the touch point do. Thus, omni-channel experiences can allow customers to help them to sway through the website using their preferred path.

Be consistent!

All your earnest efforts in creating a good user experience will be futile if you break your consistency at any point. Any misleading advertisement or communication can be very dangerous.

2. Understanding Service design

Like customer experience, service design also aims to improve and innovate new online service experience. It is a multidisciplinary approach which amalgamates the user experience, design methodologies and operational model design tools and techniques. It aims to connect the journey across all the touch points and channels and not only for the customers but also for the organizations perspective.

This process seeks the organization to break into the information silos in order to enhance their business model, operations and strategies. It functions like a backstage support staff which help to deliver optimal front stage performance.

Skill Sets

A service designer has to don a bigger hat which can cover up the strategy, research and design. It is not just it because at times he needs to connect the engineering and architecture.

3. User Experience is not is not a user interface design

The founder and principal at Kicker Studio, feels that it is very common to consider the design being merely an ornament. Dan Saffer says, “I’ve had clients tell me not to worry about what their strategy is,” he adds, “because why would a designer care about that? UX is more than just skin deep.”

Mixing up the “user experience” with “user interface” seem to be a very common. This is because it has a major contribution in generating a good user experience while going through the products and services online. I know it can be quite a riddle at times, but one can easily solve it if he gets to understand the clue. So, you need to understand these different terms.

“Interface is a component of user experience, but there’s much more,” said Peter Merholz, founding partner and president of Adaptive Path. Christian Crumlish, curator of the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library. Furthermore, he elucidates design as, “isn’t about cosmetics, pixel-pushing, and button placement. It’s holistic and it’s everyone’s concern, not just the realm of ‘artistic’ types.”

4. User Experience is not a step in the process

The most lingering myth about user experience is that it is merely a step in the complete process. However, we need to understand that the complete essence of the project is the user experience and it is the only thing which helps the user to distinguish among the websites. And in order to do this we need to keep on regulating and refreshing our process. To do that we need a flexible module where something new can be easily accommodated.

According to Dan Brown, co-founder and principal at EightShapes , “Most [clients] expect experience design to be a discrete activity, solving all their problems with a single functional specification or a single research study. It must be an ongoing effort, a process of continually learning about users, responding to their behaviors, and evolving the product or service.”

“User experience design isn’t a checkbox,” adds Liz Danzico, an leading user experience consultant and chairperson of the new MFA in Interaction Design program at the School of Visual Arts. “You don’t do it and then move on. It needs to be integrated into everything you do.”

5. User Experience is not about technology

User experience is not remotely related to technology. Categorizing user experience on the basis of technological skill set would be very unfair as in this tech savvy time period where we can find erudite work force very easily. So, creating a good user experience is something independent from the technology. In the words of says Mario Bourque, manager of information architecture and content management at Trapeze Group, “It’s about how we live. It’s about everything we do; it surrounds us.”

“User experience design is not limited to the confines of the computer. It doesn’t even need a screen,” contends Bill DeRouchey, director of interaction design at Ziba Design. “User experience is any interaction with any product, any artifact, any system.”

6. Usability is not just a synecdoche for user experience

Now, in this time we need to go beyond just providing the usability and user engagement. In order to get to people change their perceptions we should generate a need for the stuff which we are selling.”People often think that [UX design] is a way to make products that suck into products that don’t suck by dedicating resources to the product’s design,” articulates Chris Fahey, founding partner and principal of Behavior.

We know that usability is imperative, but while focusing much on competence the designers tend to lose the importance of user experience. This also comprises of various behavioral responses of the user towards your online store. Simple things are easy to use but are not all the time appealing enough to attract the users. However, it can also be taken that users might not interact with the appealing things. Usability is not just a synecdoche for user experience. A smooth user experience is something which is required, available, reliable, findable, and extremely valuable.

7. Page size defines user experience

Web page size has been a great discussion in terms of user experience. Designers have this perception that lengthy web pages decreases the bounce rate. They might think that a long web page will make the users stick to the website and this argument sounds quite different to the latest parallax web page trend. However, it can be seen that the web page sizes are growing with the passage of time.

So, the long and short of this is that people propose different argument based on their encountered experience. However, as a business developer it is your duty to find out which argument suits your business requirement.

Another biggest misconception of user experience is that it is “U” centric. We all know that there is a business motive which needs to be fulfilled while designing our business website. Although, it is designed for the users, but it is not always that we can put forth users of our business motives. Thus, we need to satiate the needs of the users and simultaneously not to forget our business motives. As a user experience designer you need to balance between both the business needs efficiently. Providing a good user experience and not sideling the business needs is what we need to do.

8. It all means the same

You will certainly go to an ENT (ear, nose and throat) specialist and not to an orthopaedic in case of an ear problem. Similarly, you need to know that there are also different specialist for your user interface design. Well in order to suffice this we have renowned publisher of books on designing user experience, Louis Rosenfeld, publisher at Rosenfeld Media and also the co-author of the book Information Architecture for the World Wide Web who also opines the same.

Web designing in today’s world is a challenge and it needs synthesis of varied design proficiency. Modern web designing needs inputs from people from different expertise who have hands on experience in building good web designs. Even after the rise of the technology, various companies are still oblivious of the fact that terms like user experience architect, information architect, usability engineer, design analyst, interaction designer and many more such designations do not means the same. These are merely nebulous titles for them which means the same to them.

However, in order to edge out the competing we have different post for people who specialize in different process in the designing. Some focus on mental models such as Indi Young, web forms, usability testing or focused activity.

9. You just need to know your business

Designing is not just as easy as we think it is. This might sound easier as you might be knowing your business thoroughly, but this doesn’t makes the complete process a cake walk. Running with this notion that there is only one single way to craft a successful website and that is to understand the business; is just a sheer misconception among the designers and clients.

Another major trap which engulfs a lot of companies is that they are also the end users. According to Erin Malone, principal at Tangible UX, programmers and managers run with the view that they will create the experience after they build the project. The UX designers are struck in the middle position where they try to explain the developers and the business executives that why do they follow the practices and how positively it will helps in their business gains.

Making random assumptions about people such as their behaviors and what they expect will not give you the finest results. You need to spend some time to derive a conclusion out of the big data analysis and then speculate about users and their needs. After this you need to draft the complete strategy which can make them tick and then certainly all these efforts will culminate into something fruitful.

10. Reading articles will help sway through

If you think that reading articles about developing a good user experience can help you to develop an optimal web design then you are highly mistaken. You might not drastically fail but success on a larger scale is impossible, though. So, start your analysis now.

In this cut throat competitive world where users bank on web solutions creating a highly reliable and engaging solution for them is certainly what is required. A good designing experience can certainly help out in developing some of the sublime solutions which users actually need. We also need to keep in mind that we do not have to confuse or irritate the users with a complex design, after all we are building the solution for a problem, not a problem itself.

Please do share your valuable comments.