You’re at a party. The music is loud. Your friend left to go get a drink. You’re suddenly thrust into an awkward social situation where you’re talking to people you don’t know. Someone asks you “What you do for a living?” You answer, “I’m a UX Designer.” You’re met with a blank stare and a shrug. Has this happened to you?
If so, we have a solution. Instead of going into a detailed explanation including all the technical jargon, we have some quick and simple ways for you to answer without confusing or boring your new acquaintance.
Q: What do you do?
A: I’m a UX Designer.
Q: Blank stare. What is UX?
First, answer the question for the big picture…
A: User Experience refers to the what, when, where, why, and how someone uses a product. I make the customer’s experience easy—without fuss or bother. I create the end user’s interaction with a company, its services and its products.
Q: Oh, I think I get it. But… how exactly does that work?
A: It’s basically a three-stage process.
- The discovery phase is first. I ask questions to determine the business and user requirements. I find out what the business wants to achieve and what the users are expecting from it.
- Then comes the design phase. That’s where the Information Architecture and the User Interface is created. There’s a lot of back-and-forth and teamwork involved in this step.
- And finally, there’s the testing phase. It’s where the design is presented to the users to be tested. We ask if using the product has met their expectations and needs. Based on their feedback, we’ll go back and tweak the design and make any necessary refinements.
And voila! Hopefully, you’ve made a new friend… or at least an acquaintance who knows what you do for a living.
For other articles on what a UX Designer does, see our posts:
the ux designer + what they do
inside the mind of a ux designer
a humorous take on the origins of ux