UX Fundamentals for Everybody
UX and UI stand respectively for User Experience and User Interface. They go hand in hand because the User experiences the product through the Interface. usability.gov uses this honeycomb diagram to display the basic fundamentals of a good user experience.
These are all immediately translatable to verbs. A user should be able to desire, find, access, use, trust(credible), and value your product. You can make this process a positive experience for the user, or a terrible one (maybe think of your local DMV website). Here I will break down these fundamentals into actions you can take to make your app better!
Find:
Your app should be easy to find. This is done using SEO, or search engine optimization, and good marketing. A single-page React app has poor SEO qualities because a web-crawler that visits it without causing the page to actually load data will not see anything. This is why React allows for dangerouslySetInnerHTML to be placed in the app so a google crawler attempting to diagnose what your site is can successfully gather a title and description for its listing. You want GoogleBot to be able to see what your site is without loading the whole client. This is where frameworks like Next and Gatsby really strive.
Access:
Once a user or crawler has found your website, they need to access it. Accessibility usually specifically refers to the use of a site by the disabled and impaired. People with disabilities have the same rights to the web as everybody else, and the W3 Consortium Accessibility Initiative has spearheaded this move. ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. It is a set of tools and rules that allow a developer to make their application more accessible to assistive technologies. One can set the “role” of a specific component of their app so someone who is not experiencing it traditionally can understand something’s purpose.
Visually impaired people access the web through a screen-reader that vocalizes all of the text on a given page. People with cognitive disabilities may use something other than a traditional mouse and keyboard to navigate a site.
Desire & Use:
Your site should be desirable. Upon a visit, the user should be pleased with the design of your site. This includes attributes like font size, hierarchy, color palette, and contrast ratio. If your site is informational, this should be descriptive and easy to understand. If your site has utility, the tool should be easy to understand and use. Your customer/user should enjoy using the site, or at least not be inconvenienced.
Trust:
I really love this example. Customers did not find the CarFax website credible, only because it was TOO fast. The absolute speed of the application was uncanny to the user, and it hurt the UX. The user expects this data to be rich and complicated and has a hard time believing it could ever appear instantaneously. Sometimes good UX involves making your application a little worse? Make sure your user trusts the data they're getting back, no matter what you have to do to the experience of them getting it.
Value:
This one’s pretty simple: If the user valued their experience they will remember it and they will come back. If your app provides no value to the user they will not come back. If your app provides no value to the user, why does it exist? Websites are like stores, where you go and buy the things you value, but they trade information for attention. If a user values your site they will give you their attention in exchange for your information/utility. Make it count!!!
