Why Square One Is Key in UX Design

If you've only ever read one article or attended a single talk on UX Design, you've no doubt heard that, 'it all goes back to the user' or 'the user is king.' But I have never understood it until now.

My professional background consists of work in the international development sector. I've worked across 5 countries and 2 different continents in big and small organizations, all with the intent of providing a 'solution.' The solutions ranged from, affordable education, healthcare, access to arts, youth development, business partnership and a long list of other solution that I myself did not understand.

Despite not understanding, I was not deterred, I simply kept on doing what I was hired to do, a lot of us did. And what's worse, it had come to a point where it did not bother me anymore. That was a defining moment for me, and why I left the development sector.

That was a defining moment for me, and why I left the development sector and what drew me to tech.

UX consists of user centred design. It essentially means that the design is focused on the users need.

Not what your boss assumes to be best, not a wild guess, not a 'we need to use up this funding quickly' but a very specific need. I was blown away, not only did user centred thinking exists but companies followed this practice and based their end products on it.

The benefits to a user centred approach are quite honestly endless, but I wanted to share the ones that have left an impression on me thus far.

The product created following a user centred approach is authentic because it is meeting a very real need. The key research conducted to pinpoint the problem carries the work through to a meaningful product.

Secondly, designers have the opportunity to delve deeper into the heart of the problem. For example, the initial assumption could be that the user group requires a food delivery app but upon further research it could be found that the users really need translation services on the app and that has discouraged potential users from using food delivery apps.

The product created following a user centred approach is authentic because it is meeting a very real need.

And most importantly, user centred decisions provide a unified work flow because the solution is clear and can be traced back to the research. Team members are not working on different solutions to one problem, instead their work is unified.

The user centred approach, drew me to UX design and challenged me to trace my work back to the main problem, and motivated me to be better at my work because I actually knew the problem I was trying to solve. And that's why square one is so important in UX Design.

And that's why square one is so important in UX Design.