What is UX (User Experience) in Web Design?

User Experience (UX), or User Experience, is the process of creating products (websites, applications, etc.) that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. This includes comprehensive research, design, and improvement of all aspects of interaction between the user and the product.

Simply put: UX answers the question "How does the user feel when using this website?". The goal is for this experience to be as easy, efficient, pleasant, and useful as possible for them.

What does UX design deal with?

UX in web design is not just one step or one specific thing; it's a comprehensive process that encompasses multiple disciplines:

Research and Analysis: Knowing your audience is extremely important. This includes:

• User interviews.
• Surveys and questionnaires.
• Creating personas (user personas) — detailed profiles of ideal users.
• Competitor analysis.

Interaction Design: How will the user perform actions on the site? It focuses on the logic of screen and action flows (e.g., purchase process in an online store).

Information Architecture (IA): Organizing and structuring the site's content in a clear and logical way, so users can easily find what they're looking for. This is the "skeleton" of the site.

User Interface Design (UI Design): While UX is the overall experience, UI (User Interface) is the visual representation of that experience. This includes:

• Choosing colors, fonts, icons.
• Designing buttons, menus, and forms.
• Creating visual hierarchy (what's most important on the screen).

Important: UI and UX work hand in hand. Good UX uses good UI to communicate effectively.

Usability: How easy and intuitive is the site to use? Good UX design aims for everything to be obvious and not require the user to think.

Accessibility: Increasing the possibility for the site to be used by people with disabilities (e.g., with poor vision who use screen readers). This is not just an "extra feature," but an essential part of good UX.

User Testing: Prototypes (wireframes, mockups) of the design are created and tested with real users to discover problems before actual programming.

Analogy: Restaurant

To better understand the difference between UX and UI, imagine a restaurant:

UX (User Experience) is everything: Is it easy to find the restaurant? Is parking convenient? What's the atmosphere? How quickly are you served? Is the food tasty? Is it easy to pay?

UI (User Interface) is part of that experience: How does the menu look? Are the plates beautiful? The colors and lighting in the hall? The shape of the chairs?

Why is UX so important?

• Satisfied users = loyal customers. People love using sites that work well and save them time.
• Better business results. Good UX leads to higher conversion rates (more sales, more registrations, more engagement).
• Reduces costs. Discovering and fixing problems at the design stage (with prototypes) is much cheaper than making changes after the site is fully programmed.
• Competitive advantage. Nowadays, users have many choices. A site with poor UX is quickly abandoned in favor of one that offers them a better experience.