UX Framework: how to create memorable experiences

The UX process aims to build better experiences for digital products: it shapes the scenario, guides people and offers them something useful and valuable and affects how they feel. Content, structure and navigation come together to provide a memorable experience. An ideal experience allows users to perform a task effectively and positively, ending with a sense of satisfaction. Discover the UX framework at Xpand IT:

The UX process starts with understanding the business goals and the best way to reach a target audience. By understanding the psychology (behavioural and cognitive) of the target audience, it’s possible to provide them with a positive and memorable experience.

In the field of Behavioural Psychology, we know it’s possible to induce people to have certain behaviours by submitting them to certain stimuli. In UX, this means that, through small stimuli in the interface, it is possible to guarantee that the user has the expected behaviour.

Therefore, when developing a digital product, it’s essential to consider the expected behaviour of the user and what can be done to reinforce it.

Cognitive Psychology is the area that focuses on the process of cognition and thinking. This field covers attention, memory, perception, language, and decision-making topics, among others.

Studies on perception and attention are most important in UX development routines: perception is how we capture and interpret external information through the senses. It is also related to attention, which deals with the prioritisation process our brain goes through when faced with different types of stimuli.

In addition, the experience must make sense from the point of view of structure and organisation: the human mind is constantly looking for patterns, and these must make sense to the user.

Sometimes we’re so obsessed with meeting user expectations that we don’t consider the need to focus on the brand for which we’re designing a product and experience. That is, we lose focus on what differentiates users from customers.

Before demystifying UX processes, it’s worth understanding the relationship between customer and user experience and the brand in a larger context. Each element of the customer experience contributes to creating a better brand experience.

So, what do the acronyms UI, UX, CX and BX mean, and how do they relate to each other?

UI – USER INTERFACE: The space where interactions between humans and machines take place.

UX – USER EXPERIENCE: How we feel when we interact with a product or service.

CX – CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: What happens when we interact with a product or service.

BX – BRAND EXPERIENCE: Build and aggregate the meaning of the brand in the consumer’s life.

UX + CX = BX: CX encompasses customer interactions with all facets of the brand, including the digital product, while UX is a part of the CX.

As we’ve seen, UX is concerned with user motivations:

• Why did they decide to access a website or an app?
• What information do they need?
• What problems are they facing?
• What solutions are they looking for to solve them?

UX analyses users’ minds, designing an experience that will give them what they’re looking for or need in a simple and direct way.

Unlike UI, UX moves away from visual elements and focuses on connecting and engaging people with the product, building an experience that meets their expectations.

The UX team constantly seeks to put itself in the user’s shoes and understand their logic reasoning. Their motivations and pain points are researched and uncovered to know how all the pieces fit together holistically, intending to help people achieve their goals.

It’s critical to understand their problems and the journey they will take to get where they want to go.

Research eliminates guesswork, letting us know real people’s challenges and expectations.

Genuine empathy cannot exist until we know deeply those we want to reach.

In conclusion, it is clear that UX is a multidisciplinary area that encompasses three fundamental characteristics:

• Discover and analyse behaviours and mental models to understand them in their entirety and globality (holistic doctrine);
• Have the ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes to understand their journeys and pain points, eliminating assumptions;
• UX should be considered a central part of the macro scenario of the brand’s relationship with customers or potential customers.

In a follow-up article, we will pick up from where we left off to detail activities and tools we use to design intentional and memorable experiences that, at the same time, meet specific business objectives: How to solve a problem “the UX way”; Which activities do we perform in the moments of discovery, strategy and analysis; How to design a practical experience and design the final product.

Read the second part of this article.