Welcome to User Experience

[MUSIC] Hi, 0:00 I'm Alena. 0:03 Every single day we interact with a wide range of products. 0:11 Cell phones, microwaves, eating utensils, and the clothes we're wearing. 0:14 Some products are so well made that we barely notice that we're using them. 0:19 While others, are notoriously hard to figure out. 0:23 Have you ever been lost or confused because of poor navigation or 0:26 website layout? 0:29 Of course you have. 0:30 The Internet is plagued with bad design and poor usability. 0:32 In this course, we'll take a look at what makes for good user experiences. 0:36 We'll also look at how planning ahead can mean the difference between making a sale 0:40 and losing a customer. 0:45 When we create products with a user in mind, we make it easier for 0:47 them to figure out what's going on. 0:51 User experience design, or UX design for short, is an all-encompassing term for 0:53 everything a user encounters as they interact with a product. 0:59 So it's important to consider their thoughts and 1:03 feelings during those interactions. 1:06 Instead of leaving users to figure everything out on their own 1:09 we can leave clues and hints to guide them. 1:12 Together we'll be creating tangible, UX documents that lay the groundwork for 1:16 a ride sharing app. 1:21 By the end of the course, we'll complete three different deliverables. 1:22 We'll build user personas, or 1:26 profiles of the common types of users we expect on our platform. 1:29 These personas provide a reference that we can use to assess our design decisions. 1:33 By keeping our personas in mind, 1:38 we can ensure that we are building the correct product for our users. 1:41 We'll create empathy maps which look at potential users thoughts and 1:46 feelings as they interact with the app. 1:50 By looking at their situations, 1:53 we are better able to understand each user group's unique needs. 1:55 We'll also construct user flows, 2:00 which show how users ideally move through the experience. 2:02 Even though users can interact in a variety of ways, not just limited to 2:06 the basic steps we outline, a user flow will help us determine how easy it is for 2:11 users to step through a specific process. 2:16 Although our end users won't see these documents, 2:20 they are crucial in crafting the right experience. 2:23 These are real tools that companies used everyday 2:26 to build the best product possible. 2:29 Instead of backtracking later to retrofit our product to our users, 2:31 we're able to make user's needs our foundation, before we build anything. 2:35 As we continue to learn more about design, 2:40 we'll continue to refer back to these documents and others like them, 2:43 to help inform and shape the decisions we make along the way. 2:47 You'll find that these types of documents will be helpful 2:51 as you plan future projects as well. 2:54

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