Here at Clock we live and breathe communication. We like to share our internal mechanisms to develop a greater understanding of the exciting (but technical) industry we reside in.
In this edition of our Bitesize series Dan Collings shares the basic inner workings of his role as a UX Designer.
If you’ve been involved in a digital project (such as the redevelopment of a website) you’ll have likely come into contact with the abbreviation ‘UX’.
UX stands for User-Experience; a blanket term we use for all factors that influence a user’s perception and decision making when interacting with a website. Delivering a ‘good user-experience’ has become intrinsic when planning a digital project here at Clock Creative. Putting a user’s needs and desires at the heart of our projects allows us to implement relevant and tangible data throughout the process.
Using both sides of the brain
A UX Designer is not solely a visual designer but also an over-arching problem solver. We achieve this by combining both sides of our brain to deliver an accurate and concrete end solution. We use the pragmatic left side of the brain for researching and analysing user data. This data becomes the foundation that allows the creative, right side of the brain to produce functional and aesthetically-immaculate outcomes that, by design, deliver a great user experience.
A multi-disciplined role
During a digital project I interchange many different hats as the project progresses. The left-side of the brain is mostly in use at the start of a project where the research and analysis is undertaken.
At Clock we run workshops with our clients to extract as much data about the target audience as we can in a collaborative exercise.
Once we have a set of user data to work from we begin to organise the hierarchy of content on a site and page level to match the user-journeys we previously defined. This phase is called the information architecture.
Once the planning stages have been defined and completed the right side of the brain kicks fully into gear and I start to develop concepts for layouts, interactivity and content to deliver the end user experience. I put on my Visual Designer hat and start to apply the brand to our layouts and research which breathes creative life into the project. Our meticulous planning combined with creative flair produces the rich, exciting web interface that users want to interact with.
Going in to The Matrix
The final hat a UX Designer proudly wears is that of the Front-end Developer. When you are navigating through a website, everything you can see and touch is what we call the ‘front-end’.
This is the phase of the project where the creativity of the visual design phase explodes onto the screen in front of you. It’s the real world version of The Matrix, where we write thousands of lines of code to produce a working, interactive final version of everything that has been planned.
It’s now that you get to immerse yourself in the final user-experience where you can navigate and interact with the interface to complete the goals that have been researched, defined and implemented.
Communication kings
I started this article off by saying that at Clock we live and breathe communication, and that trait is epitomised in a UX Designer. We need to have the ability to ask the right questions with clients, understand their brand, what they stand for, what they want to achieve and understand the needs and desires of their target audience. With this knowledge we can communicate directly with the digital visitors using design, language, media and interactivity.
Through the website interface we build an emotional connection and relationship with the user that facilitates their goal completion and overall experience of interacting with a client’s brand on a digital platform.
Working with Clock Creative is an exciting, collaborative experience where you’ll gain new insight into your own organisation and learn how to communicate with your target audience more effectively.
To start your journey with Clock, give us a call on 0161 713 4156 or
If you’d like to read more about the UX Process, take a look at my last article Nurturing your digital audience for commercial return.
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