I met with UX designers

My professional background is in IT. Specifically software design of application programming interfaces (API) and backend business process. But I have a desire to learn and work more with front-end User Experience (UX) - so more or less website design.

Recently, my current project staffed UX designers on the team to help out on the project. I met with them to express my interest in collaborating with them to help our project move forward and I learned a few things about UX that I want to share here. Perhaps afterwards I'll look it up.

The 3 parts of UX

User Interface (UI)

UI is the component of UX that is most popular. This can be synonymous with visual design - how the product looks. This includes the colors, patterns and such that give a visual aesthetic to the application that a user is interacting with.

It has an important place in IT because it helps bring pleasure for a consumer who is interfacing with a technology tool. Also UI design is what can help with branding which can help people expect certain things from a product.

Workflow

I thought this was UX, but again it's only 1/3 of the UX pie. This is the design for how different pages of the system relate and work together. Our course this is important because a successful IT product with function close to human expectation to offer a seamless experience for the consumer. I think this is where I could help out some on my current project.

Research

Just as it sounds this is the activity of discovery and can be proactive or reactive in IT design.

Generative research - focuses on opportunities for improvement. Sub teams collaborate and identify what the system isn't doing that could be done to help the consumer. This is a proactive approach to identify system enhancements.

Informative research - this is where designers meet with users on existing functionality to understand how they use the system and identify any pain points. Usability testing is a good form of informative research.

Summative testing - This is is evaluating through testing if the product is preforming as desired.

I look forward to learning more and applying this knowledge on my current project, while also leveraging my unique skills and experiences.