UX Design Meetup 2.0 – In a Nutshell

Expedite Studio came into being on 1st January 2021 with a mission to bring UX Design into the limelight. In the very first month, we discussed the idea of hosting the first UX Design meetup, long story short, the first UX Design Meetup was successfully hosted on 24th January 2021. The energy of all the UXers made us realize that there is a dire need to host more events like this. So yes, here I’m writing the story of UX Design meetup 2.0 that was hosted by Expedite Studio in collaboration with Airlift. The only motive behind such events is to make the UX Design community grow, and I feel super proud to say that the UX Design community in Pakistan is growing stronger each passing day.

I will try to sum up all the important points that were discussed by the great UXers there at the meetup!

UX Myths Busted!

As a UX Designers, you must have heard about some of these UX myths, let’s see what our experienced designer has to say about these myths:

1. All pages should be accessible in 3 clicks

If we try to adjust everything within 3 clicks, it can become overwhelming and frustrating for the user to handle too much information.
As long as a user is getting desired results, and the application is easy-to-use with a good user experience, it’s okay to have more than 3 clicks for making a user complete a particular action.
There is a navigational scheme in Information Architecture which says that try to avoid more than 3 tiers of navigation, this is an actual rule and is mostly used in those platforms that follow 3-tier rule.

2. Users don’t scroll

This generation is used to scrolling 24/7 on their mobile screens. (Aren’t you? ) The most consumed content these days is on mobile devices, and if we talk about the UX of mobile phones, scrolling is much more convenient than actually clicking on to the CTAs.
For continuous and lengthy content, scrolling provides a much better user experience.
The scrolling thing can totally vary depending on the platforms. For example, there is a higher rate of scrolling on mobile devices than on the web. So, it totally depends on which platform you’re designing for.
The design and content must be pleasing and engaging enough that makes a user scroll more.

3. Users can tell you what they want

User can tell you the symptom of his pain points and frustrations, but not the root cause behind those symptoms. As a UX designer, it’s your role to identify the root cause of the problems.
You don’t have to follow everything that a user is telling you, sometimes even the user is not right.
There was research conducted for a new Coke mint flavor, according to the research reports, most people were sure that this new flavor will be a hit, but the launch of the real product proved the research to be wrong.
Netflix conducted A/B testing for the research on its sign-up process, users predicted that they are most likely to sign up if they can see whether the show they want to watch is there or not, but it eventually resulted in fewer sign-ups.
Try to identify where your user is coming from.
Observe more about how the user acts or behaves, rather than just what he says.
Sometimes you have to convince the user to give a chance to a new design, for the cause of a better UX.

4. Aesthetics are not important if you have good usability

The first and the most important thing is the usability/functionality of the product. The product must fulfill its purpose.
With functionality, if you add a touch of aesthetics then it can definitely level-up the standard of your product.
In those products where users have other choices as well, then he will prefer the one that is aesthetically pleasing as well as usable.
Chances are high that a user might not even go through the whole website/application if the User Interface is not pleasing enough.

5. If you’re an expert , you don’t need to test your design

Designers usually become obsessed with their own designs and eventually become defensive for their designs, which is definitely not a good thing. As a designer, you should be open to suggestions and improvements.
Even if you are an expert, or a user yourself, you still need to test your designs to get different perspectives from different people.
The expert opinions also matter a lot. The things that you can’t see, others can identify those issues.
Sometimes the user’s expectations are different from what we are thinking, so it’s very important to let the user test the product.

6. You don’t need content to design your website

If we design just with the dummy content (Lorem ipsum blah blah.. :p), it results in aesthetically pleasing but unrealistic designs.
Content is by far the most important element of UI Design.
The layout problems can occur if we are totally designing with the dummy content, chances are high that you might have to change the whole design after putting real content.
In a case where a product is in the brain-storming phase and the content writer does not have any idea about the content direction and all, we can go with the low fidelity wireframes/sketches, instead of directly moving towards UI.

Some open discussion topics

All about Usability Testing:

Usability testing is about evaluating your designs by testing it with representative users.
You must have a basic prototype ready for the usability testing.
Usertesting.com, maze.co are great platforms where you can test your products.
We can use Data Analytics for the products, the data can help us know where the real user is getting stuck, and what actions the user is performing.
Hotjar, Mixpanel are great tools for website heatmaps and behaviour analytics.
The methods of Usability Testing vary from company to company, and environment to environment.
When you are conducting usability testing with the user, make sure to make him easy and comfortable first.
Try to engage with the user instead of just silently observing.
It’s a good practice if you prepare a list of questions beforehand, but try not to use it as a script, and just go with the flow of the conversation.

Generalist VS Specialist:

There’s this misconception that you cannot be a master of more than one thing at once, the truth is that you can be a master of more than one things if you focus closely and keep on trying.
Specialist is someone who focuses on one thing while a generalist is looking after many domains.
The specialized fields in the UI/UX Design: Visual Designer, UX Researcher, UX Writer, Product Designer, Motion Designer, Interactions Designer, and Service Designer, etc.
It’s not bad to be a generalist, but if the domain and scope is of large scale, then we definitely need specialists there!
Most people at leadership positions are the generalists, as they are the one’s keeping a bird’s eye view on so many things at once.

Noob Clients and UX processes

Try to identify the needs and requirements of the client and pitch them the solutions of his pain points.
Make them understand the value of UX processes by showing the “with” or “without” examples and result-driven solutions.
Evaluate the business matrices of the product and then try to explain to the client about ROI based UX.
If you are telling that the actual cost of a bad design is huge, then you must also tell the benefits of the good design.

(It’s totally okay if nothing works, and the client just wants a quick UI (sigh), we all are in this together! )

Future of UI/UX Design in Pakistan:

The design industry in Pakistan has been evolving since the last 5 years. The UI/UX design has started getting attention, and this is something we are super proud of!
The processes are becoming more formal, people are willing to learn more about UX, we just need the right processes and then we will definitely see a huge boom in the UX design world.
Currently, we lack in the educational programs of UX/Human computer interaction. Some UX relevant programs should be introduced by different universities in Pakistan.

So these were some of the insights from the great UXers from different firms which include Airlift, Bazaar, Bykea, Careem, Ibex, Securiti.ai, Systems, and many more! The whole idea behind this initiative is to bring the UXers on one platform where they can meet and know each other and share their experiences with each other. Expedite Studio will be hosting more events like this, just to empower the UX DESIGN community in Pakistan!

See the recorded UX Design Meetup 2.0 here
Wanna read insights from the first UX Design meetup? Read here

Join the UX Hub by Expedite Studio here
Expedite’s Socials: Facebook | Behance | LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter

Expedite Studio – A Blockchain Focused Design Agency

Since its inception on 1st January 2021, where only 5 people started a design agency. Expedite has now grown to a team of 20 people. These include UI/UX designers, branding specialists, video animators, illustrators, and marketers. The early mission was to create awareness about design and prove that bad design’s cost is huge. We believe that many digital products have great potential. However, their bad designs are restricting them from great success.

Expedite Studio is an agency that specializes in UI/UX design and branding especially for blockchain products. The initial idea of it started when designers of Xord wanted to make an experiential change with their design, not only for Xord Expanse, and ventures in it but also for the great companies and startups outside Xord.

At the current moment, there are a lot of design agencies coming up. But what makes Expedite unique? Here are some key factors:

Expedite’s Uniques:

The majority of the Expeditors come from a tech/computer science background, which gives them an edge in understanding digital products in the best possible manner.
It’s hard to find a design agency that can understand the technical details of blockchain. Expeditors can do that!
The Process – You will find all the UX agencies bragging about their standard UX processes. There’s no denying any of that. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution in this case. Expedite believes that a good process is molded according to the product’s requirements and business needs. I’ll give an overview of Expedite’s Process later on in the blog.
Expedite’s culture promotes learning and creativity. From Figma Friday to daily book reading sessions, you will always find Expeditors involved in some kind of knowledge-sharing activities.

Expedite’s Design Process:

Expedite’s not only evangelize, but follow all the best UX Design practices and methods. Here is the high-level description of the process they follow:

1. Understand Phase:

This involves Lightning talks with stakeholders and detailed learning of the product/business.

2. Research Phase:

This one’s my favorite! It involves competitor analysis, user personas, user interviews, and a detailed research report. The user interviews have proved to be extremely beneficial for the products.

Research phase in process — The research phase is incomplete without the collaboration of designers!

3. Sketch Phase:

All of the above UX design activities help in producing something tangible, usable, and solves a real problem, that is, the output is storyboarding, user flows, wireframes, and aesthetically pleasing hi-fi mockups.

4. Validation Phase:

This is the phase where we test your solution with extensive usability testing. The usability testing reports help gain insights into users’ expectations and frustrations and are crucial in evaluating your product’s success.

Note that, as mentioned earlier in the blog, this process is customizable to efficiently suit the products’ and businesses’ needs.

Expedite’s Blockchain Capabilities:

Believe me, designing blockchain products requires a completely different set of expertise. Blockchain itself has a lot of complexities and the current user experience is riddled with so many problems which are making mass adoption difficult. The technological constraints in it make it very challenging for the designers to create a human-centric user experience.

Since the start, Expedite’s team has closely worked with the blockchain engineers of Xord. Expeditors have exposure not only the blockchain technology, but they have hands-on experience with delivering Blockchain DApps that have been used by thousands of people in the decentralized world. Have a look at a recent DApp project, in which people staked 84 Million+ project tokens (at the time of writing). All through the DApp designed by Expedite Studio. Cool! Isn’t it?

Looking Forward:

Expedite Studio has the privilege to deliver design solutions to all the amazing products that will be part of Xord Expanse, including Novon, VoirStudio, and all Xord’s incubated companies. With all these skillset and adequate knowledge of blockchain technology, Expedite Studio aspires to become a leading user experience design and branding agency in the decentralized world.

Read the complete blog? Here’s a reward for you. Email at “[email protected]” with the subject “Expedite my UX” and you’ll get a free UX audit for your product or application

Expedite’s Socials: Facebook | Behance |LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter

As featured on DesignRush website

UX Design Meetup – in a nutshell

The UX Design Meetup took place on 24th January 2021 at the Xord Basecamp, Expedite Studio and Sheikh Izhan took an initiative and conducted a UX Design Meetup for all the amazing UX people in the town in which designers got a chance to know each other better and learned from the experiences of each other.

It’s always a great idea to learn from each other, we don’t want anyone to miss out on the knowledge, hence writing this blog post so that everyone can take benefit from what the amazing designers discussed in the meetup.

The key takeaways

A number of topics were discussed in the meetup on which designers shared their valuable knowledge and thoughts. I tried to extract outcomes from those discussions, hoping that it will benefit you in some way!

UX processes in a company:

This topic was about the UX processes that a company follows.

The standard UX phases (Understand, Research, Sketch, Prototype, Evaluate) are being followed by most of the companies in one form or another.
The design process is all about how YOU shape it. You can always mould your processes according to the project and business requirements.
Google design sprint is a five-day process that is being implemented in some companies that are designing products. It is helpful in knowing whether the product is sustainable or not.
It is noticed that the Product and Service design phases are mostly not the same.

UX beginners , where to start?

Most of the newbies in this field have no idea about where to start learnings from, here are some tips for the newbies who want to start their career in UX design.

To start off your career in the field of UI/UX, first, identify your goal, start your journey if you think you are really passionate about the field, and then follow these steps:

Plan your 5-year goal.
Find a mentor.
Become social with the people in your field.
Learn how to market yourself.
Learn about the UX framework and UX cycle.
Read books related to the UI/UX.
Get yourself enrolled in different online courses.
You are an influencer, start creating content. Share with your audience whatever you create and get feedback from the experts.

Designer and developer, an unmatched love story

Ah, this was one of those topics that put a smile (the smile with hidden pain ) on every designer’s face, because this topic was something that most designers could relate to.

Some outcomes from the discussion are:

The designer should have empathy for the developer but not to the extent that it compromises the usability of the design.
It’s good if a designer has basic know-how of development, especially of the styling languages so that they can tell about the libraries that will be used by the developer so as to make the developer’s life easy.
It’s a better approach to let the designer and developer sit in different workspaces so that the developer cannot influence the design decisions, which in turn compromises the design.
Don’t expect the developer that he will take care of the minor details like margins, paddings, font sizes, and font-weight, etc. Provide him all these details in a design-release document or with some handoff tools like Zeplin. Style guides can become really handy in such a case.

UX Testing

The most important pillar of UX is usability testing, it helps you in knowing where your product stands and how a user will perceive it.
Your design is nothing without user testing.
Design QA is a step to review the coded version of the design to make sure that it is developed according to the provided design specifications.
The Design QA is a crucial step and it should not be skipped. There can be many ways of doing the design QA, you can either document all the inconsistencies or conduct a meeting with the developer.

Dribbblable Trends

Dribbble trends like Neumorphism, Glassmorphism, Skeuomorphism are not development friendly in most cases.
The overly used animations that we mostly see on portfolio sites are not feasible in real-world applications, they are just eye-candies that are usually far away from solving real-world problems.

Personal projects

We all know the importance of unsolicited projects and how important a role they play while you are trying to land in a company.

Some key points regarding the personal projects are:

For personal projects, you can pick out any real-world application and perform its UI/UX audit and publish your case study on it.
Use real-world applications as much as you can and ask people about the problems that they face and try to solve those problems through your design solutions and research.
Most designers don’t get enough time to do personal projects in order to maintain their portfolio, but if you manage to take out 1-2 hours per 2 days a week, make one schedule and stick to it, you can surely manage to do it! Note that, setting a deadline for personal projects is equally important.

UI/UX interviews

If you aspire to join a certain company, the best way to prepare before appearing in their hiring interviews is to learn the UX processes that they follow in their company. Also, customizing your profile and portfolio and making it as relevant as the company’s requirements will be highly effective.

Long story short

So these were some of the highlights from the meetup. It won’t be wrong to say that this meetup was a success, designers from different firms (VentureDive, Folio3, Airlift, 10pearls, Two Dots, and many more) joined and shared their valuable thoughts and knowledge with each other.

It’s always a great idea to network with the people in your field, you get to learn a lot of things.
Looking forward to more meetups like this, it will surely help in building a stronger UX community.

Special thanks to Arif Samad, Arif Kamal, Umair Ali Khatri, Tabish Rafiq, Adnan Khan, and Sohaib Khan for providing their valuable insights to all the community members!

Join Expedite’s UX community here.