The myths of UX design

UX – user experience, isn’t simply about drafting interframes, it also plays a pivotal role in the strategy phase for businesses. UX aids brands and companies in conducting user research, analysis and looking deeply at every step of the product life cycle. It’s UX that is leading the plan of action in businesses and is the core influence on many brand policies that are targeted to enhance the overall user experience.

In the journey of a designer and teams around them, there are certain misconceptions and myths on UX which we aim to debunk with this article. Here are some of the most common myths of UX that might impact a design plan, a designer’s working style and what you can possibly do to avoid them.

Also read: Product thinking – the next big thing in UX design

Number 1 – Myth: UX and UI are the same or interchangeable


It’s vital to understand that UX is not the same as usability is. UX is how a user feels when they interact with your product and usability is the user-friendliness and efficiency of the product. Usability in this context is a contributor towards the UX design.

UX is the bigger circle within which UI is simply one part of it. UX stands for over user experience and involves the end-user interactions with the brand, while UI is the user interface and involves more color codes, texts, fonts, visual appeal to its hierarchy etc.

Number 2 – Myth: It’s all about the user


A common myth is that UX design is all about the user. Designs that are overly-user centric may actually be damaging to the brand than being helpful. In most cases users are not aware of what exactly they are looking for hence it becomes important for designers to make sure that consumers opinions do not forge myopic UX designs.

Do note that user research plays a vital role and yields various benefits, and for this reason brands should invest in user research methods. The only thing to make sure here is that however helpful the results are, it should be considered to the holy bible for designing. Other factors should be weighed in and balanced out.

Also read: How to deal with feedback as a product designer

Number 3 – Myth: More is merrier


Many researches have proved and shown that when you limit the choice of a consumer, they are more likely to make a purchase at a store along with being more satisfied with their overall decision process.
Sure, having choice is great, however when it comes to UX design – this approach does not apply. If you give your user more and more choice – they are only bound to get more confused and reach a phenomenon called decision paralysis. It will trigger them to overthink and fail to respond at all. Ultimately the consumer will lose interest in your website or application and will end with no purchase.

The best way to deal with this is to make sure there are only few necessary choices available from which the consumer can easily make a pick.

Number 4 – Myth – UX is super expensive

Not all UX design and research bits and parts are expensive – some brands with limited resources can work with smaller budgets and still gain valuable insights. A very common misconception and myth is that UX design is expensive, both in terms of money and time. While one of the reasons for this myth is the cost of hiring professionals to work on UX and certain softwares, another one is that UX design takes a long duration of time to be finally finished and both points collectively will make it super expensive.

To deal with this, brands can start small with an analysis on what is more vital for the business and develop a phase wise plan with clear vision and mission statements. As well, if your long term plan is to grow and have sustainable returns on your overall investment, UX design will make a lot more sense and the expenses will become part of your overall journey towards more revenue.

Read more: Design tools for metaverse

Number 5 – Myth: User testing/ Usability testing maybe optional


Usability testing is a process of requesting selected users to complete a series of specific tasks. While they do this, researchers usually analyze their responses and observe how they react to the product. This is done to identify user problems and make relevant changes in the user experience design.

A common myth is that user testing is a waste of time and money and is deemed unnecessary by many brands. This is a scary path to go on. User testing will help you to find defects in the product and allow you chances to deal with it before the product launch. If a brand launches a product without any usability testing, it may cause significant damage to their overall revenue goals and lose hundreds of thousands of capital.

Also Read: Product design trends in sportswear and outdoor equipment

Number 6- Myth: UX research is a piece of cake


Often it’s cited that UX research can be easily done, which is certainly a myth. While it is possible to work on the research on a budget – for small and medium size firms this can be a difficult process with limited resources. UX research is a complex process and for websites with higher amounts of traffic – user tracking can become an extremely difficult task. This may cause many issues to be neglected and not properly monitored.

Another fact here is that UX designers also need to make note of the unique needs of niche users – the acknowledgment of them isn’t quite as simple. As an example, sometimes even Google Analytics research can be wrong or misrepresentative. Point to note here is that UX designers information architecture is not really simple and making sure every user’s needs are taken care of needs extensive research, software to support the research and various processes as well as time and money.

To sum it up, while there are many other myths floating regarding UX design, designers should keep in mind that a great UX is not simply what works for your current users, but what will also work for your future users with minimal changes. This means you will need to think long term and weigh in numerous factors that influence the overall experience. One aspect of these factors is to allow yourself to disbelieve in the common myths underlined in this article and to make sure you deliver the best.

Also read: Emerging trend of strategic design 

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