What is UX?
Imagine your flight was delayed – okay that’s not too hard to imagine these days. Your layover time went from an hour and a half to a scant thirty minutes. Oh, and don’t forget you’re landing in a bustling, unfamiliar airport. As you exit the plane, what do you do first? And what are your next steps to make your connection in time? These questions are at the heart of UX.
User experience, or UX, is the thoughtful design of how people interact with things—your website, app, product packaging, or even an airport.
The goal of a good UX is ease of use, efficiency, and user satisfaction. It’s one of the most important parts of design, but often easily overlooked because it’s not seen but rather felt.
Good UX explores and leans into human patterns – called mental models. Going back to our airport analogy – where would you look for terminal signs? You’ll probably look above, hanging from the ceiling. Even if you’ve never been to that airport before, you probably would look above thanks to patterns established by grocery stores, and the like – that is an example of leaning into a mental model. But what about pretty design?
Why does UX design matter?
UX is design—but it’s not the same as visual or interface design. Visual design is how the website, app, or airport – to name a few - looks. It’s the shiny wow factor, after we’ve made the logo bigger and added many pops of color (pardon the designer’s humor). Going back to our trusty analogy, we can visually design the terminal sign beautifully but if it’s not in the right place, it's not useful and therefore pointless. You just paid a lot of money for something to look good, but ultimately does more harm than good.
And this is why UX has such a massive business impact – it impacts your brand, and your user's trust of that brand. If you design a sleek, modern interface—but it takes 50 clicks to complete a simple task—what does that say about your brand? Good UX builds trust. It reduces friction. It shows your users that you respect their time and understand their needs. And that feeling—whether it’s confidence, ease, or relief—is what people remember.
What does lack of trust look like?
Few first time customers
Low conversion rates
Bad reputation and reviews
Little to no growth year over year
Visual design may be what gets noticed first, but user experience is what keeps people coming back. Pretty design might impress, but thoughtful UX creates loyalty.
In the end, good UX isn’t about making things look beautiful—it’s about making them work beautifully.
