Catalog
concept#Product#Software Engineering#User Research

User Experience (UX)

A holistic approach to designing user experiences across products and services, focusing on perception, efficiency, and satisfaction.

User Experience (UX) describes the holistic experience a person has when interacting with a product or service, covering perception, emotions, and efficiency.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Business
  • Design
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Product management tools (e.g., Jira, Azure DevOps)Design and prototyping tools (e.g., Figma)Analytics platforms (e.g., Google Analytics, Matomo)

Principles & goals

User-centeredness: base decisions on real user needs.Iterative work: test early and improve incrementally.Measurability: track success with clear metrics.
Discovery
Enterprise, Domain, Team

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Misinterpreting research can lead to suboptimal decisions.
  • Overfocus on surface rather than underlying problems.
  • Non-representative test groups skew findings.
  • Involve cross-disciplinary teams early
  • Work hypothesis-driven and validate with data
  • Consider accessibility from the start

I/O & resources

  • Business goals and KPIs
  • User research and analytics data
  • Existing product and design artifacts
  • Prototypes and design specifications
  • Measurable UX KPIs and metrics
  • Recommended priorities for the roadmap

Description

User Experience (UX) describes the holistic experience a person has when interacting with a product or service, covering perception, emotions, and efficiency. UX includes user research, interaction and information architecture, and visual design. The goal is user-centered design that increases satisfaction, task success, and business value.

✔

  • Higher user satisfaction and better customer retention.
  • More efficient use and reduced support costs.
  • Improved conversion and business value.

✖

  • Results are context-dependent and not always generalizable.
  • Requires continuous investment in research and testing.
  • Potential conflicts between user desires and business requirements.

  • Net Promoter Score (NPS)

    Measures likelihood to recommend and overall satisfaction.

  • Task success rate

    Share of users who successfully complete a defined task.

  • Time-on-task / efficiency

    Average time to complete a task; indicator of efficiency.

E-commerce checkout optimization

Checkout flow redesign reduced abandons and increased conversion.

Onboarding for a SaaS platform

Tested onboarding steps improved retention and first-time use.

Accessible government website

Implemented accessibility standards increased usability for broad audiences.

1

Stakeholder alignment and goal definition

2

Conduct user research and synthesize findings

3

Build prototypes, test and iterate

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Inconsistent design patterns across products
  • Missing documentation of UX decisions
  • Legacy interactions that confuse users
Lack of user dataLack of cross-disciplinary collaborationLimited research resources
  • Interpreting A/B tests without statistical basis
  • Creating personas without empirical basis
  • Interviewing only power users and ignoring general users
  • Generalizing user feedback too early
  • Confusing preferences with actual behavior
  • Looking at metrics without context
User research and interviewingInteraction and information architecturePrototyping and usability testing
Accessibility and inclusionPerformance and responsivenessConsistency across platforms and channels
  • • Budget and time constraints for testing
  • • Regulatory requirements (e.g., data protection)
  • • Technical limitations of existing platforms