So what is UX Design, really?

In recent years, the UX community has seen many a discussion about the definition and boundaries of UX design.

At one end of the spectrum, many seem to focus the term “UX design” around user research and information architecture. This makes a lot of sense — certainly, these disciplines play an integral role in ensuring a good user experience in a digital product. Additionally, these disciplines are related to a lot of tools and methodologies that have come to be closely associated with the UX Designer: personas, use cases, wireframes, and so on.

At the other end of the spectrum, we occasionally find the term UX design used almost interchangeably with User Interface (UI) Design. And while this tendency has been criticized thoroughly — even lividly — I can personally just as easily sympathize with this idea: if the actual interface and interactions of a digital product is not pivotal for the user experience, then what is?

“The Disciplines of User Experience Design”, poster by envis precisely.

But although I can personally relate to both these definitions of UX design, I also think they share the same flaw: they’re both reductive in their attempt at restraining the term “UX design” to a certain set of tools or a certain part of the design phase.

The fact of the matter is that UX design is not one discipline. UX design is a multidisciplinary approach to designing digital products, and it encompasses a number of disciplines. Information architecture, interaction design, UI design, usability — really any discipline related to shaping a user’s experience of a given digital product falls within the boundaries of UX design. “UX design” is an umbrella term.