What is UX design? - AHN Media Group

Design

March 13, 2025

What does UX stand for? Learn more about what UX means, why it’s so important and what defines good UX.

“UX” stands for “user experience.” It describes the quality of the experience an end user has with a specific product, service, company or brand.

Although it’s often talked about in relation to digital products, like apps and websites, UX can relate to anything that an end user can interact with or encounter.

Take the example of going into your local bank to open a new account. If the process is quick and simple with clear instructions, easy-to-find information and friendly customer service, you’d come away feeling like you had a good user experience.

The same goes for ordering something online or using an app on your phone. If you’re able to accomplish your desired tasks with minimal effort, you’ll find the user experience to be a pleasant one.

UX doesn’t relate to one specific thing. It’s the sum of all the smaller parts that determines whether the overall encounter between the product/service and the user is a positive one. You can think of it as the impression the user leaves with and whether or not they’d be keen to repeat the experience. To learn more, keep reading.

What is user experience (UX) design?

If UX describes the quality of a user’s encounter with a particular product or service, UX design is the process of creating and shaping these experiences, with the goal of making them positive, pleasant and valuable for the end user.

UX design isn’t about how a product looks; that’s just one aspect of the overall user experience. It’s about ensuring that the product is logical, functional, easy to navigate and generally user-friendly.

There are 5 elements of UX design to consider:

Strategy: Deciding which objectives the product should meet, including both end user goals and client/business stakeholder objectives.
Scope: Fleshing out the details of the product, determining which features and functionality it should offer.
Structure: Mapping out the structure of the product, considering how users will navigate from one point to the next and what information they’ll need to move around the product and accomplish their goals.
Skeleton: Drilling down to the finer details of how each page should be structured and which elements (buttons, menus and other content) will go where.
Surface: Considering the user’s sensory experience of the product, defining how the product will look in terms of colors, imagery, spacing, typography and so on. This is where UI design comes in.

Where does the term “UX” come from?

The term “UX” was invented by Donald Norman, a cognitive psychologist who started working at Apple in the early 1990s. He took on the role of User Experience Architect, making him the first (known) person in history to have UX in their job title.

Explaining the origins of UX, Donald Norman said:

“I invented the term because I thought human interface and usability were too narrow. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with a system, including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction and the manual.”

What is the difference between UX and UI?

If you’ve heard of UX, you’ve probably also heard of UI. The terms are often used together but it’s important to be clear on the difference between them.

UX is a much broader term, covering everything that influences how a user feels when they use a product or service. It’s a comprehensive discipline that involves research, analysis, and understanding user needs.

UI stands for “user interface”, which is the point of interaction between an end user and a digital product. It’s a more narrow discipline that involves the visual design of the screens, buttons and other touchpoints you might use to navigate an app or a website.

The way the user interface (UI) is designed has an impact on the overall user experience, so UI is an important part of UX.

UX	UI
Stands for “user experience”	Stands for “user interface”
A broad discipline	A narrow discipline
Involves the quality of the experience as a whole	Involves the design of the user interface
Concerned with research, analysis, and understanding user needs	Concerned with visual design

You can learn more about the difference between the two, as well as how they go hand-in-hand, in this guide to UX vs. UI.

Why is UX important?

UX is important for two reasons: business value and human value. Let’s look at both.

The business value of UX design

If you have a positive experience with a product or service, you’re more likely to use it again and become a loyal customer. You might even recommend it to friends and family. That’s great for the brand reputation, which ultimately determines whether or not the product or service is successful and profitable.

On the flip side, a negative user experience leaves a bad impression of the product, service or brand. If it’s less than satisfactory, you’ll be inclined to go elsewhere, like a competitor with better UX.

Wherever there are two similar products or services offering the same functionality, the one with the best UX will always win out. UX is therefore crucial for winning and keeping customers, developing a positive brand reputation and, ultimately, for driving profit and business growth.

In sum, the business value of UX design includes:

A competitive edge in the market
Increased sales and revenue
Higher conversion rates
Better word-of-mouth marketing
A strong brand reputation
Improved customer loyalty and retention

We compiled some interesting statistics about the business value of UX, like the fact that 66% of customers are willing to pay more for a great user experience.

The human value of UX design

In addition to being valuable to businesses, end users also value good UX even if they don’t know it. UX influences whether we enjoy an experience or not and whether products and services are efficient and easy or frustrating and difficult.

In addition, UX determines whether products are accessible and inclusive for as many users as possible. Whether they are disabled, come from a different place with different needs, or have different requirements, good UX make products and services accessible for all.

What defines good UX? The fundamental principles of UX design

Defining good UX can be tricky. It’s not down to one specific thing. There are seven principles of UX design that all designers should follow. They are:

User-centricity — Design products and services in a way that centres the user’s needs and helps to solve their problems.
Consistency — This can mean keeping your designs consistent across all pages, screens, and products within the same product family. It can also mean meeting the user’s expectations for the kind of product you’re designing.
Hierarchy — This includes putting more important elements in more prominent positions in both a site’s information architecture and in the visual hierarchy.
Context — Consider the circumstances in which your products of services will be used and how that will effect the user experience.
User control — Give the user the right amount of control over their interactions with a product, such as being able to reverse or undo errors to a text message without throwing the whole user experience into disarray.
Accessibility — Ensure your product or service is accessible to as many users as possible, including people with disabilities or in other environments.
Usability — Usability relates to how easy a given product is to use and it’s influenced by things like:
- Learnability – how easy it is for a user to learn how to use the product for the first time.
- Efficiency – how quickly and seamlessly the user is able to complete their goals and tasks.
- Memorability – how easy it is for the user to jump back into the product after not using it for a while.
- Errors – how many errors does a user typically make when using the product.
- Satisfaction – how pleasant or enjoyable is the product to use.

What is the UX design process?

The UX design process focuses on identifying and solving a problem for a specific target audience. It includes:

Conducting user research to understand who you’re designing the experience for and what problems they need solving.
Narrowing it down to one problem and coming up with potential solutions.
Designing the chosen solution.
Making prototypes to test and validate the design, i.e. to make sure it will actually solve the user’s problem.
Developing the prototypes into a fully-fledged product or service which people can use.
Continuously improving the product/service (and thus the user experience) based on continuous testing and feedback.

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Farm of the Future: Farm66 Cultivates Vegetables Within Hong Kong’s Skyscrapers

In the course of COVID-19, a significant number of people have reported having insufficient access to fresh food entirely for sustainable living.

Gordon Tam has created an urban farm that solves this problem. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Hong Kong-based vertical farming – Farm66. With advanced farming technology, he grows fresh vegetables inside skyscrapers in Hong Kong.

In 2013, Tam and Billy Lam, Farm66’s COO, founded Hong Kong’s first high-tech vertical farm and developed LED lighting and wavelength innovations for farms. Tam and his team found that different light wavelengths affect plant growth. Red LEDs generate longer, stronger stems, whereas blue LEDs produce larger, stronger leaves.

The technological and robotic advances at Farm66 are also both groundbreaking. The 20,000-square-foot indoor farm is managed with IoT sensors and robots for quality assurance and other tasks.

When asked about the challenges facing conventional farming, Tam cites a lack of talent as a significant issue. “It’s because the children of many remaining farmers don’t want to take over the farms. They think it’s a very tedious job.” – he told Forbes. This is why he placed a premium on technology and saw it as a means to attract young people to farming by making the industry more appealing.

Farm66’s latest farming mechanism impressed billionaire Tang Yiu’s tech-focused venture capital firm ParticleX. The Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, Sino Group, and the Hong Kong government’s Cyberport and Science & Technology Parks are also investors. A total of over $4 million in funding has been acquired so far. Hengqin Financial Investment and the City University of Hong Kong have also backed Farm66.

There are currently fifteen full-time workers at Farm66, including data analysts, food scientists, and mechanical engineers, who can harvest as much as seven tons of vegetables every month. Tam hopes to share its company’s urban farming methods and success in Hong Kong with other cities. For instance, Farm66 converted a shipping container into a mobile farm for use in Middle Eastern desert cities.

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Chicago’s Khmai Fine Dining: A Daughter’s Tribute To Mother’s Healing From Khmer Rouge

Khmai Fine Dining is a unique Cambodian restaurant in Rogers Park, Chicago. Owned by executive chef Mona Sang, the name is a mix of “Khmer,” the language and ethnicity of native Cambodians, and “me,” the Khmer term for mother, to emphasize her mother’s important role in presenting traditional Cambodian cuisine.

Mona, together with her sister, two brothers, and mother Sarom Sieng came to the US in early 1980 after surviving the Cambodian genocide. The Khmer Rouge tortured Sarom and executed her husband as the family fled to Thai refugee camps.

A single mother who never spoke English, Sarom began cooking for other families in the Cambodian community in order to survive and eventually expanded into catering events at Living Water Community Church in Rogers Park.

Mona hasn’t heard every detail of Sarom’s experience during the genocide, but the trauma her mother went through is still very clear to her. “I don’t know the whole story, but she tells it little by little when she’s cooking,” Mona told Eater Chicago. “I think there’s a lot of other people out there who have been through the same thing, but their story has never been told.”

In 2018, another family tragedy came when one of Mona’s brothers died unexpectedly in his sleep. Her mother discovered him the next morning and that image haunted Sarom.

Now that she is almost 80 years old, Sarom spends her days with her 13 grandchildren or assisting at Khmai.

According to Eater, Mona isn’t simply conveying a message to its customers with Khmai’s name. It is also a way of healing and writing a love letter to her mother who has fought for them to survive through the restaurant.

Khmai’s mesmerizing dishes include “Nom Bahn Chok”, a vermicelli noodle dish with minced tilapia marinated in kreoung and prahok, simmered in coconut fish stock, “Sach Koh Ang”, beef skewers marinated in lemongrass, Khmer spices and chili peppers, and Mai’s famous eggrolls stuffed with ground chicken, bean thread noodles and taro root.

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Filipina Mom Started Her Career Selling Vegetables Got Her Degree At 32 To Become A Teacher

Liezel Nudalo Formentera is now ready to work toward achieving her lifelong ambition in the field of education.

Formentera works as a street vendor in Cebu, Philippines, and hopes to improve her family’s situation someday. The only way she can see doing so is to further her education and get a better job. She could not finish elementary and high school, but she was determined and decided to join the DepEd’s ALS (Department of Education’s Alternative Learning System) program.

ALS is a parallel learning system in the Philippines that gives students an alternative to the formal education they already got. She didn’t have to miss out on her primary education because of ALS.

In 2018, Formentera finished high school, and she began to sign up for college. She went to Cebu Technological University to earn a Bachelor of Industrial Technology with a major in Computer Technology (CTU).

Because she also has to look after her children while she is in school, there were times when she felt physically exhausted from her work. They also experienced financial difficulties, but her farmer husband assists and supports her. There were times when she wanted to give up on her studies when times were tough, but she considered her children and the life she has worked so hard to provide for them. Thus, she worked harder for it.

She understood that there is no age limit on learning. Today, she remains overjoyed and grateful that she never expected to graduate from college. “Life is like this when you are confronted with hard times; simply pray to the Lord, and your blessing will arrive when you least expect it. This is for my children and my hope for the prosperity of my family. My children will not face poverty as I did.” – she happily shared with their local newspaper, The Philippine Star.

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Takashi Cheng Honored With A Special Award For Exemplary Initiatives On Elevating The AAPI Creator Community

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Takashi Cheng was honored with the Media Visionary of the Year Award, one of the night’s main highlights. He is one of the business leaders from the Los Angeles community who highlights the accomplishments of prosperous business owners and corporations and has contributed to advancing the ABA’s goals and mission.

Cheng serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Society One. He is known to be a creative investor and a public intellectual. Cheng has seen many ups and downs, but he credits his success to the American Bar Association (ABA), which he calls a shelter for young professionals seeking mentorship and employment. He attributed a significant portion of his success to the support of his wife and their young children.

Cheng’s Bling Empire castmate and friend Kane Lim called him a visionary. Lim is proud and happy that Cheng is in the spotlight for investing in people and projects that aim to elevate the Asian community. He is amazed at how Cheng invests in people and projects that seek to promote the Asian community.

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Cheng pledged $100 million to create new films, programs, resources, and infrastructure for Asian American business leaders. This showed Society 1’s support for AAPI creators. He concluded that he had “come full circle” from being a spectator in the crowd to receiving recognition from highly regarded community members.

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