UX design is constantly evolving and there are so many types of designers working on your product that it is easy to get confused. Web designer, interaction designer, product designer – it might sound like they have quite similar responsibilities and to some extent it’s true. However, it’s not that simple. It can become even more complex when you hear about UX architects. But don’t worry – we will guide you through this maze, so you’ll be able to understand who UX architect is and differentiate the role from other UX roles.
What is UX architect?
Similar to when you want to build a house, your products’ design needs a solid foundation. So, when a designer needs to create a website or an app, they have to structure the information for each individual screen, so it is easy to find for users. In other words, information architecture helps to organize and label the websites, mobile applications, and other digital media software content to assure its usability and findability.
The main goal of a User Experience architect is to develop the structure and flow of a digital product. The architect sets up the whole system, so the team can proceed with the design. Also, UX architect is concerned about the organization and presenting information from the user’s perspective. To be able to do that, architect carries out a user research, interviews, and surveys. Then they transform this data into sitemaps, wireframes, and prototypes.
Besides that, user experience architects occupy with:
Content inventory, content grouping, and content audits
The great understanding of content that product design will include is a feature of a great architect. Specifically, they need to understand how to work with content inventory, content grouping, and content audits.
These notions might be new for you so let’s break them down. A content inventory can be defined as a list of all the digital content your product. This usually includes specific characteristics about each piece.
Logically, a content grouping helps you to group and organize your content into a clear and logical structure. It should reflect how you view your website or app, and its aim is to define the relationships between the information.
The goal of content audit is to examine, and asses the quality of the content included in the inventory. Usually, audits are used to detect the content that needs to be updated, to find the gaps and places to fit the new content, and remove the pieces of content if needed.
Labeling
A good UX architect will use strong labels and titles to help users recognize the needed information. Also, labels should help them decide whether a page, link, or other website’s or app’s content can offer them the desired information. Typically, user will scan titles, headings, and links first. Therefore, UX architect will use labels that make target audience eager to visit a website our get an app.
Usually, the labels that are used for UX design are the ones already familiar to users. Also, considering that UX architect has conducted a user research, they will have data backed by user testimonies to create a user-oriented labels.
Creation of hierarchy, site maps and navigation
Site maps can provide visualization of the information space to help users easily navigate the website. While creating a site map’s main, user experience architect must be able to give users an overview of the whole website in a single glance. The entire page should be dedicated to information architecture. The UX architect makes sure that the design of sitemap is based on website’s organizational scheme and labeling.
Moreover, for every website that has more than a few pages, UX architect will organize them in some structure to arrange the content. Most likely, they will categorize pages into groups or even clear subgroups. As the result, UX architect will create a hierarchy of content and assure the easy navigation through it.
Wireframing and prototyping
User experience architects create clickable wireframes with a limited number of elements that are used only for in-team process. They are then used by visual designers as a reference when to create the actual layouts.
Also, one of the responsibilities of UX architect is to create simple, low-fidelity prototype that reflects the hierarchy of information and navigation. Based on data from the user research, the UX architect will sketch the ideas to show the possible screens of the future product, what content they will include and how to arrange it.
UX architect vs UX designer
Long story short, UX designer is more on the front when the user experience architecture is behind the scenes, clicking through wireframes to get to the design.
UX architect is more focused on building an intuitive flow for digital products. To accomplish that they conduct user interviews and surveying users. After collecting all that’s required, UX architect creates prototypes and wireframes. Compared to UX designers, they have a more holistic approach to user journey.
UX architect responsibilities
- Make sure that user needs are fulfilled
- Create easier access to information
- Fix usability and accessibility issues
At the same time, UX designer have broader specter of responsibilities. They cover the usability and accessibility of the product, as well as visual part of its design.
UX designer responsibilities
- Decide on the approach to navigation
- Define the objectives of the product
- Define content requirements
- Translate the user needs through design
4 reasons to hire UX architect
Now after you’ve learned about the UX architect, here are the reasons why you would like to hire one to work on your project.
1. They know your user’s needs
As in-depth user research is the part of User experience architect’s responsibilities, they are the one closely familiar with their needs. Therefore, they know exactly how to make your customers happy by giving them exactly what they want. And, in today’s competitive environment, this is a very valuable skill.
UX architect will put a user in the center of your design and build everything around their needs and preferences. Empathy mapping and the customer journey map are usually among their strategies, as well as other effective methods.
2. They have expertise in multiple domains
UX architects need have a vast expertise in every aspect of your website or app to create great user experience. Besides being concerned about usability, UX architects have knowledge in business processes, research, visual design, interaction design, Javascript and other technical skills.
Moreover, user experience architects possess skills like project management and artistic design.
3. They are experts in problem-solving
Firstly, by conducting UX research and getting to know your customers, UX architect can find the right problem that needs to be solved by your product. Moreover, they can apply their excellent problem-solving skills to fix the usability problems of already existing but underperforming design.
A UX architect will conduct a detailed investigation to get to the root of each problem and will find the perfect solution for it to leave both you and customers satisfied.
4. They adhere to your business goals
UX architect isn’t concerned only about user experience, your business goals are also on the list of their priorities. They will implement your business goals with the view of your company’s larger purpose and according to your business strategy.
UX architect will come up with design solutions for your digital product that merge business goals with user needs. Moreover, they have skills like analyzing complex data, transactional flows and an ability to define the user needs while adhering to your business goals.
Guide to UX roles
As we mentioned before, different UX professionals might work on your project and sometimes it can be challenging to know them all. Therefore, in order to give you the clearest understanding of UX architect roles compared to other UX specialists, here are some info about them.
- UI designer. A UI designer is a specialist in user interfaces and their responsibility is designing digital experience interfaces. Also, they have expertise in branding and brand guidelines.
- UX researcher. A UX researcher conducts a qualitative and quantitative research and interacts with your customer all the time. Their responsibility is to get feedback and help the business in making decisions according to data based on user research.
- UX writer. A UX writer is a type of copywriter, who focuses on the experience. Therefore, his responsibility is to guide the user through their tasks and assure that they can achieve their goal with the digital product.
- UX strategist and manager. UX manager is usually in the head of the UX team and is responsible for the team structure. The UX strategist is focused on how UX is used within the organization.
- UX unicorn (and yes, this is the real one). A UX unicorn usually refers to a UX designer who’s an expert both in design and front-end development. This set of skills is extremely rare and this is where the name comes from. Therefore, UX unicorns oversee the entire design cycle and even translate their designs into live code.
To sum up
There are multiple professionals involved in the UX process. UX architects are the ones who got UX designers backs – they develop the structure and flow for the digital product, so they can proceed with visual design. The design solutions of UX architects usually are based on in-depth user research and reliable data, so they are closely familiar with your customers’ needs. Moreover, one of the responsibilities is to structure the information from the user perspective, so it will be the most accessible for them.