Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design
This domain tests the vocabulary and frameworks that underpin every later course: the difference between UX, UI, and product design; the product development lifecycle; design thinking and design sprints; user-centered, equity-focused, and universal design; accessibility; and the biases that distort design decisions.
UX, UI, and the product lifecycle
UX design is about the experience of using a product - how it feels and whether it solves the user’s problem. UI design is about the surface: typography, color, layout, and interactive elements. Interaction designers shape flows, visual designers shape appearance, UX researchers gather evidence, and UX writers craft language.
Google’s product development lifecycle runs brainstorm → define → design → test → launch, and it is iterative: teams loop back when testing exposes problems. Design thinking has five non-linear stages - empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test. A design sprint, popularized by Google Ventures, compresses work into about five days across six phases: understand, define, sketch, decide, prototype, test.
Users, accessibility, equity
User-centered design places the user’s needs at the center: understand, specify, design, evaluate. Accessibility means people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with a product; WCAG organizes guidance under POUR - perceivable, operable, understandable, robust. Practical checks include alt text, captions, contrast, keyboard access, and screen-reader labels. Equity-focused design deliberately includes groups that have been historically excluded, while universal design aims for one solution that works for everyone. Accessibility is a subset of both.
Biases that distort design
Confirmation bias favors evidence that supports existing beliefs. False consensus bias assumes others share your preferences. Primacy and recency bias over-weight the first or last thing you saw. Implicit bias is unconscious association. Sunk cost fallacy keeps a team on an approach because of prior investment.
Worked example
A team designs a medication-reminder app for older adults. They interview caregivers (empathize), write “A busy caregiver needs a simple way to confirm an older parent took a morning dose because missed doses cause hospital visits” (define), sketch ideas (ideate), build a paper prototype (prototype), and run five usability sessions (test). Testing shows small tap targets and weak contrast. Rather than defending the original design - the sunk cost trap - the team returns to design and enlarges targets to at least 48×48 dp with 4.5:1 contrast.
Traps
Treating design thinking as a strict linear sequence. Calling accessibility an optional extra. Using universal design and equity-focused design as synonyms. Confusing UX and UI scope. Saying a design sprint has five phases instead of six.