UX Basics, Definitions, and Fundamentals

Baymard conducts original large-scale research studies on all aspects of the online user experience — from “on-site search” to “complete product page usability.”

We understand not everyone is well versed in e-commerce user experience and design, so we're creating a library of UX Basics & Definitions to enable anyone to understand UX fundamentals, and you will find these articles below.

On the following pages you will find fundamental UX information and definitions:

• What Is UX? The Basics of User Experience Design: What UX is, why it’s important, and why designing with UX in mind is vital to creating websites and products people love.

• UI vs. UX: Fundamentals of User Design: Understanding the difference between UI and UX design, and how they fit together during the product design and development process.

• UX Research: A Comprehensive Guide: The definition of user experience (UX) research and how you can investigate the needs and wants of your customers to create remarkable user experiences.

• The UX Design Process: Making the Most of User Experience: Here's an inside look at the user experience design process and some ways to improve your current UX systems.

• 16 Actionable E-Commerce Conversion Rate Optimization Tips: Good conversion rates are the result of hundreds of small design decisions — and that can feel really overwhelming. Here are 16 e-commerce CRO tips to get you moving in the right direction.

• How to Conduct a UX Audit to Improve Usability for E-Commerce Websites: A UX audit (also known as a site audit) is a step-by-step process that helps you spot user experience problems, so you can fix them with proven UX design principles and improve your e-commerce conversion rates.

• The Best Practices and Key Principles of UX Design: In this article, we’ve put together the top UX design best practices you can use to optimize your e-commerce site website or app, selected by Baymard’s team of user experience experts.

• Website Usability Best Practices (Backed By Research): Here are some of the best practices to avoid common website usability issues and ensure a positive user experience, all sourced from our large-scale UX research.

• 35 Data-Driven E-Commerce Best Practices: In this post, you’ll find 35 data-driven e-commerce best practice recommendations. They’re specific guidelines sourced directly from Baymard Institute’s 71,000+ hours of large-scale research that go beyond UX basics.

• 18 UX Design Examples: Inspiration for Improving User Experience: We’ve compiled a list of UX design examples — selected from Baymard's e-commerce UX case studies — that you can use as inspiration for improving the user experience on your site.