A SoftwareEngineering Course Needs UX Design
In today’s cut-throat job market, where applicants are constantly re- and up-skilling, it isn’t enough to only be proficient in one area. You need to study a course with modules that provide complementary skills and enhance your job prospects.
When it comes to a course in software engineering, a module in user experience (UX) design is highly beneficial. And while professionals in both these fields are in global demand, applicants with both skill sets are even more sought-after.
In this article, we take a look at what each of these professions entails, how the two work together, and which course allows you to become skilled in both.
UX Designers
As the name suggests, user experience designers are responsible for the way users experience and interact with a product, system, or service. Their main goal is to create an experience that is both seamless and enjoyable enough to entice the user to buy a product or continue making use of a service – not an easy task with the sea of digital products and services immediately available to today’s users.
To effectively perform this role, UX designers must:
- Possess empathy and conduct thorough research into user needs.
- Analyse their research to devise design concepts that address the needs identified.
- Translate their concepts into quick and cost-effective visual representations (wireframes, sketches, prototypes, etc.).
- Present their visual representations to users to assess the effectiveness of the intended design before it is sent to the development team for building – a process that can be time-consuming and expensive.
Software Engineering
Unlike user experiencedesigners, whose main focus is the user, professionals in this field focus on the technicaldetails that make a product or system work. They translate ideas into functional products and systems and are responsible for their maintenance.
Effective performance in this role requires:
- Experience with a range of programming languages, including Ruby, Python, C/C++, and Java.
- Problem-solving skills and a sound understanding of testing and debugging.
- An understanding of how to apply object-oriented programming to create workable, modular systems which can easily be maintained in the future.
- Effective communication and leadership skills to guide a developmentteam.
The Overlap
Based on the above descriptions, you may be inclined to believe that professionals in these two fields can work in isolation without any problems – you would be wrong. Although they perform relatively separate roles, they must collaborate and communicate effectively for a project to be successful.
For example, if UX designers do not communicate with software engineers during the design process, they may come up with concepts that are simply not possible due to technicalconstraints. In the same way, if software engineers start working without the expertise of a UX designer, the end product will likely miss the mark in terms of user needs. Both scenarios can greatly slow down a project and lead to very expensive mistakes!
Choosing a Course
Are you interested in learning the skills to build digital products and systems that are both functional and meet user needs? A Bachelor of Computing course at Belgium Campus iTversity gives students the incredible opportunity to specialise in software engineering and take user experience design as an elective in their third year. Students who choose this route graduate as in-demand professionals with a broad skill set.
Want to know more? We’re ready to give you all the information you need. Contact us at 010 593 5368 or send us an email at info@belgiumcampus.ac.za.
