Original subtitles

Welcome back. We just finished learning

about the advantages of using design tools.

Now, we're going to talk about why

UX designers need to keep

different platforms top of mind

as they build user experiences.

A platform is the medium that users

experience your product on, such as desktop,

mobile web, mobile apps, tablets,

wearables, TVs, smart displays, and more.

It's important to design with

multiple platforms in mind, because users

want a product to look and feel

similar, no matter what platform they're using.

In the past, UX designers could have focused

on creating a website only for a desktop computer.

But today, users might look at

that same website on multiple platforms,

like their mobile phone, smartwatch, and TV.

UX designers now have to plan for

a nearly infinite number of

different devices and screen sizes.

Even though UX designers need to think across platforms,

it's important to focus on one platform

first when you build a new product.

The platform you select should be the one

that best meets your end users' needs.

Later, you can design for additional platforms.

In addition to having

a consistent user experience across platforms,

it's also important to have a consistent brand identity.

In this case, the brand identity

refers to the visual appearance and voice of a company.

For example, Google Search should look and

feel the same on your desktop computer and mobile phone.

It's important to keep in mind that

some functionalities only exist within certain platforms.

Think about a voice assistant,

which allows you to ask questions or control

your phone with your voice. Pretty clever, right?

At first, only mobile phones had voice assistants.

If the product you are designing

required the use of a voice assistant,

the only platform it would have

worked on was a mobile phone.

But fast forward to the present,

and voice assistants are integrated

into many other platforms,

like desktop computers, TVs, and even refrigerators.

Today, there are more platforms than ever,

which gives us even more opportunities

to design features for our users.

It's definitely an exciting time to become a UX designer.

Next up, we'll dive deeper into designing for web,

mobile apps, and mobile web.