USE CASES in UX

Image by Gerd Altmann Pixabay

Updated on 4 Feb 2025 

An Introduction

A “Use case” is a term used widely in various contexts. In business, it is often used in reference to a business case, a process or a scenario that can be implemented as a product or part of that product. Referring to the context of User Experience (UX), a Use Case is a documentation highlighting the possible interactions between the users and the system.

Use Cases give us a precise idea about how the users should be able to make use of the product or application for the completion of the task. A Use Case depends on the “User Action” and the corresponding “System Response” to that particular action. It is a document that serves to highlight the set of actions that a user performs to achieve certain goals and the responses received from the system to the user’s action.

Use Cases in UX are an important tool for performing user research and user experience design. In a design-focused development environment, they serve to highlight the purpose and objectives of a system and its associated user roles by depicting a sequence of steps performed and the interactions towards a common, specific goal.

Importance of Use Cases

Use Cases are important because they provide information about how a system responds while it is used. They describe how the system helps the users achieve their goals. Contrary to a User Scenario, a Use Case is more orientated towards the behavior of the system rather than the user. In a Use Case, a comprehensive set of goals can be defined and an analysis can be performed as to how expensive and extensive it is vis-à-vis resource procurement, deployment and utilization to achieve the goals. In projects, Use Cases are helpful in analyzing which areas of the system need to be focused and developed and what setbacks could possibly occur while performing a task.

It is a user-centric approach: One has to state “what actions will be performed by the user” and “what result will be displayed by the system”.

It is not a system-centric approach: One does not have to specify “what inputs are fed to the system” and “what is its corresponding output”.

Start career in UX - UX Curriculum for Beginners & Trainees

Field of user experience design is niche and attractive for new talents. There are proper specialisation courses and degrees are available for becoming UX professional, but the field of UX is not limited to that. This is about the knowledge and skill as compared to degree & certifications. Many professionals aspiring to switch in to UX, proper direction of knowledge sharing, skill building and training can help them in starting their UX career efficiently. 

This curriculum is an attempt to create base foundation level learning of UX for beginners and trainees. Key plan is to provide the detailed understanding of UCD process, basic design principles (i.e. Heuristics, key principles) and Usability with the help of learning material and real practical assignments.

S.No.	Topics
Part 1: Basics of UX Design
1	UX & Usability Awareness
2	UI understanding, Apps, software solutions etc.
3	Key Design Principles and Heuristics (Ex. Gestalt Principles, Fitt's law etc.)
Part 2: User Centered Design
4	Planning, understanding about UCD process steps, picking up a problem statement
5	User Research, methods (CI, Interviews, observations etc.)
6	Analysis, analysing the findings form research, Persona, task scenarios, IA
7	Interaction Design, brainstorming ideas, paper sketching, low fidelity wireframing
8***	Visual design, understanding basics f VD
Part 3: Usability Inspection & Testing
9	Inspection methods, Heuristic review, expert review, cognitive walk through etc.
10	Usability Testing, preparing scenarios, conducting UT, synthesising findings
Part 4: Accessibility, Internationalisation
11	Web Accessibility guidelines (W3A)
12	Internationalisation in Design

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Note: *** marked topics are optional with respect to role.