DEV Community: Jordan Bowman

How Designers Can Prevent User Errors

Jordan Bowman — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 14:23:12 +0000

The term "user error" implies that it's the user's fault when they do something wrong.

But in the vast majority of cases, the fault actually rests with the designer for having created an interface that is confusing or makes it too easy for the user to make a mistake.

The solution to user errors is not to blame the user or try to train the mistakes out of them. The solution is to redesign the product in such a way that it prevents errors from occurring in the first place.

There are lots of practical ways to do this, and we're going to cover some of the most effective ones in this article.

Preventing errors

First, let's talk through some preemptive ways you can help users avoid errors.

Install guardrails

Provide helpful constraints so that users can't make a wrong choice. It's not always a good idea to limit options for a user, but when there are clear rules for what works and what doesn't it's good to have guardrails in place to prevent mistakes.

Examples: Phone number or credit card fields that don't allow alphabetic characters. Airline sites that don't allow you to pick a return date that falls before your departure date.

Offer suggestions

Like constraints, suggestions can guide the user toward the correct use of your product. They can help avoid accidental errors, find what they want, and remember what options are available.

Examples: Google search results offering suggestions for spelling errors. Uber showing recent locations as possible destinations. Autocomplete with contextual suggestions while the user types.

Choose smart defaults

Good defaults are helpful because they teach users what a reasonable value would be for the given input. Pre-populating fields with the most common value or a personalized one provides context and helps them see when they're on the wrong track.

Examples: Using geolocation to determine what the likely departure location is on a flights app. Presets like Tomorrow or Next Week in a reminders app.

Follow conventions

Jakob’s Law says “users spend most of their time on other websites.” Your users have been trained by thousands of other sites and apps to expect things to work in a certain way. Not following these recognizable patterns often leads to errors.

Examples: Placing navigation menus in standardized places. Adapting content to typical scanning patterns.

Make actions clear

Your design should communicate how it can be used. That means that any affordances—ways in which you can interact with the interface, like pushing a button—should have indications of how they can be used. If that isn't clear, users may make mistakes trying to interact with it, or skip it entirely.

Examples: Explanatory labels on form fields. Links and buttons that look distinct and clickable.

Preview results

Users might sometimes be unaware of the full impact of actions they're making. Letting them review what their changes will look like helps them see into the future and solve their own problems before they happen. This also allows them to play around and experiment without actually breaking anything.

Examples: Previewing an email before sending it out, or a blog post before publishing, or a page before printing. iOS showing you a preview of zoom settings before you submit the changes.

Give real-time warnings

Giving subtle, contextual warnings while a user is actively making an error can help them to quickly and accurately correct it. Install these warnings in areas where you know users are likely to make mistakes.

Examples: Red highlights and negative numbers on Twitter when you've surpassed the character limit. MailChimp showing you whether or not you've met each password requirement with a checkmark as you're typing a new password.

Confirm high-stakes actions

A confirmation dialogue is a straightforward way to give the user a chance to pause and double-check their action. Keep in mind, though, that these confirmations disrupt a user's workflow; if they get asked "Do you really want to do that?" after every decision, the user will get annoyed and (worse) will eventually ignore these dialogues altogether. So only use confirmations on dangerous or destructive actions like deleting important information or assets.

Examples: Facebook double checking with the user before permanently deleting a conversation from Messenger. Gmail asking you if you want to include an attachment when your message mentions it.

What to do when a mistake happens

No matter how much you try to prevent it, users will still make mistakes. Our job as the designer is to provide a safety net to make errors less costly and to try to prevent the user from making the same mistake again in the future.

Support undo

Being able to undo recent actions is helpful and satisfying for users. This is a direct counter to errors and makes the user more confident since they know a mistake can easily be fixed. Note that features like a trash can also work like an undo because they allow you to revert changes by retrieving deleted items.

Examples: Email clients with the ability to undo sending an email. Multi-level undo actions in document apps.

Provide error feedback

Clearly communicating the error is essential if you want to educate the user about what happened, what they can do about it, and how to avoid it in the future. A good error message will also the mistake seem less like a failure on the user's part and more like a cue for adjustment. Be friendly, positive, engaging, and helpful.

Examples: Understandable inline form validation. A useful 404 page.

Design practices to implement

Following these practices helps you figure out where users are likely to make mistakes and plan ahead.

Do user testing

User tests are the most reliable way to reveal obstacles, problems, and disconnects between mental models. Set a user on a task, and it'll become immediately obvious when they struggle, fail, or get frustrated. Then you can either plan error prevention measures or (better yet) fix the design itself to help them avoid these mistakes.

Utilize metrics

Metrics can be a cost-effective way of figuring out where your users are running into issues. Where are your users bouncing? Where are they spending unusual amounts of time? At what point are they leaving a workflow? Record the answers and utilize all the tactics above to prevent errors.

Tying it off

You may have noticed that most of these things also lift the general level of UX across the product. For example, offering suggestions helps the user get to results faster, previewing results allows for more user experimentation, and performing user tests reveals more than just error-prone areas.

Try applying these principles in your next UX project and see if it makes a noticeable difference.

Originally published on uxtools.co

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Maximizing the Product Research You're Already Doing

Jordan Bowman — Wed, 26 May 2021 13:18:12 +0000

Insightful user research can be expensive and time consuming.

There are many to cut down the cost of research, but one of the most important is to focus on extracting as much value as possible from your existing research efforts.

Let's explore ways to maximize your research to make it last longer, yield more results, and ultimately drive better experiences for customers.

We'll look at specific tactics for the planning, conducting, synthesizing, and documenting phases of research.

Planning

How can we avoid "research waste" before our research ever begins?

Before starting a research project, make sure you're providing new additional value and that the research hasn't been done before. This is most easily done by reaching out to other team members and departments.

Find out what your team has already learned about this topic

Who could you ask that might already know the answer? What questions can you already answer? Try to avoid spending time asking questions your team may have already researched. Be sure to look outside your design or product team to other valuable teams such as data science, sales, or customer support. I've been able to skip ahead on previous projects after discovering a long-forgotten slideshow containing very useful data.

Find the right method for your time frame

How much time do you really have? Once you have a timeline, consider how many data points you really need to answer your questions, and then choose the right method (for example, surveys can gather more data points than in-person interviews).

Leverage others to find participants

In many instances, other departments know users exactly like the ones you need to talk to. Make relationships. Ask for help. You don't need to recruit every research participant from scratch.

Understand what other teams need

As you make relationships with other departments, try to understand how you can mutually benefit each other.

After running the Design Tools Survey for a few years, I discovered investors, professors, and design companies were using the survey data to increase their understanding of the market. To better meet their needs, I added more questions about the demographics of the survey respondents. This yielded richer data for the viewers, and came at very little cost to me.

In my previous role at Neighbor, our UX team partnered with our very talented "customer activation team." This team called customers every day to help them set up our product. They added two very specific questions to their post-call survey to help us understand customer roadblocks. Implementing solutions to these problems eased the burden on the activation team while also yielding invaluable data for designers.

In summary: Reach out. Ask questions. Meet with other departments. Team up.

A note about bad data

In some cases you may discover that research was conducted, but not well. If you're able to track down the original owners of that research, use them as a resource to avoid the same mistakes. What would they have changed?

If the research is poor due to a lack of skill, consider redoing the research yourself. If it's due to data integrity issues (biased sample, inaccessible information due to privacy, etc.) try to understand if you can overcome these issues. If you can't, consider whether you need to take a different route.

Conducting

How can we optimize each session to create value for more than one specific project?

As you go about performing and conducting your research, do it with an ear toward the future. While you have the full attention of a participant, try to gain every valuable insights you possibly can from them.

Listen on behalf of others

As you gather responses, conduct interviews, and search for other data, be sure to listen for the questions you heard from other departments. As you hear topics they're interested in, send them a note after the call or drop them a link to your findings. Help them get excited and promote your work. The more attention you can bring to the value of your work, the more likely it is you can do more of it in the future.

Invite others to listen in or participate

You may already be inviting someone to take notes so you can focus on the conversation (or maybe you're using an audio transcribing service). Inviting people from other disciplines can go a long way in building relationships and empathy for your customers, and increasing respect for your research efforts. Consider inviting anyone involved in implementing this project (such as a developer) or anyone impacted by the outcome of this project (such as the marketing or sales team).

Quick tip

Give each invited guest an agenda of what you'll cover during the research. Let them know how you expect them to participate. This might help avoid unwanted confusion during the session.

Let the conversation loose

The best researchers know when to let the user interviews go on tangents to uncover unplanned but highly valuable insights. You may find that you have extra time during your session, or that your participant doesn't meet your expectations. Consider leveraging that time to learn about another topic (for yourself or one of your business partners). If you know what's coming next on your roadmap, you might be able to steer the conversation in that direction.

While conducting usability tests and interviews at Lucidchart, I sometimes had trouble recruiting the right participants. Some participants would think they had use a technical feature when they never had. I could identify the mismatch within a few minutes, so I would use the rest of the time to ask about other topics and ideas. If I could find a strong fit, I would pass the participant's name along to another team or keep them in mind for my next project.

In summary: Listen for related ideas. Be a representative for other teams.

Synthesizing

How can we pull more actionable data from notes and transcripts?

One of the best times to glean extra insights from your research is while dissecting each of your research sessions or responses.

Synthesize with others

Pull in other stakeholders and teams while you synthesize your findings (I find this is better done in partners or groups anyway). What can they learn? What can they discover and expose that you can't? For example, when I synthesize with people frequently on the phone I'll hear, "Oh, people like this call me all the time, this is a very real issue." I would miss those insights working alone.

Tag useful insights for others

What psychographics, behaviors, or circumstances about this session could be useful for others to know? Consider annotating these as you review responses, notes, and transcriptions. Try to flag them where you can with tagging tools like those you'll find in Dovetail or UserZoom. Simple comments can work as well in other documentation tools like Notion or Google Docs.

Evangelize the research

As much as possible, try to democratize the new insights from your research. Help your team and your company recognize the importance of being a research-led organization.

In my previous role at Neighbor, I would present any research insights in our weekly "sprint demos" meeting (traditionally reserved for engineers to present what they built during the week). This forum was the perfect for showcasing research impact and insights. I could also field questions and comments about the research. I received Slack messages from co-workers during and after this meeting who were interested in consuming the research further or partnering with me in the future.

Another technique I've always liked (but never been able to implement) is the "research newsletter" model. I first heard about from this idea Wade Shearer, former VP of UX at Workfront. His team regularly sent out a newsletter outlining recent research efforts and insights. While many of the ideas I've given involve partnering with one or two people, this is an exciting way to scale your research to the rest of the organization.

In summary: Pull others in as you analyze research. Thoughtfully annotate it it and broadcast it.

Documenting

How can we increase the lifespan of our hard-earned insights?

Research that is carefully organized and stored for the future is much more likely to be discovered and utilized by others who need it.

Tag and categorize your projects

Find a tool that allows for tagging and referencing, like Dovetail, Notion, Coda, or Airtable. I try to organize my projects something like this:

This type of organization has several benefits:

The easier someone can find it, the less likely they are to conduct a duplicate research project.
I can find my past research if I can remember just a few properties about it ("I can't remember what we called it, but it was a card sort with iOS users a few years ago").
If others have access to this documentation, they can more easily find projects relevant to them by filtering and sorting.
I can quickly report on the health, status, and quality of research efforts by having this at my finger tips.

Store research in an accessible, searchable place

Storage options like Google Drive can be a death sentence for research. They're often difficult to search and preview the content inside a document (not to mention taking several seconds to load a document only to find out it's the wrong one). Besides the tools mentioned above, you might have better luck in your company's knowledge base (like Notion, Slab, or Confluence.

Create a culture of documentation centralization

Try to encourage your team to store in the same place, and find workarounds to help teams still feel comfortable with their own system.

A recent team I worked with liked to have their own area in the knowledge base where they documented their own projects, research, notes. Instead of forcing them to conform to my master "user research" area, I was able to create entries in my table (above) that linked to their original documentation. Both of us achieved the goals we wanted without sacrificing the the needs of the other team.

In summary: Organize your research for the future. Store it in a way that others can repeat this cycle without extra work.

Admittedly, fostering your research practice in this way could take some extra effort during the process. In my experience, you can save just as much time in the long run. It also allows you to extract as much value as possible from all the research you do. Sometimes "more research" isn't the answer, "better research" is.

Read the original here: https://uxtools.co/blog/how-to-maximize-the-user-research-youre-already-doing/

UX Challenges

Jordan Bowman — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 14:20:08 +0000

My partner Taylor and I just launched some new UX Challenges.

👉 https://uxtools.co/challenges/

We made these so that designers can learn and practice crucial UX skills. There are too many clichéd UI exercises out there. These challenges are different:

👩🏻‍💻 Based in the real world. This isn't another fake redesign or "create an ATM for a centaur." Every exercise looks like a project you'd get in real life.

🛠 Practice important skills. UX is more than just UI. Each challenge helps you understand and train a specific UX skill like card sorting or usability testing.

💪 Stop reading: try UX. Nothing improves design skills faster than doing design work. Practice solving problems and see what real UX work is like.

💼 Get tangible takeaways. Have fun with mini projects, then walk away with a deliverable to put in your portfolio or use as a talking point in interviews.

Each challenge has a real-world scenario, a task aimed at helping you practice a specific skill, hand-picked references if you need help, and recommended tools.

Follow along on 🐦 Twitter: we'll be re-sharing and posting feedback for people who share their completed challenges there.

Let us know what you think!

Will you take on one of the challenges?

What No One Explains About the Design Process

Jordan Bowman — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 14:27:29 +0000

The UX industry puts a lot of emphasis on process.

As a result, I hear from stressed-out designers all the time asking questions like this:

Where do I start on a new project?
How do I know what to do next?
Which process should I learn?

It'd be great if UX design was as simple as, "do this, then do this, then do this." In practice, unfortunately, it's not that simple.

So what method do we use to answer these questions? What is a better way of looking at the practice of UX design?

What about XYZ process?

Design Sprint, Double Diamond, Lean UX, UCD, Standford D, Frog Design... the list goes on. Do a Google image search for "design process" and you'll get an endless list of graphs and diagrams.

I'm not here to bash any process framework. They have their benefits and usually have good principles embedded inside. It's good to have a high-level awareness of the major ones.

But they can also be prescriptive, linear, inflexible, and touted as the only way to do "good" design.

The reality

Experienced designers usually come to realize that clinging to a process framework is incompatible with the reality of the everyday work of a designer. Why?

One process does not fit all scenarios. Everyone does it differently (even if they follow the same process):

Design is different across teams. Every company and team within a company has its own way of doing things. There are unique roles, established practices, assignments, and priorities. Things are even different across industries (fin-tech is different than e-commerce, and so on). No two teams do things the same way.
Design is different across projects. There isn’t a cookie-cutter list of requirements for every project. Each one you work on will have a different scope, goal, constraints, context, background, budget, complexity, timeline, starting point, and resources.
Design is different across designers. You will personally connect more with certain ways of doing things. There are good practices to stick to, but trying to force yourself to fit into other people's ideas of a good process might not work well. You'll naturally gravitate toward certain ways of doing things over the course of your career. And designers with different processes who are working together can teach each other, learn new tricks, and cover more gaps.

What’s the better way?

Considering the above reality, what is the process? Where do we start? It’s important to base your work on good practices, so when we’re given an assignment, how do we know what to do?

The first key to understand is that design is not a process, it's a practice. It is based on judgment, critical thinking, relationships, adaptability, and craft.

Instead of thinking of design as a procedure, think of it as a toolbox. For different projects, you need different tools. If you’re asked to pound in a nail, grabbing a screwdriver isn't ideal.

But if you have an understanding of first principles, you can apply them to any scenario. You can reach for the right tool in the right situation.

Designers should be thinking fundamentally in terms of principles, not a specific process.

Does this mean no processes?

Nothing's wrong with processes. They can be great for making things predictable, building a shared vocabulary, and ensuring you cover all the bases. But processes are just implementations of basic ideas, which is why they don't end up applying to every situation.

Sometimes teams just blindly follow the process, going through the motions of checking off boxes in a list without really understanding what’s going on under the hood. Memorizing terminology and tactics will only get you so far because they're useless if you don't know how to think.

It's valuable, even essential, to understand the underlying principles at the foundation of the processes. Then you’ll understand why the process works and how you can adjust it to fit the needs of your project.

The principles

Each process framework does things a little differently, but they all have four underlying principles in common: understand, ideate, test, and implement. These are the tenets that have emerged over time in the design field and been advocated by big minds like Don Norman and Tim Brown.

If you're learning about design or just want to make sure you're following the best practices, you should think fundamentally in terms of these four principles. You can adhere to them and check your work against them. They encompass the daily work of UX.

Understand

We work for two people: our employer and the user. To create a great design, we must understand where both are coming from. This means we'll need to gather and analyze information, which usually means we have to perform research. Other times, we can just rely on research done previously.

This research enables us to put ourselves in our users’ shoes: to understand their likes, dislikes, context, needs, pain points, and so on. Meanwhile, we learn about the business side of the project: what is the goal? What metrics will we use to measure success? What are the challenges we're facing? What are the technical constraints?

From all this, we figure out problems we need to solve and opportunities we want to take advantage of.

When do you do this? When you have major questions that are blocking you from moving forward.

What skills and tools do you use in this principle?

Competitive analysis
Journey map
User interview
Stakeholder interview
Task analysis
User persona
Empathy map
Market research

What is the expected result? Reports from research with foundational takeaways and knowledge.

Ideate

As we build a solid understanding of the project, we need to start coming up with ideas. These ideas should materialize in the form of prototypes—something tangible that models the idea. There are lots of levels of fidelity that a prototype can take, and they're an expression of what we learned in the "Understand" principle.

Prototypes are essential because they allow us to explore (and eventually test—in the next step) possible solutions and figure out what works. We could never do that properly in our heads. Having something concrete to work with is much more effective and allows for better collaboration amongst our team. It's a more interactive, cheaper, faster way of creating.

When do you do this? You understand the requirements and underlying information of the project, and you need to start coming up with initial ideas.

What skills and tools do you use in this principle?

Interactive prototype
Wireframe
User flow
Sketching
References
Brainstorming
Moodboard
Paper prototype

What is the expected result? Prototypes that represent our ideas.

Test

This is where we take the tangible ideas we’ve drafted in the ideate principle and run tests on them.

Testing is about generating confidence that something is working—this could be a fresh new idea, or something that already exists. We put it under strain and observe real behavior or analyze its metrics to validate performance.

Testing is the backbone of good decision-making. It's the only way to reveal what works well and where all the problems are, in a way that you can't simply think through in your head. Measuring always trumps intuition. We’ll learn new things we never would have otherwise.

When do you do this? You've created prototypes, but now you need to see if they really work.

What skills and tools do you use in this principle?

Usability test
A/B test
Diary study
Analytics
Card sort
Field study
Heuristic evaluation
Survey

What is the expected result? Reports from tests with recommended solutions.

Implement

At a certain point, we’re going to have to put together the final product. In this principle, we take what we've learned from the principles before it, and build the final product that will be launched to our users.

Crafting the finished product involves lots of skills that aren't utilized in the other principles, including the finer points of aesthetics and preparing your designs for the real world.

When do you do this? You’ve gathered enough information and research to be able to make final decisions and launch to the public.

What skills and tools do you use in this principle?

UX writing
Accessibility
Design system
UI design
Forms
Navigation
Onboarding
Usability

What is the expected result? Full designs ready for the finished product.

Things to keep in mind

Designing, like most forms of creation, is best as an iterative practice, not a one-and-done kind of thing. It's a cycle of creating something, seeing how it feels, discussing it, testing it out, and making it a little bit better.

That means that the principles above aren't linear. They can (and are) done out of order, or in a cyclical nature.

For example, you could start ideating something, then go back to understanding, then jump ahead to testing, all the while chipping away at implementation. But the point is the principles are all there. That's often important than a particular order.

Wrapping up

Understanding and applying the principles of UX design opens up more possibilities. You can be flexible and adaptable no matter the team or project and ensure you get the best work done.

If you found this useful, please consider sharing with your design friends or giving some love to the Twitter thread:

UX Tools

@uxtoolsco

👩🏻‍💻 I hear from designers all the time asking me which process they should learn.

Here’s a thread explaining why that might not be the right question... 👇

11:11 AM - 17 Mar 2021

Originally posted on uxtools.co.

Using Miro to make a sitemap

Jordan Bowman — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 14:13:15 +0000

Miro has quickly become one of my favorite UX tools this year. Let's use it to make a sitemap for a fictional mobile app:

7 Takeaways from the 2020 UX Tools Survey

Jordan Bowman — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 13:19:24 +0000

Over 4,000 designers responded to Taylor Palmer’s annual UX Tools survey.

Here are some key takeaways from the results.

1) Miro had massive growth

In the brainstorming category, Miro grew from 5% usage in 2019 to 33% in 2020. This has become one of my personal favorite tools.

2) People love Whimsical

Most tools averaged a rating of 3.5 out of 5, but Whimsical achieved a great score of 4.5. Miro also had high scores, but Whimsical looks to be a great contender.

3) Windows adoption is climbing

More designers are using Windows. 25% of respondents used Windows as one of their platforms for design this year, up from 18% last year.

4) Figma usage skyrocketed

Taylor said the Figma numbers were so high, Taylor had to double-check them. They were the clear winner in multiple categories, including the “Which tools are you most excited to try in 2021?” section.

5) Testers like Zoom & Maze

Zoom is the clear winner here, especially as it becomes a household name. Maze also had a strong showing and high user rating. 25% don’t use software at all.

6) Notion is a budding favorite

There were several surprise appearances from Notion in multiple categories. It's clearly becoming a popular solution for many designers.

7) Adobe XD is slowly emerging

Adobe XD grew 10x from being used by 1% of respondents in 2019 to 11% for managing a design system. However, it’s still behind Figma and Sketch.

Wrapping up

Big thanks to Taylor for putting this together every year! Be sure to visit uxtools.co/survey-2020 to see all the results.

Have you changed tools in 2020? Let me know on the Twitter thread. If you're feeling generous, perhaps like or retweet the thread, too:

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User Research: Is It Worth It?

Jordan Bowman — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 13:03:24 +0000

Meet Maria.

She's sitting at her desk, thinking about the design project she launched a few weeks ago.

Maria is a talented designer. She has good intuition and a solid understanding of design principles.

But her latest project hasn’t gone off well. There have been more customer complaints than usual. And what’s worse, the complaints have turned out to be completely valid. She’s already had to redesign a few things. And this isn’t the only time this has happened.

Lately, Maria has been hearing a lot about user research: user interviews, journey maps, usability testing, and so on. This is all new to her, but Maria’s gut is telling her it might be part of the answer to her problems.

She wonders if she should make the effort to add user research into her process.

Is it worth it? What should Maria (and cough you) do?

In this article, we’ll dive into the answer.

What’s first?

You can come at UX design from lots of different directions.

There's aesthetics-first. That's when the designer’s whole goal is to make something that looks appealing. There's lots of that on the web.

There's company-first. That’s when design decisions are based on business metrics, and everything else is set aside. As a user, you can feel when this is the case, and it can lead to issues like dark patterns.

There's designer-first. This one's trickier to spot. It's when the designer bases everything on their intuition and what they want the product to be. It's grounded on the talent and opinion of whomever the designer happens to be.

Then there's user-first. This is when decisions stem from the problems, preferences, and needs of the product’s end user.

In my view, user-first is the best way to go.

A digital product exists because it provides value to a user. So serving that user is in the best interest of all involved, including the business and the designer.

That is the scenario in which all parties win. And it leads to the best design result because design isn’t decoration—it’s problem solving.

“People ignore design that ignores people." - Frank Chimero

Let's be clear: there is nothing wrong with aesthetics, or business goals, or the designer. Those are all essential pieces to the puzzle. We don’t want to over-prioritize to the point where the business suffers. That’s counter-productive.

What I’m saying is the foundation should be users—they should be at the heart of every design decision from the very beginning. It starts and ends with them because your business starts and ends with them.

Here’s the bigger point

What I’ve described above is becoming widely adopted across companies of all sizes and industries. It makes sense. Maria would agree. Chances are you would, too.

But here's the thing that Maria and lots of other people don't realize—and if you take away one thing from this article, it should be this:

If you want to build in a user-first way, it’s not enough to try to be empathetic and imagine yourself in your user's shoes. No matter how talented you are as a designer, no matter how good your intuition is, no matter how well you understand design principles, you will always need tools and techniques to get there. In other words:

User research is the only path to real user-first design.

This is, after all, why the tools and techniques of user research exist in the first place. They were specifically created to put the user at the core of our designs.

Why is this?

Let’s look at six reasons why user research is fundamental to user-first design.

It helps you get over yourself

The false consensus effect causes people to "see their own behavioral choices and judgments as relatively common and appropriate." In UX this means you think your thoughts, beliefs, and actions are the same as your user.

This is a trap.

For example, let’s say you’re a designer at Strava. Running is your biggest hobby, and you use Strava to track everything.

Does this mean you are the user and therefore don’t need to do any research? No, because you are not a normal user.

You know too much about technology and you definitely know too much about your project. You’re too close to it. You think about it through a different lens. And you can’t take all this stuff out of your brain and set it aside while you’re designing.

Our knowledge and experience keep us from seeing things through the eyes of our users. And the only way to get past that is via research and testing.

It's easy to forget these concepts and get caught up in our own minds. I've done it lots of times.

But anything you put out into the world without user research is simply guesswork. Even the most well thought out designs are just assumptions until they are verified by real data and end users.

Let’s aim for groundwork, not guesswork. Let your users point the way.

It unlocks valuable data

Research opens the door to hard facts. You're no longer making decisions based on hunches. You can validate and verify your designs with empirical data.

Even a tiny amount of data vastly improves the probability of making the correct design decision.

And here's the thing: this data is out there, ready for the taking. But you’re walled off from it until you perform research.

Learn how to put your assumptions aside, do research, and ask the right questions, and the data is yours.

It’s feasible for anyone

User research doesn’t have to be big, long, complex, or expensive.

In the past, there’s been a false belief that all user research has to be a fully-fledged psychology experiment where a team of Ph.D.’s with an enormous budget perform mind-numbing investigations in a formal lab.

But in the real world, user research can (and should) be light and fast. Research tools and techniques have evolved along with technology, and you can change the cost and scale to meet your specific needs. It can be integrated into even fast-moving projects.

For example, prototypes are easy and cheap to make. And a very effective usability test can be done in a couple of days.

It’s efficient

What research does is help you understand what the user wants right now, instead of later via support complaints (like Maria). You identify red flags, opportunities, and user reactions in advance. You discover what works and what doesn’t upfront so you can course-correct and iterate quickly, before putting time into the final product.

With each round of testing, analysis, and prototyping, the design improves based on hard facts about what works and what doesn’t. Your design and development teams don’t waste time creating something that won’t satisfy the people using it. They create efficiently, building in a direction that is much more certain to succeed.

In short, you match your designs to real-world use so that you get to the ideal version the first time. It saves you the costly design and development time that comes from having to deploy rebuilds and fixes.

It’s economical

User research is an investment. It's part of the long-game of creating a great digital product. It pays off with multiple gains (including monetary) over time.

One of the biggest ways you save money is by fixing UX problems before they ever happen. Think about the costs associated with development hours, or with an issue identified late in the game that has to be corrected quickly and retroactively.

Research also strengthens a product's potential to succeed. Products that win are those that help users accomplish what they want in a better way than competitors. UX directly affects metrics like conversion rates, adoption rates, customer loyalty, and growth. And more success means more revenue.

It's convincing, motivating, and unifying

This is because research...

Is not from you. It’s from a third party, your user—the most important third party of all.
Is based on real results and data, not hunches. It can be hard to get behind someone’s opinion, but everyone can get behind numbers.
Allows you to measure things, compare between options, and validate your decisions.

You, your team members, and your superiors can all have confidence that you're making the right decision when you perform research. You're not basing it on a gut feeling or someone's personal opinion. This aligns everyone—it builds consensus.

For example, imagine showing your team a video recording of a usability test with a real person who’s struggling to complete a task with your product. Everyone in that room will walk away knowing it's a problem and motivated to make the required changes.

What this looks like

Let's get back to Maria. That day at her desk she resolved she would make a serious effort to start using research.

Over the next year, she picked up one skill here, another there. It wasn’t perfect. In fact, it was a bit messy sometimes, and she still has a lot to learn.

But it’s slowly becoming part of her process. She’s using techniques like user interviews, empathy maps, and card sorting. She’s building user flows and prototypes and doing usability testing with them.

At first, it was hard to get her coworkers on board with the importance of this stuff. But over time, both Maria and her team have begun to see the benefits.

She’s finding that communication and decision-making are more simple. It’s getting easier and easier to come to a consensus about what the team should do because they have real data to back it up.

They’re spending less time on redesigns and fixes, and more time on new features.

There are fewer complaints and more praise from users. They’re seeing a healthy number of new users and retention.

Are there still issues and mistakes? Of course. There are just fewer of them.

Maria's happy with where things are headed. She’s more confident with the designs she’s putting out and most of all, she has clear data that confirms it’s a better user experience.

Tying things off

Compared to other design professions, UX has a myriad of tools that make it quick and easy to get usable data and make the right decisions. It’s a unique advantage.

We don’t need to be perfect at research. But if you work on implementing it and place the user at the heart of your design process, things turn out considerably better.

Know someone who should read this? Share it with them.

Learn UXD

@learn_uxd

🎙 There’s lots of chatter these days about the importance of user research.

But is it worth the effort?

THREAD

#⃝design

12:18 PM - 08 Dec 2020

Tesler's Law

Jordan Bowman — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 14:39:21 +0000

Tesler’s Law, also known as the “Law of Conversion of Complexity”, was coined by Larry Tesler (a software engineer) in the 1980s.

It states that every app has a fixed amount of complexity, which can be handled by either the user or the app itself.

Remember this balancing act. If you simplify your app too much, you’ll transfer some complexity to the user. If you take on too much of the complexity yourself, your app may become overwhelming.

Follow along for more content like this: Website | Twitter | Instagram

UX Lessons from Big Sur

Jordan Bowman — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 14:40:12 +0000

The largest tech company in the world just launched new software.

There are problems with Apple's Big Sur, but let's look at a few UX decisions they (mostly) got right.

User-first

Emphasis on the UI was reduced in order to keep the focus on the user’s content. Buttons and controls appear when needed and recede when they’re not. Border and bezels have been softened or removed.

The interface is there to serve the user—it shouldn’t draw attention to itself. Remove visual complexity & increase the signal to noise ratio.

Privacy & transparency

Tracking prevention and transparency has been added to Safari. Inspired by food nutrition labels, new privacy information on the App Store lets you see a summary of the privacy practices of each app before you download it.

Put privacy and transparency first. It’s in the best interest of your user.

Drill down on key workflows

Apple clearly had a goal to improve the Messages app. There are now pinned conversations, better search, inline replies, mentions, and the ability to find GIFs. They know Messages are an important part of their platform.

Invest time and effort in improving key tasks & flows in your product. It’ll pay off in the end.

Uniformity across services

The Control Center and Notification Center changes are meant to create consistency through the ecosystem. There’s also new unified line of symbols. Some of the visual changes, though, like the new app icons, don’t match up with iOS 14; hopefully they’ll fix that.

Maintain consistency and adhere to your own standards. It reduces cognitive load, makes the UI learnable, and gives a feeling of familiarity and confidence.

System status visibility

Multiple updates and standardizations were made to top-level UI’s, including the Control Center, widgets, Spotlight, and the Notification Center. These changes make system status clear, easy to find, and customizable.

Quick access to general system controls and information makes an interface feel reliable and predictable, and builds trust.

Stick with what's familiar

When redesigning dock icons, Apple consciously tried to retain the personality from the original. There are lots of new UI sounds as well, which were literally built on top of snippets of the originals so that they sounded familiar.

When doing a redesign, remember Familiarity Bias: people prefer familiar experiences. It’s best to build off what you have rather than make an entirely new experience.

Clear visual feedback

The Dock and Menu Bar have a new interface that allows you to customize where controls show up. The method they use of visually showing the user exactly what will happen is not only satisfying, it’s a very effective form of communication.

Clearly communicate the consequences of decisions, preferably visually.

Thanks!

What do you think of Big Sur so far? What could they have done better?

If you’re feeling generous, perhaps share the thread on Twitter:

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Originally posted on learnuxd.io.

Images from apple.com and my computer.

The Psychology of User Decisions

Jordan Bowman — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 12:28:22 +0000

We like to apply labels to users: they’re irrational, lazy, unpredictable, rushed, and so on.

To some extent that may be true—we aren’t machines.

But research shows that users actually make decisions based on a set of predictable subconscious patterns.

To create satisfying digital experiences, UX designers should be aware of—and support—these cognitive habits.

Heuristics

Human beings use psychological tactics and biases to get to decisions quickly. These mental shortcuts are called heuristics. We use heuristics in everyday life, but we especially like using them with software.

We don't follow these patterns out of laziness or because we're scatter-brained. It's quite rational to take advantage of heuristics as a user because…

In the digital world, there's very little penalty for being wrong. The cost of most errors is close to zero. Guessing wrong on a link and hitting the back button is still more efficient than reading the whole page to find an exact match.
Carelessly clicking around is more fun because we get a small dopamine rush from each click.
Web pages can be complicated. We'd rather make a decision and get on with our lives. It's a matter of trade-offs—a balancing act.
The web enables us to move quickly from one decision to the next, at a much faster pace than the physical world. So that’s what we do.

Let's take a look at some of the most common heuristics that users employ.

Satisficing

A combination of the words "satisfy" and "suffice." It means to settle for the first reasonable option you find, without considering the whole set of possibilities. We don’t look for the right answer—we look for whatever is good enough.

Loss Aversion

Losses loom larger than gains in our minds. It is thought that the pain of losing is about twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining. We put in more work and take more risks to avoid losses than we do to make gains. Part of Prospect Theory.

Availability

People draw conclusions based on what comes to mind immediately. We give a lot of importance to things that we recall quickly and things we can already see right in front of us.

Decision Fatigue

Making a lot of decisions lowers a person's ability to make rational ones. It’s also exhausting.

Reference Dependence

Human beings do not have an innate way to determine absolute value. So we assign value by comparing one thing to another. We make judgments in relative rather than absolute terms.

Status Quo Bias

Unless there’s a compelling incentive, people are more likely to stick to the default. In other words, we tend not to change the established situation.

Hick's Law

The number of stimuli present influences the time and effort required to make a decision.

So what?

As designers, what do we do about all this?

Here are a few ways we can tailor our digital experiences to these heuristics.

Decrease your DPP

One helpful exercise is to look at what we can call our DPP: Decisions Per Page.

Take an important page from your interface and count the number of possible decisions a user could make on that page. This includes actions (which always require a decision) or information that leads to a decision.

I'm willing to bet the number is higher than you would have guessed.

If the DPP is too high, what do you do?

Reduce visual signals

Start by reducing the number of colors and fonts. Using more than four meaningful colors causes the “rainbow effect” which disorients the brain and creates an impression of ugliness.

Movement is distracting. Use animation sparingly and only for a specific purpose.

Build a design system. It ensures consistency between elements, and prevents users from having to re-learn the interface on every new page.

Optimize the default experience

Be aware that many people will never use fancy customization options. Make sure the general default experience provides for all the important task flows.

Forms provide lots of opportunities to be helpful. For example, we could pre-populate fields with the most common value or a realistic example. This representative value helps the user understand how to complete the field and what the expected response is. Not to mention it will save most users time and decision-making energy.

Prioritize for the user

Since many users aren’t going to accurately prioritize things on their own, we should do some of that work for them. The ultimate goal is that they can glance at any page and know instinctively which items are most important.

Knowing what to prioritize requires that you learn about your users, their goals, and their main workflows. Think about what is essential (vs. what is optional) and what moves the user forward.

We can give the user visual clues to create a clear hierarchy. Our brain assigns importance to things based on size, color, imagery, contrast, white space, and alignment.

Evaluate your content

Remember almost all users scan—they don’t read. Classic principles of good writing, including descriptive headings and inverted-pyramid structures, help users get meaning from content.

Some common red flags include a lack of headings and big, long blocks of text. Call attention to important information using bulleted lists and bold or italic fonts. Take the time to craft your microcopy.

Consider the post-click experience

What happens when a user clicks on something? What's the next thing they see and how does it connect to where they just were? How does it fit into their whole journey through your interface?

It could be easy to think of each page in isolation. But remember pages aren't individual silos—they're pieces of flows. It's all a series of connected actions.

Give good information scent with link labels so users know where they’re going. Allow them to gracefully recover from clicking on the wrong thing to eliminate the “cost” of clicking. Make sure they’re always moving forward.

Tying it off

Remember: we never truly know what an individual user is thinking until we research. When in doubt, test it out.

What are you going to do differently with your products to better support these heuristics?

Thanks for reading. Check out the Twitter thread, and consider sharing it with someone who would find this useful:

Learn UXD

@learn_uxd

👨🏻‍💻 Are users irrational? Research shows that they make decisions based on a set of predictable subconscious patterns.

[read the thread for Part 2 👇]

11:29 AM - 27 Oct 2020

Usability Testing in 4 Simplified Steps

Jordan Bowman — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 11:58:20 +0000

Are you intimidated by usability testing? Don't know where to start? Feel like it's too time consuming or expensive?

Usability testing doesn't need to be a fully-fledged psych experiment with a formal lab, big team, and lots of time and money. In the real world, it can (and often should) be much lighter and faster than that.

Here are four manageable steps that anyone can do to perform a free remote usability test. I'll include some tips to make sure you get actionable data.

1) Start with a clear goal

Figure out the question you're trying to answer with your test. Is there an important flow we need to make sure works well? Is there a new design we want to test out?

Based on that, pick 2 or 3 specific tasks to give the test participant. You can't just say, "Hey, look at this website and tell me what you think." We'll learn much more if we watch them try to accomplish something.

Here are a few examples of tasks we could give the participant:

Too vague: Explore this new feature and tell me what you think.

Too specific: Go to the search bar, type in blue sandals, select size 9, choose the first one, click "Add to Cart" and continue to the checkout.

Better: Buy a pair of shoes for under $40.

2) Recruit participants

Recruiting test participants may seem daunting, but it doesn't need to be.

For starters, we only need 3 to 5 people. Getting more than that isn't worth it because there are diminishing returns on the data.

Focusing on finding representative people. This means people who look like our users and would have a reason to do the tasks we're testing. Stay away from people inside your own company and people you know in real life—they'll be too biased.

How do you find these people? The first place to look is your user base. It's an instant pool of potential participants who care about your product. Look at your customer support and social media channels, or ask people on the app itself. You could also think about where your potential users hang out online (forums, etc.) and see if they'll talk to you.

How do you get people to agree to do the test? A current user will likely be willing to do it for free if the test is quick (15 minutes or less). If you feel like you need to offer them a gift, consider things you could give them from your own company, like a free month. Or send each person a gift card—Amazon is good because all you need is an email address.

Once you've found participants, explain what the test is about and how long it will take. Set up time slots using Calendly and send them the release form if you're using one.

3) Perform the test

Preparation

Create a prototype and send it to the participant. If you're using a mockup, you can make it clickable with a tool like Marvel or Invision.
Write a script. This ensures we're giving the right information, and eliminates the chances of inconsistencies between tests (which are usually the test facilitator's fault).
Get recording software ready, and test video and audio before the session. You'll want to record the test so you can focus on what's happening and avoid having to furiously take notes. Something like Zoom or Google Meet is good enough.

Test day

Welcome the participant and help them relax. You want to take some of the pressure off. Explain you are not testing them, you're testing the site. If they make mistakes it's the software's fault, not theirs; we're here to learn from their experience.
Explain how the test will work. Ask them to try to think out loud as they perform each task. Explain that to ensure conditions are as real as possible, you won't be able to offer them any advice.
Explain the real life scenario that would lead to them performing this task so they can get in the right mindset. Let them read the task out loud and begin.
Remain neutral and silent as the participant takes the test. This is not about teaching them how to use the interface. You're there to listen and watch. Sometimes they may be critical or run into problems, but resist the urge to explain things or prompt them. If they ask you how to do something, reply with “What do you think?” or “I am interested in what you would do.”
After each test, take a step back with the participant and ask, "How'd that go?" If you have specific questions, you can retrace their steps and ask them open ended questions like, "Why did you decide to do that there?" or "What was going through your mind at this point?"
Thank them sincerely. If you offered an incentive, explain how they'll receive it.

4) Analyze the results

Review the recording. Did the participant complete the task successfully and efficiently? If not, what stopped them? What were their key behaviors and comments?

Cross reference and look for patterns between the different participants. Rank the issues, identify solutions, and determine the best course of action moving forward.

Simple is better than nothing

If you remember one thing about usability tests, make it this: doing any kind of usability testing is always better than doing none. Even if it doesn't exactly follow the steps above. Don't put too much pressure on yourself.

You'll keep getting better at this. Once you get into a rhythm of testing, you'll learn shortcuts and boil things down to a process that works for you. It'll become part of your process.

Try it out! Follow the steps in this article and perform your own usability test. See what benefits you gain from it. Feel free to ask me any questions you have, and let me know how it goes on Twitter or Instagram.

If you think others would benefit from this article, share it or give the Twitter thread some love:

Learn UXD

@learn_uxd

🧪 Are you intimidated by usability testing?

Here are four manageable steps that anyone can do to perform a free remote usability test. I'll include some tips to make sure you get actionable data.

[thread 👇]

11:43 AM - 06 Oct 2020

Originally posted on learnuxd.io

The How (and Why) of User Flows

Jordan Bowman — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 11:45:20 +0000

The ability to create and think in user flows is one of the most important skills in a UX designer's toolkit.

What's a user flow?

The short definition is:

A series of steps a user takes to achieve a meaningful goal.

It shows the path a user takes through the product as they complete a specific task. It has things like a title, wireframes, and notes in a flow chart. (More on this later 😄.)

Why do we make one?

What's the benefit of adding user flows to our process? Here are five important benefits:

👩🏻‍💻 Increases our awareness of the user

When you're in the weeds of designing, it's easy to get lost in project requirements, technical jargon, and personal opinions. By the end, the user isn't even part of the conversation.

Since a user flow is from the perspective of the user, it keeps us grounded in the fact that we're designing a real life situation for another human being.

🎯 Helps us focus on the user's tasks

Whenever a user pulls up a digital product, there's always a reason they're there: a task they need to complete. It could be finding a video, buying a flamethrower, or booking a flight; but whatever it is, that task is the root of all their interaction.

User flows are all about tasks, so they help us center our work on the user and their actual goals and experience, rather than fixating on one page at a time.

🧱 Sets a foundation for other work

Since user flows are broken up exactly how a user interacts the product—one task at a time—they provide a foundation for the rest of the design process.

User flows influence everything from interface design to information architecture to usability testing.

⚠️ Supports troubleshooting

Lots of the issues (read: support requests) with digital products are about a user not being able to complete a task.

A clearly defined user flow helps us spot and eliminate dead ends, pain points, or confusing steps where users are having trouble.

👥 Improves team communication

Sometimes it can be challenging to get our ideas across in an accurate and understandable way.

User flows clarify the scope, complexities, paths, and goals of our designs for people like engineers, other designers, and product managers.

Great, and how do we make a user flow?

What does it actually look like and what are the steps for making one?

Let's use a simple example. We'll create a user flow for publishing a new post on a fictional social media app.

Gather preliminary info

To make the whole process smoother, we'll need to figure out three key pieces of information before we start drawing out the flow.

Note: This is all centered around the user, so understanding who they are is crucial. Our work should be based on research and is often tied to a specific user persona.

Give it a title

Start by giving the flow a name that describes its purpose: the goal of your user.

We'll keep the scope of this user flow to a complete representation of that one task. If our flow only covers half a task or tries to cover multiple tasks at once, it won't serve its purpose.

Stick to one direction, and keep it simple

User flows work so well because they tell a story to the reader. To clarify that story, we'll need to keep things focused and clear, and only go in one direction.

If it's getting long, or branches off in a bunch of different directions, you can split it up into several smaller, distinct tasks.

Draw out each step

So what do we show on each step of the flow? It can be anything from a few words in some boxes up to fully-designed interfaces.

I prefer wireframes: they're better than text because they give a clearer picture of the user's experience, and they're faster to create and iterate with than a full interface mockup. We'll want to keep the conversation focused on the flow, anyway, not the minor details of the UI.

Include some explanation

Add a short description for each step. Explain what's happening, and if necessary include the whys behind what the user needs to do.

This is a visual chart, though, so make it quick and focused on the user's perspective. Aim for just one sentence or phrase.

Evaluate and improve

We've made a flow! ... Now what?

We don't want to just make one. The whole goal is to figure out the best version of this flow for our user.

Here are some key questions to ask ourselves as we analyze our newly-create user flow:

How can we make this flow more efficient? We want the user to get to the finish line—the completion of their task—as quickly and intuitively as possible. The fewer the steps/clicks/taps, the better, as long as it doesn't lead to over-complicated screens.
How can we make this flow more clear? Is it clear to the user what step they're on, and how to get to the next one? Can we reduce unnecessary distractions? At the end of the flow do they realize they've completed their task?
Are there any other areas of friction? Is the user likely to have some doubts, hesitations, or questions when they're performing this task? Do we think this flow matches up with what the user would expect?

Side note: A/B tests are useful for determining or confirming changes.

Looking back at our example, I can see a few points where we can improve:

Now your turn!

Pick an important task from the product you’re working on and try making a user flow for it using the above guide. Let me know how it goes and if you have any questions!

🙌 Thanks for reading. If you're feeling generous, perhaps share the thread on Twitter:

Learn UXD

@learn_uxd

The ability to create and think in user flows is one of the most important skills in a UX designer's toolkit.

Let's look at how (and why) to build user flows (thread 👇)

11:31 AM - 22 Sep 2020

Originally posted on learnuxd.io