unsystematic

What UX is not

Whitney Hess recently wrote a really great article about the top ten common misconceptions of the user experience. In it she explains what those top ten misconceptions are and details their truths using quotes from well-known UX designers. Here they are in synopsis form. For the full article see Whitney’s blog.

User experience design is not…

User interface design
It’s not uncommon to confuse ”user experience” with ”user interface” – after all it’s a big part of what users interact with while experiencing digital products and services. But the UI is just one piece of the puzzle.

A step in the process
It is the process. In order to create a great experience for your users, not just design something that we’d like to use, we need to keep listening and iterating. It doesn’t have to be a rigid process, but it does need to exist.

About technology
User experience isn’t even about technology, says Mario Bourque, manager of information architecture and content management at Trapeze Group. ”It’s about how we live. It’s about everything we do; it surrounds us.”

Just about usability
”People often think that [UX design] is a way to make products that suck into products that don’t suck by dedicating resources to the product’s design,” says Chris Fahey, founding partner and principal of Behavior. Making stuff easy and intuitive is far from our only goal. In order to get people to change their behavior, we need to create stuff they want to use, too.

Just about the user
As user experience designers we have to find the sweet spot between the user’s needs and the business goals, and furthermore ensure that the design is on brand.

Expensive
Every project requires a custom-tailored approach based on the business’s available resources, capabilities, timeline, and budget, and a whole slew of real-world constraints. But that doesn’t always mean that it needs to be costly or take forever.

Easy
Just because we know how to conduct some cool and useful activities and you know your business really well doesn’t mean that this whole process is a breeze. And cutting corners on some important steps is a recipe for disaster.

The role of one person or department
User experience designers are liaisons, not subject matter experts, doctors or any type of magical beings. We don’t have a set of best practices that we can robotically implement, nor do we have all of the answers. Our greatest skill is that we know how to listen. While we can help evangelize the most effective process within your organization, it’s ultimately up to all members of the business to make it a success.

A single discipline
We have proliferation of nebulous titles: information architect, user experience architect, interaction designer, usability engineer, design analyst, and on and on. And they don’t mean the same thing to every person or company.

A choice
For those of you who think you don’t really need a user experience designer, keep this in mind: ”Nobody wants to believe that what they are offering is of poor-quality or deficient,” says Kaleem Khan, an independent UX consultant, ”because nobody sets out to achieve a bad design as a goal. It’s always a risk. Bad designs and bad experiences happen.”

For businesses of all types, by understanding what the user experience is we can create a better online experience. A better online experience is never bad.

I miss IA

My first job out of college focused heavily on usability and information architecture. We spent 90% of our time planning a site and 10% designing it. How well it works was more important than how it looks (not to say how it looks wasn’t important). I loved the technical aspects and detail of planning: site maps, flowcharts, content maps, wireframes, etc.

There are two mindsets here, neither is wrong, merely a preference. One sees the web as a tool – “how do people use it and how can we make that tool easier to use” – knowing people are task-oriented. The other sees the web as a marketing system – “how can we attract new users and sell more”.

The hard part, at least for me, is the merging of these two mindsets. I’m without a doubt a member of the first. When I go to an online shoe store, for example, I go with goals in mind to find a specific type of shoe. Who goes to a shoe store to just look? Yeah, we price shoes (which is looking), but we still have a goal in mind – to eventually buy a certain type of shoe.

I don’t like superfluous stuff floating around my web sites with no purpose other than to make it look exciting. “Toss in a picture there; make it catchy!” But why? “Make this section here *points on screen* more exciting.” But whyyyyy? I hate advertisements, why in the world would I make them?

I am clean. I am order. I am task-oriented. I am functional. I am usable. Period. I am not a sheep. I don’t just “do” for the sake of doing, I need to know why; I need to understand. I can’t do a good job if I don’t understand what it is I’m doing or why I’m doing it.

I’ll leave you with two quotes from famous architects (since what I do is in the general realm) that say much, much more than the few words they’re made of:

“Less is more.” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
“Form follows function.” – Louis Sullivan

Into the mind of a UX designer

When it comes to design there are several branches all pertaining to different mediums and psyches. Even though they all stem from the same basic principles all design is not the same.

Let’s start with print design, for example. My knowledge of print design is only limited to my four college years. My major was Visual Communication Design with an emphasis on Graphic Design. Sure I did some pretty sweet layouts and yeah I got good grades, but my focus was not, and is not print. I think what turned me off of print, aside from the lack of good ol’ dirty code, was the whole printing aspect. I don’t mind designing for print, but ask me to actually get the thing printed and the deal’s off. I hate it. Two jobs in one if you ask me and the second one being the headache.

Now, design for the web – ah, that’s my niche – is something in and of itself. People use the web differently than they use a printed piece. Not to mention web designers don’t really have the freedom or flexibility to “step outside the box” like print designers do. We have to follow trends and make designs that are comfortable and familiar lest we (or our clients) lose the users’ interest.

Every designer has his or her own tastes and approach, but I’ve worked with some print designers who have tried web design only to rack my head trying to find some tangible way to make the design work for the web. Not that the design was bad – it just wasn’t “configured” properly for the web without a considerable amount of tweaking.

I tend to take the more common sense approach. I like to make things as easy to use as possible; as usable as possible. I believe people who use the web use it to find information and so I think the web should be a tool that presents that information as easily and as understandably as it possibly can. Therefore I take a highly utilitarian approach to the web. I don’t normally do lavish, decorated, ornate, or otherwise superfluous designs, rather I create beautifully simple web designs that don’t leave the user lost in cyberspace.

Print pieces can be informative too, but imagine using a dictionary or encyclopedia covered in all sorts of ornate decorations (that’s what they are – decorations) that do more distracting than assisting. The web is informative, but it is mostly a tool and therefore it should be usable.

I’ve worked with some people who have directed me to “give that title a bit more space around; let it breathe” only to entirely disregard common layout and proportion elements of design. Because making a usable web isn’t only about the consciousness, it’s also about the subconsciousness and what “feels” comfortable. That’s why we have things such as the “rule of thirds” and other similar layout “rules”… because they somehow feel more comfy and things which aren’t comfy aren’t used.

Part of my job as a web designer is the user experience (UX for short). Not only am I tasked with creating a web site that works and gives the user the information he or she is looking for in a timely matter, but I am also tasked with making the web site memorable. Some people believe memorability is done by visuals, I believe it’s done by usability. But it’s completely personal, really.

Take Wikipedia for example. Not a whole lot of visuals there, but each of us, for some reason or another, use it to look up information. Why? What about Google? The search engine is extremely stripped of superfluous design elements, yet we remember to use it every time we search. Why, if not because they are usable.

My web sites look good, but they work better. I back them with my name and my credibility is on the line after all. If you’re looking for frills and all sorts of distracting designs then I’m not your vendor. However if you want a web site that is clean, simple and highly usable… I’m an email away.

:)