Uber did not allow you to pre-book a taxi. Amazon started out by selling books only. Google was just a search engine. McDonald’s got rid of cutlery. And somehow we still believe that for a product to be successful it must do many things.

There are usually two cases — new products trying to convince the market that they are worth it and companies with established products that offer more than needed.

A big mistake new companies do is trying to offer everything their competitors have, believing this way they will attract more interest and gain customers. And on the other side, established companies which believe that more products and resources spent will always result in better results. So I would like to show you why offering too much is a psychological problem and how new products can nail it by focusing on one thing they are good at.

For new products you have to change behaviour first

As we might know, humans are creatures of habits. And if we already have well-established patterns, and most of the times we do, it will be hard for a new company to convince us that we must buy their “innovative product” or make a switch to something else.

We can call a product “innovation” when it changes people’s habits. For example, the iPhone is an innovation. So for your product to become a habit, it has to do a straightforward thing but do it great. Why? Because it is much easier to adopt a new technology if the learning curve is low and the reward is high for what it does.

The temptation is always there for manufacturers to add functionality to things — since conventional logic suggests that more must be better. What takes real genius is to leave things out — Rory Sutherland

Back in 2006, McDonald’s saw its growth stall. The fast-food chain decided that the problem was its limited menu, so it tried out many new items and ended up doubling the offerings. But sales hardly budged. Finally, in 2016, it took a new track. It went back to basics, dropped most of those additional items, and instead extended its popular breakfast offerings. Sales finally jumped, with same-store revenue up 6% in 2017, and the stock rose by 40% — Tiffani Bova, HBR

The learning curve must be low

To change a behaviour, it easier done if the learning curve of your product is low. As I wrote in a previous article — 10 Small Design Mistakes We Still Make — if we find something that does the job, and does it great, we will almost never make a switch to another service or product, even if it is a little bit better. Why? It’s in our nature to stay with the familiar and we don’t like taking risks of learning something only to realise it is not something we needed.

Once a person nails down the use of your product, they will rarely switch to something else.

How to make the learning curve lower? User metaphors.

People learn faster when an app’s interface and actions are metaphors for familiar experiences. The experiences may come from the digital or real world. Metaphors work well in because people interact with the screen. They move views out of the way to expose content beneath. They drag and swipe content. People toggle switches, move sliders, and scroll through picker values.

Always try to learn what other apps are your core customers using on a daily basis. This will allow to design similar experiences and remove any friction or create uncomfortable learning situations.

Choice overload

Another reason why many products fail or companies can’t get new users is because they offer too many options — features, services or products. And by overwhelming your users with too much stuff, people will always choose to stick with what works currently for them or choose not to buy anything else. This process is called overchoice or choice overload.

Choice overload is a cognitive process in which people have a difficult time making a decision when faced with many options — Wikipedia

The phenomenon of overchoice occurs when many similar choices are available. Making a decision becomes overwhelming due to the many potential outcomes and risks that may result from making the wrong choice. Having too many approximately equally good options is mentally draining because each option must be weighed against alternatives to select the best one. This can be easily seen and experienced when you buy, literally, anything for your house (dishwasher, microwave, washing machine, vacuum, etc.)

When Nike called Apple

You can fit all Apple’s products on a table, and it still surpassed Google as the most valuable company on the planet. How is that possible? They had a well-established philosophy that almost never changed — get rid of crappy stuff. Moreover, that philosophy helped Nike to become one of the greatest brands alongside Apple too. When Mark Parker became the CEO of Nike, he had a phone call with Steve Jobs and asked him:

“Do you have any advice?” Parker asked Jobs. “Well, just one thing,” said Jobs. “Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.” Jobs paused and Parker filled the quiet with a chuckle. But Jobs didn’t laugh. He was serious. “He was absolutely right,” said Parker. “We had to edit.” — Source: Forbes

How Apple does it

Apple doesn’t invent a new product or product category. Almost all the time, all of Apple’s products have been recreations of existing products. Apple did not invent the MP3 player (Walkman), the smartphone (Ericsson R380), the tablet (Microsoft). Instead, Apple reinvented all of them and made them better.

Our goals are very simple — to design and make better products. If we can’t make something that is better, we won’t do it — Jonathan Ive, Chief Design Officer of Apple

When you do one thing but great, you add an extra drop of confidence and loyalty into your customer’s heart. This way, when you launch every year a better product, it becomes harder for the customer to make a switch because you earned their trust in doing one but a great thing.

Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life― Jim Collins

Minimise the decision-making process

Another reason why Apple is so successful is that it has only one product in its category. It minimises the decision-making process for the consumer by making things simple.

Apple doesn’t have five iPhone models to choose from. It has only one — this year’s latest version. What about additional choice? Very simple — big or small. In case you don’t have the budget you can always buy the previous models with the same thinking model. And while this may seem to limit the company’s potential, given the number of smartphones available on the market, the truth is the reverse.

Time’s magazine did a consumer research for over 30 years, in which consumers constantly tell them that while choice is nice, in reality, people want the process of choosing a tech product to be simple and not complicated.

How Walkman did it

Akio Morita, with his business partner Masaru Ibuka, founded Sony in 1946. Large magnetic tape recorders were the company’s first area of focus, later followed by the first pocket radio. But perhaps his most significant moment of genius involved the creation of the Sony Walkman, the ancestor of the iPod.

In market research, the Walkman aroused very little interest and quite a lot of hostility. ‘Why would I want to walk about with music playing in my head?’ was a typical response. Morita ignored this.

How was the idea of Walkman born?

The request for the Walkman had initially come from the 70-year-old Ibuka, the honorary chairman of Sony at that time. Ibuka wanted a small device that would allow him to listen to a full-length opera on his many flights between Tokyo and the US.

Morita asked Sony’s engineers to work on the idea, and they succeeded in achieving what he had briefed them to create — a miniature stereo cassette-player. But they also had managed to include a recording function in the Walkman. However, Morita told them to remove it.

Now, why would you remove a feature that costs an insignificant amount of resources and adds a trivial amount to the final price? Sony’s engineers recommended going with a microphone and recorder because it would add value to the final product. This also means more ways to use the Walkman for.

But Morita argued that a recorder would only confuse the end consumer. “For what is this device? Dictation? Should I record live music? Should I take interviews with it? Should I record my vinyl?”

By narrowing the perceived uses of the device, Sony ensured that the device could do only one thing: listen to music. This way it would be easier for people to adopt a new behaviour, since there was only one thing to adopt. This way you can also understand why the iPods became so popular too.

How others do it

On the other side, giving examples of big brands like Apple, Sony and McDonald’s is easy when they are already prominent and successful, but there are also small companies that started with one feature only and are doing great. A company I admire, Bonsai — a tool for freelancers to send proposals & invoices, contracts, track expenses and projects — is a perfect example.

How did the company start? When they launched for the first time on Product Hunt I remember only one thing they promised — send beautiful and bullet proof contracts. Because of that, many people were attracted to the product. Not too many companies offered the ability to send designer like contracts. Also, it was a core problem that most freelancers were and are struggling with.

So what about them now? With time and patience they have become an all in one solution for freelancers. Starting small and perfecting a feature allowed this company to grow into what they are now today. And you can see that it was easy for early adopters to use the tool because the learning curve was low — only one feature. And once people got used to the product, it became easier to adopt other features too and make the switch entirely.

The philosophy of simplicity

This philosophy of keeping it simple is applied not only to a product’s features, or how many products your company sells. This type of thinking applies to everything. From the way you do business to they way you think. It’s not that you decide one day to cut down useless features of your product to only one and suddenly the sales will skyrocket. To achieve that type of simplicity, you have to know what is or are the biggest needs of your customers and not deviate from your goal with useless noise.

Growth is best achieved by making things simpler for your customer rather than for you — Tiffani Bova

Written by: Eugen Eşanu (via Medium)
Posted by: Situated Research

The post Why Great Products Do Only One Thing appeared first on Situated Research.

Infographic from: Website Magazine
Posted by: Situated Research

The post Why UX Matters to Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC] appeared first on Situated Research.

To help you understand the perception of the user, I will introduce some design principles which I think are the most important, and also provide common examples of these principles in practice. Let’s start with the Von Restorff effect:

Von Restorff effect

The Von Restorff effect (also known as the isolation effect) predicts that when multiple similar objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered!

Does this ring any bells?

This is the main reason why all call-to-actions (CTAs) look different from the rest of the action buttons on a site or application!

Von Restorff Effect Example

We want users to be able to differentiate between a simple action button and a CTA, in order for them to have a clear understanding what the CTA does, whilst also remembering it throughout their use of the application or site.

“When multiple similar objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered!”

Serial position effect

The Serial Position Effect is the propensity of a user to best remember the first and last items in a series.

From left to right, Twitter, Medium, ProductHunt

This is why most applications nowadays ditch the hamburger menu and go for a bottom or top bar navigation, placing the most important user actions to the right or left. In the image above, you can see some examples from popular iOS applications. Each put the “Home” and “Profile” items all the way to the left and right, with serial position effect in mind.

Cognitive load

Cognitive load refers to the total amount of mental effort being used in a person’s working memory. To put it simply, it is the amount of thought you need to exercise in order to complete a specific task.

“Cognitive load is the amount of thought you need to exercise in order to complete a specific task.”

Cognitive load theory can be differentiated into three types:

1. Intrinsic cognitive load
2. Extraneous cognitive load
3. Germane cognitive load

I will touch upon the Intrinsic and Germane types as I think that these are the most applicable to UX design.

Intrinsic Cognitive Load

Intrinsic cognitive load is the difficulty associated with a specific instructional topic. It’s the main reason micro-copy and copy play a huge role in a good user experience.

For example most of the time on applications’ empty states, we prompt users to complete a task. Here, the copy needs to be short, simple and with the appropriate words in order for the user to be able to easily follow the instructions.

From left to right, Stayful, Serist, Lucidchart

Germane Cognitive Load

Germane cognitive load is the cognitive load devoted to processing information and construction of schemas. The schemas describe a pattern of thought that organises categories of information and any relationships among them.

One of the reasons we use design patterns is because they’re something we’re programmed to do by default – so it’s easier for the users to recognise and learn something new if they can discern it into a pattern from something they already understand.

“It’s easier for users to learn something new if they can discern it to a pattern from something they understand”

Hick’s Law

Hick’s Law is the most popular principle, along with the Gestalt Laws.

It’s also very simple to understand and practice. Hick’s Law describes that the time it takes for a person to make a decision depends on the choices available to him or her. So if the number of choices increases, the time to make a decision increases logarithmically.

A very nice example of Hick’s Law that applies to user experience design are lists:

Hick’s Law Example

Law of Proximity

Law of proximity is part of the Gestalt Laws of Perceptual Organization, and it states that objects that are near, or proximate to each other, tend to be grouped together. To put it in simpler terms, our brain can easily associate objects close to each other, better than it does objects that are spaced far apart. This clustering occurs because humans have a natural tendency to organise and group things together.

Law of Proximity Example

“The Law of Proximity states that objects that are near, or proximate to each other, tend to be grouped together”

In the example above, there are 72 circles. We recognise the circles in groups, based on the distance between them. Categorically, we also perceive that there’s a group of 36 circles on the left side of the image, and 3 groups of 12 circles on the right side of the image.

I believe this example makes it clear that there is a need to group things together when designing a UI, as well as the importance of being careful when putting things together since users may naturally think they are associated with each other.

Written by: Thanasis Rigopoulos (via Marvel)
Posted by: Situated Research

The post The Psychology Principles Every UI/UX Designer Needs to Know appeared first on Situated Research.

Although some studies have shown that individuals working alone can generate more and better ideas than when working as a group, the brainstorming activity enables everyone in the group to gain a better understanding of the problem space, and has the added benefit of creating a feeling of common ownership of results.

Good brainstorming focuses on the quantity and creativity of ideas: the quality of ideas is much less important than the sheer quantity. After ideas are generated, they are often grouped into categories and prioritized for subsequent research or application.

The outcomes of brainstorming are:

• A list of ideas or solutions related to a particular problem
• The ideas or solutions organized into groups
• Some form of prioritization based on attributes like cost and feasibility

Idea Mapping

Idea mapping is a visual thinking tool that helps structure information, helping you to better analyze, comprehend, synthesize, recall and generate new ideas. We can help you from the most nascent idea up through prototyping and user testing. You’ll get our expertise in usability and business development.

UI Sketches

Low-fidelity prototypes are a great place to begin, and our team can facilitate UI brainstorming sessions where sketches and basic functionality can give your new product a voice of its own.

Market Research

In addition to prototyping and UI design, we can conduct market research to see where your idea fits into the marketplace. Client confidentiality is paramount and we’ll gladly sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Helping clients in the beginning stages of a project to help get ideas flowing is our forte. Our team specializes in translating high-level objectives into exciting new products and services, down to the finest detail.

From market research to product development, we’ve got you covered. We can work with any budget, so reach out and let us know what you have been thinking about doing.

We thrive on helping businesses launch new products, and would love to facilitate a brainstorming session for your new product. Contact us today to get started.

Written / Posted by: Michel Ann Sharritt, VP, Situated Research

The post How User-Centered Design Can Turn Your Concepts into Kick-Ass Prototypes appeared first on Situated Research.

Focus groups and interviews are a traditional market research technique where users tell you about their experiences or expectations. To verify these user experiences, usability tests can be used in conjunction with focus groups or interviews to allow you to observe users and draw conclusions.

To talk to users effectively, you will have to ask the right questions in a way that doesn’t lead their behavior, or their responses. Design the ‘right’ product by using Situated Research to interview users about your product.

We have moderated interview sessions with users to help clients figure out where to focus their design efforts. Once a team is able to focus their design efforts we find that it makes for a smoother design process moving forward.

Guided Interviews

Focus groups provide group consensus on what consumers want, or how they feel after using a product. Interviews accomplish the same without the bias of others’ opinions in group settings.

Ask the Right Questions

Moderators often influence participants or ask leading questions that push their responses in a particular direction. Utilize our expertise to get unbiased and accurate responses from users.

Inform Design

By asking the right questions, we’ll help you will figure out what users desire in your product, or how satisfying it is to use. This will generate areas of focus for your design team.

To learn more about conducting focus groups or interviews visit our website at: https://www.situatedresearch.com/services/focus-groups-interviews/

Written by: Michel Ann Sharritt
Posted by: Situated Research

The post Are You Asking the Right Questions When Conducting User Research? appeared first on Situated Research.

Eye tracking visualizations such as gaze plots, heat maps and gaze replays can easily be interpreted and presented in a convincing way. We have helped companies figure out where their users’ attention is drawn, and derive value by learning what marketing materials are most effective at presenting information.

Track Gaze

Eye tracking uses a non-invasive camera to watch users’ eyes as they ‘track’ information on a screen. We will help you determine where your users are looking, and why.

Heat Maps

Eye tracking sessions generate heat-map style overlays on your interface to show how long users look at a portion of the screen while completing tasks with your product.

Usability Findings

By tracking users’ gaze while they consume information,  you can determine what information is being overlooked, and what information users prefer.

The visual results of eye tracking studies and real-time data observations provide tremendous tools to get non-usability experts excited about and involved in usability testing.

To learn more about eye tracking to design effective interfaces visit our website at: https://www.situatedresearch.com/services/eye-tracking/

Written by: Michel Ann Sharritt, VP of Situated Research

The post Designing Interfaces That Are Effective appeared first on Situated Research.

This list is a starting point to providing the user experience that you want to give your customers online. Remember, if users come to your website and have trouble finding information or ordering a product, they will often leave your website and you will lose their business. 

Website Usability Tip #6: Recognition, Not Recall

Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the site to the other. Nor should the user have to remember or learn a new way to do something. (ex. Checkout Process)

• Use common icons that make sense to the user
• Do not over-complicate your interface
• Only use pop up instructions on buttons if you must

Website Usability Tip #7: Flexibility & Efficiency

Flexibility: allow multiple ways of accomplishing the same thing.

Users can find information through:

• A search box
• Using menu navigation
• Breadcrumbs
• Links in the footer

Efficiency: build in simple and efficient methods of doing common tasks, without making it difficult for someone new to the system.

Amazon’s checkout process and shopping cart system are an example, with users being able to set up a ‘one-click’ checkout system where a default credit card and address are stored to make checkout super speedy and easy.

Website Usability Tip #8: Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

Aesthetics is important when designing for the web. Knowing how to balance aesthetics with what users want can be a challenge.

Here are some key points to remember:

• Make sure colors play off of the colors of a well designed logo
• Do not overwhelm users with too much content
• Content should be relevant to the site
• Use clickable videos
• Never use avatars

A big mistake that web designers often make is adding more pages to a website to make it look more ‘legit’. Always remember that users on the Internet usually quickly skim over information, and avoid wordy text. Overwhelming them with redundant information will make them leave the website.

Website Usability Tip #9: Assist Users

Help users recognize and recover from errors.

• Error messages should be expressed in plain language
• If there is a process for ordering something (or otherwise), guide users through the process
• Never make users guess what to do next
• Constructively suggest a solution if a mistake is made

Website Usability Tip #10: Documentation

Even though it is better if a website can be used without any assistance, it may be necessary to provide documentation for complex tasks.

Any such information should be easy to search, and focused on the user’s task.

• List concrete steps to be carried out
• Make sure instructions are not too long
• Ideally, it should be contextual (placed where it is needed, so users don’t have to search for it)

Let us know if you have any questions on our website usability tips. If you would like a free expert analysis of your website’s usability and marketing, you can request a free website analysis video to get a professional free analysis of your website, emailed to you in the form of a short video.

We look forward to helping you create the ultimate user experience.

Written by: Michel Ann Sharritt
Posted by: Situated Research

The post Tips on Improving Your Website’s User Experience, Part 2 appeared first on Situated Research.

Our team has come up with ten usability guidelines for web developers and business owners to follow. This list is a starting point to providing the user experience that you want to give your customers online. Remember, if users come to your website and have trouble finding information or ordering a product, they will leave your website and in turn you will lose business.

Website Usability Tip #1: Visibility

Always show users where they are at on the website. 

• Use breadcrumbs
• Highlight where the user is at in the menu navigation
• Use sitemaps

Website Usability Tip #2: Communicate Clearly

The website should speak the user’s language. Nothing should be left up for interpretation. 

• Links and buttons should be concise and clear
• Labeling should make sense to the user
• Labeling should also be short and to the point
• ‘Error 404’ pages mean nothing to most users
• Buttons should be labeled in a way to bring a call to action (buy now)

Website Usability Tip #3: User Error

Users often click on items by mistake and need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted area without having to go through an extended process. 

• Use clear breadcrumbs
• Use sitemaps
• Have a search button
• Make sure your logo is clickable to take the user back to the home page
• In some instances pop boxes may be useful warning your users of their error

Website Usability Tip #4: Consistency

Consistency is key to keep your users happy and coming back for more. Users should not have to reorient themselves each time they click on a page.

• Keep the same format for all pages of your website
• Placement of menu navigation should remain consistent from page to page
• Heading font sizes and placement should be consistent
• Labeling should not change
• Functionality of buttons, forms, etc. should not change

Website Usability Tip #5: Error Prevention

Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place.

• Eliminate error-prone conditions
• Check for errors
• Present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action
• Design a simple environment

Check back next week for the remaining 5 usability tips. In the meantime, if you would like our team to review your website you can request a free website analysis video to get a professional free analysis of your website, emailed to you in the form of a short video.

We look forward to helping you create the ultimate user experience.

Written by: Michel Ann Sharritt
Posted by: Situated Research

The post Tips on Improving Your Website’s User Experience, Part 1 appeared first on Situated Research.

In this post and the next, you will learn 10 tips for designing dashboards and application interfaces that are stylish and user-friendly while still presenting important data to your users in a format that they can understand. Whether you are just starting UI design or your product is almost finished, jump in and learn how to design the perfect dashboard.

#1: Ask Your Audience

What do your users care about? Developers frequently make mistakes in determining what their applications will be used for, in turn focusing on metrics that aren’t as important as they think they are.

Instead of guessing about what your users will find important, poll them to find out directly. Facebook used this strategy to understand the needs of its advertisers and released a UI update as a result. They understood that understanding their end user was important and that they should have conducted research before their initial launch.

#2: Design for Different Platforms

How will your users interact with your application? Will they view it on their iPad, on a full resolution PC, or on their smartphone? Knowing the platform which your users prefer is key to building a powerful and usable interface.

While every modern website should be responsive it is important to design your application with your most widely used platform in mind. Things like large buttons, for example, are crucial for tablet apps.

Use Google Analytics to see which devices are used to access your website, and then design for your most popular platform.

#3: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

There are certain features of UI design that are common between websites. Almost every social network, for example, has a feed of recent updates. Almost every B2B application has a left-aligned navigation bar and a right-aligned content section.

Instead of designing your dashboard from the ground up, use features common to your type of application to speed up the design process. Dropdown notifications or top-right corner account menus are ubiquitous and well-known in UI design.

#4: Color Psychology is Important

Colors play a fundamental role in design, particularly in the design of great user interfaces. Use colors to alert and notify users to tasks, activities, features, and more in the form of button colors and alerts.

Generally, it’s best to use predictable and common colors within your design. Green is a great indicator that everything is okay, while orange and red can be used to indicate a small or serious problem.

#5: Keep the Design Simple

When in doubt, simplify. The best user interfaces are not massively complex – in fact, the best UIs are not complex at all. With the right approach to usability, you can put a huge amount of functionality behind a simple, user-friendly dashboard design.

Break your product’s functions down into core categories, then use these categories to determine your interface’s design.

If your product has hundreds of features, categorize them and create a tabbed or modular layout for users to select features from. Simplicity works, and it’s always best to select clean, simple design over something cluttered but powerful.

We hope that this post helped to give you a good start to creating an awesome dashboard. We will post the last five tips later on this week. In the mean time if you would like to learn more about our company or the services that we offer, visit our website at www.situatedresearch.com. We would love to help you out with your next big design.

Written by: Michel Ann Sharritt
Posted by: Situated Research

The post Tips on Creating an Awesome Dashboard User Experience appeared first on Situated Research.

After any amount of time in the design industry, you’ll most certainly hear someone refer to users as “dumb.” People talk about having to “dumb down” interfaces, design for “the lowest common denominator,” and try to make applications “idiot-proof.”

Designers say it themselves once in a while. The really terrible designers say it repeatedly.

“Well, you can only hold their hands so much.”

This sort of thinking discounts a key component of good design: human psychology. Understanding some basics of user behavior, then applying them to design, is one of the most important things a company can do. Here are 14 things you should know about the people who use your websites and applications.

1. They’re Smarter Than You Think

They just don’t care about learning your system. It doesn’t matter to them.

It can be so easy to forget how little everyone outside the tech industry depends on personal tech the way we all do. Unless technology makes itself necessary to people’s lives, they can pretty well get by without it. Even when technology is vital to their work, they can often get by learning only the parts of it they need. So they do.

2. They Have Other Things To Do

The goal of most users is not to spend all their time on a website. It’s to get off a website.

The good designers know this—and they bake it into their products.

If Google were designed to keep users on its search site, they wouldn’t use it. Other search engines would be faster and less intrusive.

In most cases, you should focus on how to make your site or app the least time-intensive. The most convenient. The most worth using because it helps users move on with their lives rather than attempt to take them over.

3. They Have a “Doing Mode”

You know that thing everyone believes about users not being willing to read while using an app? There’s a reason for it.

They’re not in reading mode. They’re in doing mode. We all have it. We get on a mission to complete a task, and we go blind to what could help us complete it.

“Doing mode” has a massive benefit. It helps users ignore the distractions and obstacles that keep them from getting where they want to go. Imagine what driving would be like if you couldn’t ignore the distractions. Constantly scanning billboards, reading shop-front windows, glancing at the little poster-board signs spiked into the ground at intersections. You’d never make it home alive. It’s not a flaw that people read less while in doing mode. It’s a survival skill.

4. They “Satisfice”

Most of the time, people need only enough to get by. So they learn only that much. They might even learn to do something the wrong way. It doesn’t matter as long as they can still get what they need.

This is called satisficing. It’s a term promoted by Steve Krug in his seminal book on web usability Don’t Make Me Think.

Satisficing is just what it sounds like (a portmanteau of the words “satisfy” and “sacrifice”). And this, too, is a survival skill. There are not enough hours in the day, or in life, to become masters of all we touch.

Most things, we just need to learn enough to get by.

5. They Don’t Use Your Software The Way You Intended

No matter how much work you put into it, the first thing people do when you put out an app with any reasonable amount of complexity is they start using it in a way you didn’t anticipate.

Sometimes it’s a major drag. But then, sometimes it leads to an opportunity.

When early Twitter users wanted to reference another person, they preceded the other person’s username with the @ symbol. When they wanted to reference a particular subject that reached beyond their personal timelines, they used hashtags. Twitter hadn’t designed for either of these situations. Users just started doing what they wanted. Twitter followed by building in support for these two functions. Next thing you know, the whole world is talking to each other and discovering all sorts of topics they couldn’t possibly have tripped over previously.

Take it for what it is: a chance to see a design through someone else’s eye. To learn how other people interpret design elements when they don’t know what you know about web design.

6. They Rely On Patterns

Patterns help people learn how to work with a new app or site, how it might be set up, and how long it might take.

Buy a product on one department store website, and you know how most of the others work. The experiences are similar, if not nearly identical, on most ecommerce sites because the pattern works well for the use case and because it helps people form expectations.

The ability to spot and use patterns also sets the stage for the elements in a design that stand out. The important elements, like buttons that tell you how to sign up, or send, or save, or publish. In a tremendous number of cases, the buttons that trigger these actions are displayed in a different color or shape (or both) compared with all the others.

When we can see patterns, we see what breaks those patterns.

7. A Million Things Are Competing For Their Attention

Right now, as you read this article, you probably have a whole bunch of other things competing for your attention. All the more reason for a design has to have an impeccable sense of what the user wants to accomplish.

A clear, deliberate, one-step-at-a-time process in a task flow is vital. Forcing people to serialize (instead of multitask) can help them be more productive in your app. The more the user is able to move forward, the better. It increases the odds he or she will be able to finish a task without wandering off to do something else.

8. They See What’s There

There’s a big difference between what you think you’ve put onto a screen and what the user thinks you’ve put onto a screen. And between you and the user, only one of your two perceptions matters.

The effect is a communication gap. You meant this. The user thought you meant that—mostly because that is what you actually put on the screen.

It’s a classic problem. When you know a lot about the web and are designing for it, you bring a ton of information about it with you into the project. Only the user doesn’t have any idea why this element exists or does what it does. And the user doesn’t have the benefit of having you stand over his shoulder to explain it.

Users see what’s actually there. Not what you think is there.

9. They Lie

People seem to know themselves pretty well when being asked hypothetical questions. And yet when they’re actually in a situation, they’ll do something completely different.

It’s not because they want to lie to you. They just can’t help themselves. It takes a great deal of self-awareness to know how you’d actually act in a given situation, and few people have a great deal of that.

This is just one of the ways they lie. Here are a few others:

• During a usability test, testers will rate a task as having been very easy after spending five minutes figuring it out.
• In a survey, they’ll say they’d use something when they wouldn’t. (They just won’t know that until they get their hands on the new feature.)
• In person, they’ll tell you they’re “web savvy,” and then fumble around the computer screen for minutes on end attempting to do things you take for granted every single day.

The list goes on. These are just a few that may be relevant to your design effort.

10. They Don’t Know What’s Possible

Very few tech users are also designers. When they tell you how they’d like something to work, it’s usually according to their worldview—a fix that would make their problem slightly less annoying, but not one that fundamentally erases the problem’s causes.

When users look at an app, they are doing so with the appropriately narrow perspective of how they use it. So they have a hard time articulating what they really need or want an application to do to solve a problem for them. They don’t know how to fix the problem—they just know they want it fixed. So they make suggestions.

Your job is to take them with a grain of salt. Read between the lines. See what’s really causing their issue.

11. If You Improve Their Lives, They’ll Love You

People shift to new technology or processes when those things obviously improve their lives. The “cost of switching” has to be indisputably worth the effort. If it’s not, there will be no voluntary switching.

Most people want to be shown how the new way is better. If you solve a real problem, and you can demonstrate how to do it, your users will love you.

In the best of cases, the solution is self-evident. In some cases, however, users need a review of the solution, an email newsletter explaining it, or a short video on your website.

If the solution isn’t really a solution, no one will care what your rationale was; they’ll just want to go back to the way things were. You might even find yourself actively defending your decisions.

12. They Come With Questions

Anytime users come across a new web app, they come with a series of questions that need to be answered right away. If these questions aren’t answered, there’s a solid chance they’ll take off. This is because of the very human need to get oriented.

They start by trying to make sense of what the app does. You can address this right away with some sort of value proposition statement that answers the question.

“We make planning your day as easy as saying Hello.”

That explains the app’s major purpose. It also begins to answer the user’s second question: How does it help me?

Next, the user wants to know how hard this app is to set up and learn. You can address this through a small series of graphics that show a short sign-up form, a stick figure speaking into a smartphone, and a completed to-do list, each with a few words explaining how easy it all is.

When all the benefits start to look appetizing, the user wants to know how much the product costs. If you have tiers or subscription pricing, or anything else that needs some qualifying, you can throw this on a pricing page. If it’s a quick and easy answer, you can put it right there next to the value proposition.

Then all you have to do is show them how to get started.

They come with questions. Your job is to deliver answers that turn them into customers. You just have to consider what questions they might ask.

13. They Blame Themselves for Mistakes When It’s Your Fault

When designers have problems with an interface, they blame its designers. When people have problems, they blame themselves.

They think they’re not smart enough to use the app. They say they didn’t get enough sleep to understand it. They say it’s too advanced for them.

Is this a good user experience? No. It’s a bad user experience hidden by the fact that everyone having it is blaming the wrong person.

A lack of complaints doesn’t mean there aren’t any. It means you may not be hearing them.

14. Their User “Experience” Is Based On Far More Than Your Website

UX is the net sum of all the interactions and impressions and feelings a person has with a website, digital product, or service.

Their impressions of your design are affected by a lot more than just your design. They’re affected by the company’s reputation, if they know what it is. They’re affected by what other people have said about the company or product, whether negative, positive, or undecided. They’re affected by what it looks like, and how they’ve felt in the past about other things that looked similar to it. They’re affected by how they feel that day and how open they are to this new product at the moment they encounter it. They’re affected by how well they can learn it, what they might get out of it, how frustrated they’ve been by other products that have failed to do what they promised.
You name it; it has an impact on a user’s experience.

This article was adapted with permission from Experience Required. Cover photo from SFIO CRACHO via Shutterstock.

Written by: Robert Hoekman, Jr., Fast Company
Posted by: Situated Research

The post UX Reality Check: 14 Hard Truths About Users appeared first on Situated Research.