1. Better Understanding of Gamers

UX research helps video game designers better understand the needs, wants, and behaviors of gamers. This information can be used to create a game that is more enjoyable and engaging for the target audience. By conducting user research, game designers can uncover new insights into what gamers want from a game, such as specific types of characters, environments, or gameplay mechanics.

2. Improved Gameplay Mechanics

UX research can also lead to improvements in the gameplay mechanics of a game. By observing how gamers interact with the game, designers can identify areas where the gameplay may be too difficult or confusing. This information can be used to make changes to the gameplay mechanics that will make the game more enjoyable and accessible for gamers.

3. Increased Satisfaction and Enjoyment

One of the primary goals of game UX research is to increase gamer satisfaction and enjoyment while playing the game. By creating a game that is enjoyable and engaging, designers can increase the chances that gamers will continue playing the game, recommend it to others, and become loyal fans. This, in turn, can lead to increased sales and greater success for the game.

4. Improved User Interface

UX research can also lead to improvements in the user interface of a game. By understanding the needs and behaviors of gamers, designers can create an interface that is intuitive, easy to use, and improves the overall user experience. A well-designed user interface can make a game more accessible and enjoyable for gamers, leading to increased engagement and satisfaction.

5. Better Reception and Reviews

Finally, UX research can help ensure that a game is well-received by gamers and has positive reviews. By creating a game that provides a satisfying and enjoyable experience, designers can increase the chances that gamers will recommend the game to others and write positive reviews. This, in turn, can help increase sales and drive the success of the game.

In conclusion, UX research is an essential aspect of video game design that can significantly impact the success of a game. By conducting UX research, video game designers can create a game that is enjoyable and engaging for gamers, leading to increased engagement, satisfaction, and enjoyment. By doing so, they can increase the chances that the game will be well-received and achieve success in the competitive world of video games. If you could use a free analysis of your video game, reach out to the Situated Research team to get started.

The post How UX Research Increases Gamer Engagement, Satisfaction, and Enjoyment appeared first on Situated Research.

Today’s healthcare industry has become increasingly reliant on technology and medical software. While medical software has come a long way in recent years, it can still cause difficulty or confusion for many of its users. In addition, the wide variety of people using the software tools (doctors, nurses, patients, administrative staff, people with disabilities, etc.) makes it even more important for the design of a great user experience (UX, an acronym for user experience) in medical software. In this article, we will discuss tips for building great UX into medical software for the healthcare industry, along with UX research methods that can achieve big results.

Medical Software Accessibility & UI Testing

A wide variety of users can interact with medical software: of different roles (doctors, nurses, patients, etc.), different abilities (visually or hearing impaired), and different demographics (young vs. elderly patients). For each of these types of users, medical software must be able to serve their needs, and allow each of those users to achieve their goals efficiently. As an example, an elderly patient with poor vision should be able to use a mobile application on their phone to check the results of their lab tests. In this case, the UI (user interface) of the application should make use of strong contrast and large fonts so that they can use the software. Some basic accessibility testing would reveal whether this was an issue by testing if a high-contrast mode or larger font size was easily accessible. However, this is just one instance of many. How can those designing medical software for the healthcare industry ensure that their user experience is not only up to par, but a cut above the rest?

Research has shown how good UX impacts overall user satisfaction, boosts success rates (allowing users to complete tasks and achieve their goals efficiently), while avoiding headaches caused by poor design. In critical medical situations, a good, intuitive interface on a medical device can literally save lives.

Medical Software UX: Healthcare Personas

In healthcare, a wide variety of use cases and applications exist for medical software. Some of these include medical records, medical education, mental health, practice management, sports, wellness and nutrition, pharmacy, medical billing, telemedicine, and medical devices among others. For this reason, detailed planning and persona research should be done to determine who exactly will be using the software. Personas can describe typical users of the software in an abstract manner, along with common tasks and goals they might achieve by using the software. This in turn can help guide design and make sure that common tasks are easily achievable, rather than buried in a menu somewhere that’s hard for them to find. Further, personas can guide design by describing users’ goals, tasks, capabilities, fears, and other factors that will help designers empathize with users and support their needs.

Healthcare Applications: Mobile Apps, Software UX

A contextual inquiry can help support the design of users in addition to persona research. Examining users and their behavior, in a typical setting where the software is actually used, will help designers better understand users and design for their needs. Besides the large variety of users already discussed, these users may be using the software from a medical office, an operating room, an ambulance, or from their homes. In addition, they may be using a mobile device, laptop, PC or tablet to access the software. By researching users in their actual environments of use, UX researchers can gauge how well they perform while doing typical tasks (as well as tasks that involve critical safety) to highlight areas of concern that need attention or redesign.

Common Medical Software UX Research

Overall, a wide gamut of software exists in the medical industry, and each type of use case has its own requirements for design. Reaching out to a usability research firm specializing in healthcare is a great way to get feedback on early-stage designs, prototypes, or fully-developed software and gauge its user experience. Following are some common types of UX inquiries done in the healthcare industry for medical software.

1. Contextual Inquiry / Human Interaction Points

As previously described, this type of research examines the use of medical software in its actual environment, in situations where the software is actually used. Situated Research specializes in this type of research, which aims to reduce bias from testing users in a lab or other unnatural environment. Contextual inquiry helps to add context to user behavior and support the design of software tools that are less error prone, easier to use, and intuitive.

2. Task Analysis

A task analysis helps when designing medical software to support the needs of users, such as doctors or patients, by diving into the complex tasks that they wish to accomplish. For instance, carefully watching the process of a doctor trying to take notes during a patient interview can help highlight design flaws, issues, or other significant areas that need design attention or refinement.

3. Focus Groups and Interviews

Focus groups (groups of representative users) and interviews (one-on-one questioning) can help in several ways when designing medical software and gauging its overall fit within healthcare. Early in the design process, these methods can help gather information on what needs are currently not met by existing tools, and specific features might better suit users’ needs. Later on, feedback on a prototype might be gathered during a focus group or set of interviews to better refine a product.

4. Expert Review / Heuristic Evaluation

An expert review can be conducted early or late in the design process, and involves an expert in usability doing a thorough test of the software to find both successes and failures of its design. Both the UX and UI are examined, looking at how easily information can be interpreted by users (UI) and how easily common tasks are completed (UX). Heuristics serve as a guide for the researcher, framing different components of the software to examine. For instance, one heuristic examines error prevention, such as how well users are able to avoid a mistake and recover if errors occur. Other heuristics examine the design consistency of the software, the flexibility of the design for achieving tasks, and whether the system design helps users recover from their mistakes. (Bonus points if a help system exists; more bonus points for intuitive design when users can fix their own mistakes!)

5. Information Architecture

Expert researchers can help design medical software by examining the way the software is structured from an information standpoint: looking at things like menu navigation, screen / page layout, and how difficult it is to locate common things that are used. To do this, things like labeling and organization are examined, as well as whether categories are mutually exclusive. Users should not be confused on what to click in a menu, as in cases where meaning is not properly conveyed by the choices. Methods such as card sorting can help to logically sort out information into categories that make sense.

6. Visual Design (UI) and Branding Audit

As shown in Figure 1, visual design should be carefully examined to ensure meaning is properly inferred by users while minimizing error. This audit can also examine iconography (icons in the software) to be sure that meaning is interpreted by users to the highest degree possible. Everyone has seen icons in software that are confusing, where users have ‘no idea’ what will happen when they click / press on them. These types of visual cues are examined during visual UI testing.

In the above example from UXPA, a sample glucose meter shows how medical devices can be recalled from poor visual design cues. In this case, a user glancing at the screen could incorrectly interpret the glucose reading as 22mmol/L rather than 2.2mmol/L, and think their glucose levels are 10x higher than the actual reading. A poorly emphasized decimal point in the visual design of the medical device caused it to be recalled: a very costly consequence of not thoroughly testing the device.

A range of UX activities exist to help examine the software interface (UI), from a basic visual design audit to interactive prototypes. Some of these include designing wireframes, which are simple, abstract versions of a software interface (highlighting information layout on the page / screen), and color psychology (making use of colors that add meaning by conveying the correct nature of the information).

Color psychology can also be examined during a brand audit, where branding and marketing are examined to see whether the software interface properly utilizes colors, brand language, and typography (fonts and styles) of the corporate branding to ensure good marketing efforts. Both formative and summative research can be done to test designs during development (formative) and following development as a report (summative).

7. Platform Testing and QA

Comprehensive testing of the medical software and its platform should be done before it is released to ensure both quality assurance (QA) and help eliminate problems that may arise down the road. Beyond QA, speed tests should be done to ensure that software and medical devices perform as expected, in the field, or situations where it will be used. For instance, if a mobile app is unresponsive while trying to download data over a slow connection, unintended consequences may occur. These situations should be examined, tested, and accounted for in order to provide a seamless user experience. Cross-platform testing across iOS and Android apps (for mobile applications) and desktops, tablets, or custom medical devices with embedded software should be done as well.

Besides testing, help systems, instruction manuals, customer support systems and instructional graphics should be examined to ensure that users have the support they need when problems arise. As mentioned, bonus points for those software systems that are intelligently designed to detect when users make mistakes and help them correct course, and for systems with intuitive design that help prevent mistakes in the first place.

Summary

As the healthcare industry becomes more reliant on technology and medical software, it becomes more important to incorporate usability research and testing into the design process. With a wide gamut of users (doctors, patients, administrative staff, etc.) and a wide variety of applications (medical records, education, billing, practice management, patient monitoring, etc.) in medical software, it becomes that much more important to craft a design strategy that maximizes its user experience. Whether a patient needs to check their lab diagnostics, or a medical device needs to provide life-saving information, well-designed software can literally save lives.

Research has proven that UX contributes to user satisfaction, successful products, and increased market share. These key metrics are especially important in the healthcare industry, so reach out today to discuss the best research strategy for your product.

Author: Matt Sharritt, Ph.D. (President, Situated Research)

The post Medical Software UX / UI Tips: User Experience Design for the Healthcare Industry appeared first on Situated Research.

A considerable amount of that success derives from the ongoing effort of Airbnb’s design team to create a user experience for its booking platform which surpasses that of other similar services.

Airbnb’s Landing Page (above the fold) as I am typing this

As a designer, I was always astonished of how Airbnb approaches their product design challenges and delivers a product that converts, for years now. So in this article, I’ll try to identify what makes their landing page different and why it is successful.

Visual Clarity and Minimalism

I strive for two things in design: simplicity and clarity. Great design is born of those things.” — Lindon Leader

Using colour contrast and shadows, the user interface is basically structured as two layers: The card, which contains the explanatory text and the Call-to-Action (CTA) button, forms the upper layer, while the rest of the page is perceived as the background layer.

Perceived layers of user interface

With little to no cognitive effort, users can identify the upper layer (card) as the area with which they can interact. The page as a whole does not overload the users with information, hence framing a clear interaction path for users who land on it.

Reducing the cognitive load the user needs for achieving his goals is of the utmost importance when designing for humans.

Let’s see how it compares to Booking’s landing page, in terms of visual clarity, by using predictive technology:

Measuring optical clarity of the landing pages (above the fold) for Booking.com and Airbnb via VisualEyes plugin

More clarity contributes to easier and driven scanning of information. Two metrics that can determine how an interface is efficiently designed for human interaction is Visual Complexity and Prototypicality. The conjunction of those two metrics affects the aesthetics processing of the user significantly and, thus, defines how he will interact with the interface.

More complexity requires more cognitive load. More cognitive load means less user engagement and, sequentially, less conversion and profitability.

Key Takeaway:

Airbnb has set an interaction focal point; therefore users have already determined where they will have to “lay their eyes” in order to forage information.

The Double Z-Pattern

The Z-Pattern (for people that read from left to right)

Humans have a natural reading pattern, which is applied when visual stimuli are present. Following the natural flow of eye-scanning a layout, the Z-Pattern complements better single-purpose webpages that contain only one CTA.

This specific pattern “traces” eye movement of the users, thus allowing for strategic placement of visual elements.

So, Airbnb used the Z-Pattern.

Twice.

Airbnb is setting focal points for their users, using the Z-Pattern

By utilising this layout, Airbnb’s designers achieved to establish a concise visual hierarchy. Areas of interest that convey some kind of message are pinpointed and brought up to the user’s attention. Below you can view how Airbnb’s Z-layout translates into attention heatmaps:

Attention Heatmaps generated in Figma, using the VisualEyes plugin.

Attention heatmaps suggest that the selected areas are drawing the most of the user’s attention in this particular instance.

As it is shown on the right image, the Area of Interest, in which the Card is placed, stands out three times more than the focal point of the hero image, while the CTA Button on the bottom right of the white card is almost three times more prominent than the card itself.

Key Takeaway

Airbnb augments, even more, the pre-established interaction path, by driving most of the attention to the single action -clicking the button- needed in order to “dive deeper” into their product.

Read more on the Z-Pattern here.

Priming

“Priming is a technique whereby exposure to one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention.”

In other words, priming takes place when taking one’s memories or mental associations and using them to influence his future behaviour towards an upcoming matter.

The first image (Hero) someone views when interacting with Airbnb’s website

Almost all websites/products apply the “priming” effect to their audience in some way. In our case, the Airbnb landing page, visitors are subject to associative priming with the use of imagery. The design team is doing an excellent job in finding images that fit the company’s target group perfectly, so they can ensure that the desired emotions will be triggered.

Different target audiences, different hero images.

Which words pop in your mind when viewing the house on the left image? Maybe something like soothing, peaceful, refreshing, unique, care-free or even vacation-material?

Key Takeaway:

By “priming” their target audience, Airbnb’s designers use carefully-picked images to spark the emotions that could be associated with the subsequent expected experience: Staying in an awesome place for their vacation.

Read more on Priming from NN/g here.

Simple, strong and effective language

The text serves two purposes:

1. Validate the reason a user visited the website in the first place — “I’m where I was supposed to.”
2. Set a user goal — “Now I should search for places I want to visit.”

Using simple and clear language when communicating messages is essential in web design, as it establishes that your audience will not misinterpret your offering. Remember that communication is a “two-way street”:

“How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things, but how well we are understood.” — Andrew Grove

Airbnb avoids unnecessary jargon, while choosing a set of words that their target audience will comfortably understand.

Key Takeaway:

Text content was carefully selected to disclose a specific message and the value of the product as quickly as possible, with few words in the play. All that without endangering that their audience will not understand the offering.

Conclusion

Insightful design is human-oriented and drives human actions and emotions. Airbnb’s design team found a very subtle -almost transparent- way to direct users’ actions on their website. The framing of the experience was so delicately designed that it accelerates interaction while keeping the primary user goal in mind.

Thanks for tuning in!

Written by: Thanos Dimitriou (via Medium)
Posted by: Situated Research

The post How Airbnb drives users’ actions with their landing page design — a UX analysis appeared first on Situated Research.

Measuring Engagement

Prior research has shown the importance of engagement in game play. Creating a sense of flow, or a feeling where players are immersed into game play to the point where they lose track of their surroundings, has a huge effect on players’ perceptions of a game.

Games user research, when properly done, incorporates behavioral psychology into the research to observe players’ actions during gameplay. This yields insight into engagement levels, which are affected by a steady increase in difficulty over time (to challenge game players’ ability) and are encouraged by a great story line to immerse game players.

Measuring Player Communication

Besides the obvious task of watching players interact with the game interface, the observation of player-to-player communication can yield great insight into game play. Team-based activities, or even collaborative game play, can help researchers observe players’ strategies. In MMOGs, players might communicate through text or voice inside the game environment, and classic games might have players communicate via their proximity to one another.

Player communication yields great insight into how players learn to play a game and how they develop strategies to win a game. Great user research should use a research method where players are not coaxed or guided by researchers, and feel as if they are in a natural environment as to not bias their activity while playing games. Rigorous game research methods can use these factors to their advantage to achieve findings that are more accurate than traditional deductive, hypothesis-driven studies.

Affordances of the User Interface

While the broader experience of game play needs to be measured to gauge the overall player experience, examining the affordances of the user interface is a useful task to see what players perceive as possible actions in the game. These perceptions provide game players a foundation for creating strategies within the game. All aspects of the interface that can be interacted with, as well as those that gamers perceive as actionable, should be observed to inform game design. These perceived actions within a game suggest to gamers their possibilities for both playing and winning the game.

Often, critical actions might be overlooked by gamers. In line with theories of learning, a scaffolding difficulty structure should be achieved to create a feeling of flow for gamers. Game research can provide useful insight into ways that game players make use of a game interface, and lead to modifications in its discovery and use (via a nudge, animation, tutorial, etc.) that will provide salience to particular actions within the game that allow game players to learn, progress, and create engaging game play within the game.

Conclusion

Many of the current trends in game design are leading to amazing new games: including VR / AR (virtual / augmented reality), amazing graphics approaching lifelike detail, and engaging online multiplayer experiences. However, many of the properties of classic games offer players an engaging experience without advanced graphics, making use of a basic story, simple gameplay, and scaffolding difficulty structure to engage players. Game developers of all sizes can create games that maximize engagement by utilizing game research to create games that utilize the perfect mix of these features.

Good usability, afforded by the game user interface, helps players develop strategies for playing and winning games. Creating flow, where players lose track of their surroundings while immersed in game play, can be achieved by creating the right mix of engaging gameplay, player communication, and a scaffolding difficulty structure where players learn and accomplish tasks in the game.

About the Author

Matthew Sharritt, Ph.D., President and Co-founder of Situated Research, specializes in user-experience (UX) research and usability testing within software and video games. Dr. Sharritt’s research focuses on collaborative learning during playtesting and exploration, yielding insights in how to construct games that flow with engaging gameplay and collaborative interaction. The Situated Research team has provided independent expertise to the game industry across a variety of research projects. Learn more at https://www.situgames.com.

The post Games User Research: Driving Development with Actionable Insights appeared first on Situated Research.

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.

User-centered design isn’t just about creating a great experience for customers—it’s also a smart business move. 

In our previous article “The True ROI of UX: Convincing the Executive Suite,” we talked about how to persuade company executives on the ROI of UX, and how to illustrate the value of UX in increasing business KPIs. In this second piece, we discuss how, in order to really drive the message home, it is essential that UX teams present successful case studies of similar B2B UX redesigns.

The trouble is, finding data from real-world B2B UX redesigns is extremely challenging. Through dogged perseverance, our UX team found some useful data, but the proven difficulty of defining the ROI of UX (ie. how to exactly measure it) complicated matters further, and it became evident that the ROI of UX needed to be categorized into “soft” and “hard” dollars.

On the “soft side,” results are categorized into increased customer loyalty and net promoter scores (NPS), increased word-of-mouth referrals, productivity gains, and increased efficiency. On the “hard dollars” side, increased earnings and cost savings are gained from fewer support calls, less spent on development, fewer development “redo” cases, less user-testing, increased sales, and so on.

Here are the internal and external ROI measures:

Internal ROI

• Increased user productivity
• Decreased user errors
• Decreased training costs
• Savings gained from making changes earlier in design life cycle
• Decreased user support

External ROI

• Increased user productivity
• Increased sales
• Decreased customer support costs
• Savings gained from making changes earlier in the design life cycle
• Reduced cost of providing training

The B2B UX redesign case studies below represent the results of our research into the top 15 global design agencies/consultancies who performed B2B UX design/redesign projects. These case studies come from prominent design/consulting firms such as Accenture Interactive, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, Forrester, IDEO, Frog Design, Fjord, Adaptive Path, and others.

ROI of UX: B2B Redesign Case Studies

Bank of America

The giant bank identified and funded a UX redesign project to improve its online enrollment application for online banking. In developing the business case, the design team identified yield (or the percentage of customers completing the process) as the primary metric.

Prototyping and testing various design solutions with yield as the primary success metric proved a successful design strategy. The week the new registration form went live, the yield metric nearly doubled, and exceeded the desired ROI benchmark. This was a win for the design team, as well as the business unit that sponsored the project.

General Electric Software UX Unification

Known for its industrial expertise, by 2010 General Electric Co. had quietly become the world’s 14th largest software developer by revenue. These capabilities had grown opportunistically, primarily in response to requests from specific clients. As a result, little software consistency existed across the company and significant development efforts were invested in problems already solved in other divisions.

Overall, users of GE software reported that the quality didn’t reflect the excellence of GE’s hardware engineering. GE leadership decided to make an investment in creating a common software platform for the company. The Software Center of Excellence developed a UX Center of Excellence that would guide GE management, and drive the culture change to ensure that their software user experience matched their well-earned reputation for stellar hardware engineering.

Leaders, engineers, and designers collaborated to build processes and tools to support culture change together with a core foundation of design tools and success metrics that would support its UX practice. In the first year after its launch, the IIDS generated a 100% productivity gain in development teams and saved an estimated $30 million for the company. These digital transformation initiatives provided the foundation for GE Digital—and GE’s leadership in the industrial internet.

Courtesy frog design

Cathay Pacific

Cathay Pacific Airways is known for its leadership in the adoption of new technologies. The airline was the first in the world to announce plans to install in-flight email, the first to link its Airbus aircraft to its maintenance centers electronically, and the first in the world to auction air tickets online.

For company employees, a staff of eight to ten people work full-time to answer questions and book travel. Working with a design consultancy, Cathay Pacific created a new online portal called TravelDesk, a one-stop shop for staff travel.

The portal design project resulted in significant cost savings for the company:

1. The online portal reduced call-center volume (employee benefits center regarding policy questions, and service center regarding flight availability).
2. It increased productivity. Ground staff at the airport previously spent significant time managing the listing and check-in process for employees using their travel benefits. This project reduced the time required for these tasks.

Virgin America Website Redesign

Virgin America was on a mission to make flying fun again. In 2014, the airline decided to reinvent the digital travel experience, and in order to meet the needs of modern travelers, create the world’s first responsive airline website. The company decided to design and engineer a new digital platform that could respond to modern travel needs and behaviors.

After successfully A/B testing the new design against the old, Virgin America’s reinvented responsive site was released. They announced an IPO following two successful quarters running the new site that had exceeded performance goals in the following areas:

• 14% increase in conversion rate
• 20% fewer support calls
• Flyers booked nearly twice as fast, on any kind of device

Virgin America responsive website design.

HubSpot

In a recent major iteration of HubSpot, the company decided to re-think the user experience on its site, starting from the ground level with user feedback. They tested entirely new conversion methods, copy messaging, and even visual treatments. As part of the process, they pushed countless experiments live, and iterated with each piece of feedback, putting the user in control.

The result? The conversion rate doubled (tripled, even, in some areas). As HubSpot receives upwards of 10 million visitors per month, one can imagine the impact this had on revenue.

Continental Office B2B Website Redesign

With a brand refresh just a few months prior, Continental Office, a customized workplace solution provider, needed to update its 6-year-old website. The team wanted to ensure they were integrating buyer personas to provide an engaging user experience complete with relevant content marketing.

The old website was fine at the time but wasn’t built around telling the whole story while understanding the customer journey.

“In creating that great user experience, you have to stay relevant with what people are looking for and then build your website around that, which I believe is what we did and has allowed us to have these successful results.” – Rachel Iannarino, Vice President, Marketing.

The results of getting to know customers and building a website around that speak for themselves. Through the redesign strategy, traffic increased by 103% year-over-year and net-new contacts increased by 645%.

“Even though we had such great results last year, it’s already up — the number of new contacts is up over 80% from last year already. And I can’t lie; I keep waiting for these numbers to kind of plateau, but fortunately for us, the results just keep trending in a positive way” – Iannarino said.

Music & Arts

Music & Arts sells musical instruments and comprises 150+ retail stores, and 300+ affiliate locations. Their sizable eCommerce site had numerous usability problems that hindered online sales.

There is a detailed case study of this UX redesign project on the Toptal Design Blog: “eCommerce Redesigned: How Minor Changes Made Major UX Improvements.”

After a three month UX redesign project that significantly improved basic usability issues (consistency, simplicity, user flow, system feedback) their online sales increased around 30% year-over-year.

Pubmatic

This ad-tech platform’s UX redesign project took over a year. The B2B platform was about 7 years old and was made up of a hodge-podge of UIs, a variety of different-looking web-applications that were created at different times. As the company was maturing, it needed a unified UX design and a brand-consistent look-and-feel.

As a result of the UX redesign, NPS increased from 6 (detractors) to 9 (promoters) over 3 months immediately after launch when measured against the old platform’s satisfaction data.

Final Thoughts

A very interesting experiment related to the ROI of UX was conducted by the Geoff Teehan, Director of Product Design at Facebook in 2006. They called it the “UX Fund.” The $50,000 fund invested in companies that focus on delivering great user experiences. The hypothesis was that the ROI of UX should be reflected in their stock price over time.

Over a ten year period, from 2006 to 2016—including a major financial crisis in the middle of it—the “UX Fund” returned 450% vs the Nasdaq’s 93.2% return (that’s 45% annual return over ten years which beats any other asset class). You can read more about this experiment here.

Despite the evidence that UX design investments enhance customer experience and address business problems, executives still find it a challenge to define the financial benefits using traditional ROI measures. UX designers best serve businesses if they can not only create great “designs that work,” but are able to articulate and convincingly demonstrate tangible business results and KPIs to executives and stakeholders.

In order to be convincing and really get to the heart of what executives need to hear, UX designers need to think in similar terms to business leaders. Think: how can we best provide business value? If we do this, what will the return on our investment be? What metrics will demonstrate that we’ve made the right choices?

If done well, design can help bring order and coherence to the disorder that is the current state of the B2B world and enterprise applications. A 2016 design study of 408 different companies found that the more a company focused on and invested in design, the more they saw sales increase and experienced higher customer retention rates—customer engagement soared, and they moved through product cycles faster. All this simply because they put UX design, and more importantly, the customer, at the very heart of their business.

Clearly, good user experience is good for business. Today it’s become part of a UX practitioner’s job to offer decision-makers a compelling demonstration of the true value of exceptional UX design, and that there is indeed an impressive ROI in UX.

Written by:  Miklos Philips, Toptal
Posted by: Situated Research

The post The True ROI of UX: B2B Redesign Case Studies 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.

The first step to improving your own UX (and reaping the business benefits) is to conduct a usability assessment of your product, software or website. This process uncovers the most common problems. Often, usage analytics indicate UX issues with your product. Usability testing explains these issues. 

We regularly see websites that are underperforming because they were designed without the end user in mind. In these situations, executives who think they know their users typically make design decisions. As a result, websites are designed for the executives and not for the customers. The same holds true for software and video games.

Proper UX design requires understanding users’ needs and creating a solution that solves their problems and helps complete their tasks in the easiest and quickest way possible. To do this properly, you need to get inside users’ heads by interviewing them and observing them while they interact with the product. With continuous testing and adjustments, you can improve ease of use, reduce mistakes and increase overall customer satisfaction.

At Situated Research we conduct our research a little differently. In a separate article, Capturing Feedback in a User’s Natural Environment, we discussed the benefits to user testing without the use of a lab or moderator. Our team video tapes the user, in their natural environment, using the product as they would in everyday life. We then take the video and analyze it by using our cloud based research platform, Transana.

Conducting research this way allows us to uncover hidden usability issues that otherwise would not have been found. It also allows the user to act as they would in their everyday life and not feel like they are in a lab setting getting tested. The worst thing you can do is have a user feel like they are the ones being observed and tested and not the product.

To learn more about understanding what your customers think about your products, reach out today and tell us about your project.

Written by: Michel Ann Sharritt
Posted by: Situated Research

The post What Do Your Customers Think of Your Product? appeared first on Situated Research.

This helps you stay on the winning side by assessing your branding, usability, accessibility, information architecture, or any other element of your web content strategy.

By examining your competitors’ websites, you can gauge what you do best and what they do best: creating key objectives that you can improve upon.

Over 3,000 companies have had their website analyzed by Situated Research to see how they measure up against their competition.

Detailed Web Analysis

We’ll trace your business objectives through your website to see what services you offer and how effectively you communicate. We’ll look at your site’s navigation structure, color psychology, and social media initiatives.

Assess Competitors

Find out how effectively your industry competitors attract new customers, and how their website’s overall experience stacks up against yours. Typically two or three top competitors can reveal insights into how you can better target clients.

Key Findings Report

A summary will show specific areas that you lead your competitors, and where they lead you. Key findings will allow your design team to maximize the effectiveness of your website and attract more customers.

Your website is an investment. Effective marketing will attract more clients, giving your business the boost it needs. Spy on your competition to grow your market share and maximize the ROI of your website.

To learn more about competitive website assessments and how you can get yours today, visit our website: https://www.situatedresearch.com/services/competitive-website-assessment/

Written by: Michel Ann Sharritt, VP Situated Research

The post Want An Easy Way to Spy on Your Competition? 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.