Just like a good design is all about the fine details, so too it is the same for the design of an over all user experience.   The critical elements usually come from those small details of the communications and interaction with the audience.

If you start to get these wrong, then people do start to question if you really are that genuine with your UX approach.

Generally people are forgiving, so you can make a few mistakes, just don’t make too many as one day you will wake up and your loyal audience will be gone.

Take the following two examples, both sites usually present reasonable customer experiences, sometimes the details are lacking.

Twitter

A few weeks back Twitter started providing a list of recommended people you could follow. Not such a bad idea, you would think.  Only issue is the algorithm appears to be:

• Selecting people who have a lot of followers in common with the people you’re following
• People who are popular with retweets from your followers.
• Sharing a large common pool of followers.

Now that doesn’t seem so bad, does it.  Well there is no consideration for:

• People that had private accounts.
• People with private accounts not following you.
• People you have blocked.
• Conversely people that have blocked you.
• For lists that you maybe following.
• Any filtering to remove tweets from various people.
• What if people didn’t want to have suggestions thrust upon them.

This is a classic case of missing the finer details of the problem.  Just look at the title, suggesting – “who to follow”, like can’t make that decision myself.

It’s not just a simple issue, as is the case with most social media systems, the relationships between people are not just black and white.   It’s about people, communication, likes, dislikes, emotion; and we know these can be a little complex.

Common sense dictates, in this area it pays to focus on the details and map the paths people have already shown you, don’t ignore them and rush into coding a service, stop and think about it.

Book Depository

I love Book Depository; they have replaced Amazon as my main supplier of books.   The entire experience with Book Depository is a good one.  The service is fast, internationally focused; reasonably priced and they have a good range of books.

However they could do with tweaking of their email marketing, seems their attention to details is a little lacking.

A recent email newsletter they send out is promoting books for summer reading.  Yes very appropriate for the northern hemisphere.  But the kicker is I live in the southern hemisphere.

Now Book Depository has all my details, including my street address. So they can workout that it’s now winter.

Not a big deal you may say.   Well I think it is, why should I put up with this sloppy marketing.

What would it have taken to segment the customer lists into the southern and northern hemispheres.   That way the marketing could have been customised.

The newsletter would have had a personal touch for me and me alone.  It would give the impression that Book Depository does care about it’s international customers.

Again the devil is in the details. The better customer experience is presented when you focus on those fine details.

I’m sure that I’m not alone here, I bet others have had similar experiences where the fine details of the customer experience has let them down.

There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment, within developmental circles to just add a  few wireframes and develop a prototype or two, and then you can declare you are across the user experience design process.

The thing is User Experience is a lot more than just a few simple techniques, it’s an entire collaborative design process, in a way it’s not just a single methodology at all.

This lack of being a single methodology may be part of the issue.

For too long in developmental circles,  the promise of the perfect project was always dangled as the golden prize for simply following a given methodology step by step.  UX does in a way, pull the rug out from under that old school attitude.

Limiting the Scope

It is easy to understand that the adoption of wireframes can aid in design,  and that prototypes assist in the development process and  can act as an additional communication tool.   This is true.

However  when theses techniques are only applied to staged design approach they just capturing the design alternatives, by an iterative  prototyping process.  This is all they do, they don’t provide anything more.

To consider that these techniques alone take into account the entire User Experience design process is just flawed.

If one just applied these two design techniques, then the entire aspect of the “user” can still be very easily  forgotten.

The adding in of new software tool that allows for wireframes and collaborative client signoff  is providing a greater scope than before, but it’s still not UX design.

Wireframes should be tested with the users, as should the prototype. However in reality it’s just too easy to only reference the client and their response to your design.

Remember the Users

One must remember that User Experience is about the experience of the users.

Not the designers, developers or the client.

Yes I know it’s an obvious thing, but sometimes we  forget this in an effort to find a single methodical solution we can trust.

The core of any user experience process is the design with the users, for the users. It’s about the conversation with the users:

• The collection of the user research.
• The non bias user testing, with users, without leading scenario presentation and questioning.
• The interviewing of users, and the collecting of their user stories.
• The analysis of their previous trails through a web site and general web analytics.
• The previous experiences and expectations of the users, the mapping of their mental models.

I can understand that championing of the user and business goals, wants, and previous experiences can be  difficult to comes to terms with.

This is especially  true when you are used to the straight forward cycle of business requirements and client input, and a few intrative cycles.

Also the direct involvement with selected users, for a development team maybe difficult. However this is where User Experience professionals can help, as they can bridge that User, Business and Developer gap.

Still the application of the user research and it’s confirmation via user testing is the critical aspect of the entire user experience process. It has to be done.

It’s not a simple matter of plugging in a few new techniques.  You have to consider the user, talk to the user, “be the user”, develop and design with the user in a collaborative effort.  This is the user experience process.

No matter how much we want to avoid it, we have to engage with the users, anything else is not working with the UX design process.

It’s an interesting point is the ability to code in CSS, HTML and JavaScript a skill that is relevant to the User Experience practitioner.  Or should that be left to the developers and designers.

Why ask?  Well I’m at a crossroads.

You see the nature of the local industry here is such that there just isn’t a constant stream of User Experience work at commercially viable rates.  So a I have been supplementing my UX work with a little front end design and development from time to time.

Not a bad thing really I enjoy the work. Especially when I get designed into a corner and have to try and make it all work with css/html, the challenge can be very rewarding.

Times a Changing

However recently I have noticed things are starting to change locally.  I also seem to be making a few changes around here of late, maybe I’ll just getting bored, or it’s a mid life crisis (nah, too old for that beastie).

Maybe it’s time to drop the frontend development work and finally do what I have been trying to do for the last 4-5 years, focus on UX and IA type work and nothing else. Afterall UX isn’t about the implementation, it’s about the planning and initial design only.

Mind you on the other side of the coin.   Frontend development and design skills are very handy with prototyping in html and the like.   It’s just something as you don’t have to sub contract out.   You can just do it yourself.   Even better for doing the odd hack or patch between user testing sessions on a prototype.

Also, I’m told, that people with both UX skills and frontend development are rare these days.  Now I don’t really have any idea on this one. To me they don’t seem to be that rare.   Maybe it’s just different in the US or something.

Would be nice to retain the skills, seeing as I have come so far with them, and invested a lot of time and money developing them.  But again its another skill set to keep upto date, another pile of reading to do.   Hard choice.

Guess I’m being a little conservative here, but when you have a family it’s not just you that is going to suffer if you make the wrong choice.

It’s UX or Nothing

No matter what I decide, I’m no longer taking on any more new clients for  front end development work.  It’s all going to be UX and IA and the like. Lets see how this all goes. Brave move in a way, as I’ll be turning away paying work I can very easily do.

So if you are have work in the User Experience, Information Architecture, Usability or  Accessibility areas, then we need to chat.

Still I ask you, do you think it is time to drop the front end skills and move on, or are they at least a handy prototyping skill?  What do you think?

Look around the web, you’ll find them all over the place. MS-Word and PDF forms that you have to download and complete.  I would be forgiven for thinking that we have not progressed on the web since 1995.

I know I’m not perfect I have been party to this crime against UX as well.

We know they are bad, so why are we still using them.

Let’s Consider

You’re feel inspired to join a professional association.  The website seems pretty good, it lists all the benefits. There is a professional air about it.   You can see that some of your respected peers are already members.

The annual fees aren’t that much either, well within your budget.  You can see at a glance you’ll have no problem with your experience with the membership criteria.

The entire progression through the site has been seamless, almost as if the site was personally responding to your needs and wants alone. It’s been a pleasure considering joining this association.

So finally you press on the “Join Now” button.

The perfect reality is shattered. One brief sentence destroys it all -

“To Join simply download, complete and fax back to us the following PDF document”

This is not a little speed hump in the process.

Its a 10 foot wall!  This is a user experience disaster.

Completing a Form

Just consider what you have to do to complete the form:

1. Often the PDF form can’t be filled out online, or it just doesn’t quite work right.
2. Download the form.
3. You print it off.
4. Find a Pen, that works.
5. Fill it in.
6. Find a Fax machine or scan it.
7. Fax it, ensuring the fax has been sent.
8. Remember to collect your copy of the fax.

Yeap, it’s just way to hard.   Now consider, if we want people to complete the form why are we making it difficult.  Why indeed.

Pros

• Sometimes we don’t want a Form online.

  Over the years I have run into a good number of  agencies and corporations who deliberately go out of their way to make it difficult to complete certain forms.  They rely on the fact people don’t like to fill in manual forms to restrict the number they get. In a way they are burying the form and the associated process online so you will not complete it.

• Writing outside the fields

  A manual form can allow for those incidences that an online form designer didn’t consider.  You can write outside the fields, in the margins and the like.   You may have a small comment box online, but on a manual form it can be limitless.

• Easier to update

  Sure, you just have to update the link for the downloadable form.  However what happens if you don’t have the master document. Do you have to build the form from scratch just for a “simple update”.

• Easier to publish

  Yes the process of publishing a MS-Word or PDF form is an simple, one.  Just upload the form and link to it.   But consider the time taken building the form and getting it looking the way you want it.   These are the hidden costs.

• No special software or skills required

  No special software is required.  Most businesses have a MS-Office installed. Hence building a form in MS-Word isn’t that greater task.   No real specialised skills like “web design” are required.  It doesn’t take that long to build them either as all the pesky interaction component has been removed.

Cons

• People are lazy

  We known that people are naturally lazy, they aren’t going to want to fill in a manual form at all.   Maybe it reminds them of an endless victoria bureaucracy of hideous  forms.

• Easy to add a CMS form

  With a lot of CMS these days there are modules or plugins that allow the admin person, with no special design skills, to easily put together a form.  These forms often have all the interactive elements such as error messaging and the like.   All they need is to be styled correctly in the first instance.  They also usually come with default styles anyway.

• Electonic records

  Provision of an electronic record, whether or not it is in a database allows for easier access to the information, and an increase aspect of data manipulation now or in the future.

• Data validation

  You can ensure with filters, and data validation that the data you get from an online form is pure and the best it can be.   This is very hard to do with a manual form.

• No double entry

  It’s simple with a manual form you have to enter the data, manually type it into a computer system or at the very least scan it and use an OCR package on the result.   This all takes time and resources.   Also what do you do with that extra long comment that is too big to be collected and entered into the database.

• Easy to development a custom form

  Years ago designing and developing a form for a developer was a long process.   But today with frameworks, form generators, specialised form tags and the like it is possible to build a form in a tenth of the time.   This really eliminates the complaint of it taking too long doesn’t it.

• Cost effective user experience

  Overall if you look the process, sure building a PDF or MS-Word form may appear initially to be cost effective, but if you consider that it’s just not going to be what people are expecting.   You are going to loose potential transactions with an manual form.  They have started the process in the online world of the web, they expect to complete it there simply and efficiently.

Next time a client sends you a PDF form or worse a MS-Word document to be placed on a site as a form. Stop.

Have a chat with the client, discuss their real needs and the purpose of the form.   If they really honestly want people to complete the form then realistically it has to be online.

Rating:

3

I’m an advocate of prototyping. I’ll even go so far as to recommend that wireframing be reduce to just sketching in favour of prototyping. Still prototyping in a UX environment can sometimes be one of those things that you don’t always get to practice when you would like to.

This is where Rosenfeld’s book Prototyping – A Practitioner’s Guide by Todd Zaki Warfel can fill in some of those nagging holes.

Now I enjoyed this book. I’m firmly in the audience demographic that this book is pitched at,  which is good.  Todd presents a concise overview of the art and science of prototyping, the upside and the downside are equally balanced within the book. That is what makes it so refreshing to read.   However…

The Good and the Bad

The first 7 chapters deal with a recommend guide to implementation of prototyping, including paper prototyping. This is well presented concise and worthwhile. As is the last 2 chapters on HTML prototyping and an overview on prototype testing. All these chapters are just what you need for the basics of prototyping, while still offering some extra detail for the experienced UX professional.

However there are a number of points within the book that I found just didn’t gel well with me. Now I have nothing against Todd, I’m sure we have a lot of passionate view points in common. It’s just part of this book feels wrong to me.

You see in the middle of the book are a series of chapters that discuss how to prototype with various desktop applications.

I really would love to know why there is an extra four chapters stuffed into this book reviewing the very basics of using PowerPoint, Visio, Fireworks and Axure Pro as prototyping tools.

These chapters  are nothing more than a step wise guide to using the applications, a few minor points for prototyping with them.

Discussing any software products that aren’t generic is going to be a danger, as it immediately dates the book, considering the book was published in November 2009, it’s already dated. 
For instance where is MS-SketchFlow, the current UX darling of the hour.  Maybe we have a case of the Publisher forcing  Todd’s hand on this one, I hope not.  It’s as if these extra chapters have been added in to stuff the page count up.

You know this makes me wonder if Rosenfeld are really appealing to the UX professional or some other audience I don’t know off.

If the first section of the book wasn’t so damn useful I would have give this book a 2 star rating for these filler chapters.   If it has been published without these chapters I would rate this book as a must buy (4-4.5 stars), a concise guide to getting started with prototyping.  Sadly however for some reason it was published with these filler chapters so the 3 star rating stands.

The Chapters

The book starts where it should with a  wonderfully presented case for why anyone in the design process should be using prototyping, which can be very easily used on general business as well.   I remember reading this chapter with a big smile on my face, you can see that Todd has had to trot out these rebuffs time and time again to the same old anti prototype augments.

As expected the book deals with the prototyping process, it does this well, however I felt that this area could have done with a little more detail, nothing major, just a little more of Todds words.   One interesting aspect was the presentation of the five types of prototyping and the eight guiding principles, most of which are fairly common sense. However it does help to state them to remind people new and old to the prototyping ways.

I’m not going to review those four rogue chapters…

The chapters on paper and html prototyping  could  also have been a little longer with a few more examples, on  the pitfalls of the methods and ways to overcome them, still they where handy universal references for using prototyping.

Finally the book wraps with a discussion on prototype testing. Now this is not your usual user testing chapter. Sure it does talk about user testing for 8 odd pages, but the real gold here is in the list of common mistakes and ways to overcome them. This type of practice advice is invaluable to any UX professional.

Worthy of the UX Library or Not.

If any of you don’t know, by now, I hate fill in a book, with this book it was a chore read those middle chapters. In a way they spoilt a damn good reference book.

Now if you don’t have a prototyping guide, yes go out and buy this book. You can always skip those deadwood chapters, they add nothing to the book and you will not miss them.

However if you already have a prototyping reference, I would consider against buying this book, unless you really want it.

Some of you may not know this, I come from a formal science background, I trained as a scientist.  However, I don’t consider myself to be one, by any stretch of the imagination. I feel more at home in the design space.

Still all that background in the science arena has allowed me to apply it to the area of User Experience design. A guess it’s like a Science of UX Design.

To often we say that the area of User Experience is not so much a science but an art. Yes this is true. However it’s also a little wrong. UX Design is very much a science, or should be. As we are applying the basis of the scientific method to it.

To understand this you have to understand a little about backbone of science (science peeps you can go make a coffee now) and the scientific method.

Science and the Art of Observation

In science you are taught from day one to question. Yes question everything. This questioning helps you think creativity, build on previous ideas, observe, experiment and document. The key is to take nothing on face value. You are always asking , “nice, but show me the evidence..”.

Everything, you see, must come with evidence to support it. Any hypothesis has to have some evidence. And even then it’s going to have to be collaborated evidence so it can graduate to a theory.

You see a theory is the best you can get, its the ultimate statement.  Still you have to remember that a theory is not written in stone, it’s still open to change.  It should still be questioned, if the evidence stacks up against it.

A theory is just in a holding status, as the series of rules or an explanation of how something works as far as we know. The key here is the bit “as far as we know”.   At any time it can to shot down and a new theory can replace it.  Often the new theory is build upon the bones of the old theory, but not all the time, something a complete change of viewpoint is required.

Scientific Method

The important part in science in the use of the Scientific Method. The basis of the scientific method is a way to use the principles of scientific inquiry.  It’s the cycle of taking a hypotheses, testing it , analysing the results and then iterating,

The key to the scientific method is the use of the researchers intelligence, imagination, and creativity; its not like baking a cake,  there is no quick recipe to follow.  A bit like UX design in a way.

If we compare the two, the scientific method and UX design

UX Design verses Scientific Method

• Scientific Method:

  1. Define a question or problem,
  2. Gather information or observe,
  3. Form a hypothesis,
  4. Experiment and test,
  5. Analyse output,
  6. Interpret results (form new hypothesis),
  7. Document and publish,
  8. Peer review

• UX Design:

  1. Define a question or problem,
  2. Observe and research,
  3. Develop a design,
  4. User test and prototype,
  5. Analyse and interpret results,
  6. Document,
  7. Implement

As you can see they are very similar. All we are lacking is the formation of the initial hypothesis.

Science isn’t Creative?

Okay I can guess you are nodding your heads now as you see the comparison. However it’s not that simple is it?

Yes true design has all these principles and rules that can be applied. Same with UX design there are a number of for an interface design and psychological based principle that we can apply.   These rules are like the foundation theorems in science.

However design has that creative element. The innovative spark, the creation of something based on previous experience and the environment around us. Something that is gauged as being outstanding by our community. The process of that creativity and what it is can be always up for debate. However the key here is that design is a creative process not an analytical one.

And science isn’t!? …  Hang on let’s stop and think for a moment.

Okay design stimulates the senses and it’s this stimulation that we often use to measure creativity by.

However in science you still get that moment of innovation, the moment of thinking outside the square, the  moment of creativity, it’s just it’s not applied often to something that is traditionally thought of being creative. 

Looking at a physics equation a new way, or experimenting with a variations in compounds are the sexy creative elements but they can be creative in there approaches.

So yes science is creative.  Just not sexy creative, as is commonly known.

Science is Design

In UX design we prototype and experiment, observe the results, iterate and modify the prototypes using the test results and previous designs to find the new killer design. As you can see above, this is so close to the iterative experimental process of scientific method  it’s a little frightening. 

Mind you lets just stop for moment again.  If you think about it, it’s not surprising,  given that many of the principles of UX design are stolen from engineering which in turn stole them from basis of the scientific method.

So in reality UX design is a Science.  And maybe even Science is just Design.

Now tell me do you think UX design is more a science or do you still think its going with the gut and is an art form?

Creativity is a strange beast. Often creativity is blocking us, running away.  We often talk about it, discuss it at length and even say it can be learned.  Sometimes it’s even hard to find that creative spark.  However what is creativity.   In reality creativity is a hard thing to define as a  specific reproducible item.

Doesn’t help that creativity is different things to different people.

You see creativity can be related to the newer western principle of making products, building things for a purpose, the expression of scientific or technological innovation.  Where as in older cultures, there has always been an undertone for creativity being more for personal fulfilment, private goal setting, the taking of an inner journey.

Sure there are definitions of creativity all over the place. This still doesn’t help, as the biochemical, physiological and psychological process of creativity is still something of a mystery to which we only have fragments.

What is Creativity

What we do know is that the moment of creativity is often  accompanied with a heightened state of consciousness.

Things appear to be more vibrant, more alive, colours are vivid, sounds more pure,  it’s like a sensory overload.  Others have described this inspirational moment as a peroid of loss of control, a trance like, muse controlled, dreamlike state.

Interestingly Carl Jung (that psychologist guy) segmented these two states into:

• “a state of emotional high tension” and;
• “a state of dream-like contemplation”.

His idea is that creativity is the release of emotional tension. Especially the tension, built up over time,  coming from the hard work of the creative process.  Well I know we can all relate to that idea.

Later on Damasio (a neurologist) leveraged off Jung’s work in looking at emotions, creativity and consciousness.  Damasio theorised self-awareness  was a very important component of the creative process.  The ability for your mind to make it’s own patterns, designs without reference to previous experience or knowledge. This will be of a particular interest later.

Creative excitement of the artist at her easel or the scientist in the lab comes as close to the ideal of fulfilment that we all hope to, and so rarely do, achieve – Mihaly Csikszentmihalhyi

More recently research has indicated that the two different states of consciousness, correspond to two different brain states:

• Enhanced consciousness is associated with increased beta waves.
• Dreamlike state is associated with  alpha waves.

This supports the relevant  experiences of clarity and dream-states that have been reported. Nothing new really, just a documented physiological response.

It’s also been suggested that creativity is similar  to a spiritual experience, a type of receptive non-egoist cognition.  The type of experience where you just trust in a state higher than you to provide the final solution.  Something like a complete trust in a greater god-like power.

Personal and Group Creative Processes

Still creativity is not just about the creative individual either.

Yes, true, you do get the creative star. The person that is going to produce that single creative masterpiece.  However creativity can also be a group process, requiring the dynamic of the group to foster the creative process.

The inclination to work in one process or the other really just comes down to a personal choice, the processes, the environment, social dynamics and the expected outcomes.

You tend to find that  teams that don’t allow for any creativity, that focus on the total needs of the team at the costs above everything else with not have strong creative outcomes.  This can mainly be seen as a stifling of the creative spark.   The removal of the lack of self may be a very large contributing factor here.

Still you can have creative people in the team, and yes they will create, if you let them. Even though they have become faceless in the team itself. It’s matter of fostering the belief in self.

It’s their individual presence and creative ability in the team that produces the creative outcome.  It’s their being able to express their sense of self that seems to promote the creative process.

Something to think about in UX teams.  Even in a team it’s still about the person, and promoting personal creativity.

Original  Creative Process

Something we tend to forget is that the creativity is about being original, creating the new. The magic of producing something from nothing.  Or maybe even reshaping an old idea into something new from a different angle.

Newness and Uniqueness

The aspect of what is original is really relative to the individual.   You may consider an idea new to yourself, but your peers may consider it to be old and an estabilished concept.   Interestingly this relative creativity even has a series of terms associated with it.

Margaret Boden, categorised relative original creative ideas as:

• P-creativity (psychological creativity)  - new or novel ideas only from the mind of the individual concerned.
• H-creativity (historical creativity) – known to be new or novel to the whole of human history.

So if you produce an idea that is new to you, you are being p-creative.  However if the idea is new to society then it is h-creative or historically creative.

This does bring us to a question of what is unique and what is new.   Something can be new to generation, new to an individual, but its not an absolute. Historically it is not new.   Where as something being unique is the first of it’s kind, without parallel or comparison to anything else ever.

So maybe true creativity maybe expressed in uniqueness.

The issue is that in today’s world it is hard to be truly unique in ones creativity. We are often unconsciously referencing to our memories, experiences and influences all the time.  With the information age – the amount of information that we are exposed to is without doubt a magnitude larger than our predecessors even 20 years ago.

We no long have the benefit of living in the world of our predecessors; left to just receive a trickle  from the rest of the world of the changes, new information and influences around them.  In the past they had the luxury that they could create with a distinct reduction from  the taint of the world around them.

Produce or Create

Following on from this is the question can something artificial, like a computer, be creative.   What is it that makes anything creative.  Does some that is going to be creative need a state of consciousness to capture the unique ideas.

This could be debated here till the cows come home. So let’s not, eh.

Maybe its just the  lack of consciousness that is stopping the creative process with machines, provide consciousness and you have creativity.

Then again if we are borrowing from our previous experience and knowledge are we being really creative.  Maybe we are just being machine-like and producing a design, instead of creating a design.  Something to think on when you do your next UX project.

It could just be the use of the logical process verse the gut instinct to produce the  creative process.  Semantics, yes, but still very important.

Meaningful  Creative Process

Now creativity without a cause, without meaning, is often seen as pointless, soulless.

The meaning can be a personal thing, for the creator, or even a commercial motivation.  Still at the end of the process there has to be a reason, a goal, a meaning behind it all.

It is this meaning  that allows us to have a sense of achievement when we complete a creative process.

In a way, one only becomes creative if there is understanding and meaning of the creative product.   If the product has no understanding or meaning, then the creativity can’t be seen and understood by others.  It follows then to others it’s not creative, it’s just product of a process.

UX and Creativity

With all this talk on creativity and what it is  - are we really being all that creative in the User Experience process? Or are we just applying the outcome of the design (user) research, web strategy and general design principles to the user interface design.   Or are we stepping beyond this and making something new, unique and innovative?

Sometimes I question if we are being as creative as we could be, has business and commercial constraints weakened our grasp on creativity?

Remember:

To be creative an idea must be usable and actionable – Teresa Amabile

Still what is creativity to you?  Do you think it can be learned, studied and mastered; or is it something more innate?

I was talking to the local UPA Perth chapter (in formation) about aspects of UX visualisation.  It was an interesting topic that brought up a good number of discussion points.

One point was on the design process. The way we design.  The way that we just don’t allow ourselves time to fail at the design.  Or if we do, it is hidden in the back room so we can appear to be “magical design wizards” that produce the perfect product, interface design, IA or the like.

Great!  Nice idea if you want to really keep this air of the designer being someone “mysterious and magical”.   Someone that can just disappear for a few hours and suddenly they have the final product.

Stop the Myth

We really have to stop this process.

You know how no-one understands design.  They don’t value design. They just don’t get how long it takes to design something.  They just don’t get the process. They just don’t understand the principles of the design.

Well we are to blame!  We are the problem.   We have build the wall between ourselves and our clients.   We have build the prissy pedestal that we are standing on.

For to long we have been taking the design process and putting it behind closed doors where only a few audience members, team members and select client liaisons get to see behind the “Wizard of Oz” curtain from time to time.

We should go beyond just explaining the design process to the client, and flashing around a few final concepts when we need signoff.  We should  involve them. Even if it’s just in a small way. If we did this some of the issues we have would start to disappear.

Education is Important

It’s all about education. Educating the client’s decision makers, and even your team.

It’s about taking down the wall and showing your process.  Discussing and explaining with your client the design process as you step through it.  Not just showing the final stages of each process either, the steps along the way, warts and all.

Yes, that’s right,  show them the rough sketches, the wireframes that have failed, the concept storyboards and mockup concepts that you have rejected.   It’s simple, explain why these designs have failed and been rejected.   Involve the client in the process.

Become human, not a design mage or a mindless web design monkey.

You may say, “but the client doesn’t want to see all the design process” .

Are you really sure. Most people, I find, are even just a little bit  envious of us.  They would love to help out in the design process.  They want to be us.

Key is to just be patient with them, your clients are a design newbie, be understanding but firm, after all they are paying your because you are “the designer”.  It’s a balancing act, don’t pester them with details all the time. Still in your progress meetings, show the design output. Show the progression towards the final concept.

Stop Perfection, Make Mistakes

If you are looking at me strangely by now, then I can tell that you tend not to really design in the traditional way, with multiple iterations of a design leading to the final outcome.

Whether it be sketching with pencil and paper, in a wireframing application or just using Photoshop, you should be cycling through a series of design concepts before you decide on the final product.

Yes you could say that there is all this user research that we have and it’s all you need to build the design.   Well I agree, but I also disagree.

Granted you do have an outline a specification framework, restrictions on the design from the user research. Still there will often be hundreds of ways you can approach the issues and develop the design.

Even with applying the standard design principles on top of the user research findings, you should still have a good deal of approaches you can take.

If can only see one approach, maybe you need to take a fresh look at the problem, from a different view point.

Protosketch it

Like a good product design, there will be failures in a UX design.

However these failures are important. They give us ideas, they allow us to get frustrated, to look beyond the everyday and find that special design the client is really looking for.

Failure in designing allows you to iterate the design.  They allow us to discount designs and to get inspired with new alternatives  from the failures. Gradually over time, you will get less and less new concepts and start to discount more and more.  Resulting in the final concept.

It’s a simple process.  Just sketch out a concept, get others feedback, throw around some ideas.   It’s like you are prototyping the base concept sketch. Iterate it, adding and removing concepts.

Maybe  we should call it protosketching.

Involve the client, involve your peers, friends, team colleagues or maybe do a peer review.

Just work down that process of refinement to the final design.  Now I’m not talking an agile process here, I’m talking about something that happens the first moment you put pencil to paper in the sketching process be it analogue or digital.

Remember design is not a robotic process, it’s a creative process.

I often find my best designs are the ones I don’t think about, the ones I mull over for days looking for inspiration from things all around me.  Doing a little sketching, drawing, letting my mind wander.  In case you ask, I only work with clients that know they will get a good result if they don’t push the process, sure this helps as well.

Fail or Don’t Design

Now in my mind if you are not failing at your design, well you are not designing.   You are just processing an analysis, and producing one possible outcome.  Maybe you should stop and think.   Are you doing the right thing by your client.   Does your client really just want a second rate concept.

If you like producing second rate designs, do us all a favour, stop.  Just stop designing, the world has enough crap designs.

If you are failing.  Well that’s great, design and fail away.  God speed to you.

I have been involved with many user surveys over the years. Some have gone well. Some have been a complete waste of time and effort. The main distinction between them is the surveys that were professionally developed and pretested would succeed. The ones that had been knocked together by a well meaning manager were often destined to failure.

It comes down to this – unless you have experience designing surveys, then it’s best to either hire someone who has had experience and training, or find another way to collect the same information.

Proceeding with a flawed survey will just produce results that are tainted with bias and other data warping horrors. Not something you want in your user research, eh.

Survey Design Tips

Now I know some of you are going to be forced into running surveys despite my advice.   That’s okay, business is like that, sometimes you have to compromise.

Better that you at least know the pitfalls and can correct them as need be. So here is a list of tips for online survey design that you may find invaluable:

• Survey Objective

  This may sound really silly, but you have to know what the survey is for and what it needs to achieve before you start. Otherwise you will get side tracked asking meaningless questions. For example you may want to find out about the user demographics, their preferences, and the users needs and wants.

• Keep it Short

  There is nothing worse than an online survey that seems to go on forever. Asking page after page of questions. When you are putting together questions. Stop and think. Can I get that information elsewhere.  If you can scrap the question. Similarly if the question is not directly related to the goal of the survey.

  The point is to design a short sharp survey someone can complete in under 5 minutes. I don’t know how many online surveys I just abandoned after about 5 minutes, it must be in the hundreds.

• Tell Me How Many Pages

  Your respondent’s time is valuable, they are doing you a huge favour filling in your survey. Respect that. Just like you minimise the number of questions in the survey, it is also a good idea to let people know how many pages they have to complete. The best way to do this is to  display an indicator of their progress.  This will have a negative impact if your survey is too long. However  it will have positive one if the survey is short.

• Let’s go Back

  Again this is a simple issue, let respondents navigate forward and backward (not via the back button) in the survey and review their answers, if they so desire. Remember the respondent is doing you a favour, don’t make it hard for them.

• Its About the Design

  At the end of the day all the information you’re gathering about the users will be applied to the design of the web site. Be that on a visual, informational or interactive functionality level.  It follows that when you include a question you should ask yourself – “Is the data collected going to influence the design of the site.”   If the answer is – No; then remove the question. Now it’s not a hard and fast rule, but still one you should consider.

• Say No to Checkboxes

  I know you might love them, but a checkbox is just a bipolar field, yes or no, on or off.   You will get a higher response rate if you present a checkbox as a series of radio buttons with a yes or no response.   It’s instantly clear to the user what response is required. Also you have the advantage of taking up more visual space and hence avoiding the question being missed.

• Say No to Select Lists

  This is interesting, as I have discussed earlier, certain demographics have an issue with realising that they can scroll down the list and pick the unseen items on a single line select list. A good way to avoid this issue is to use radio buttons with a multiple choice layout.

• Add Some Other

  When you put an alternative list of multiple choice items in a survey, how can you really be sure you have all the possible choices. I have always found it’s a good idea to allow for an “Other” field and have space for the respondent to fill in their alternative.  You usually discover you have missed a few alternatives I find.

• No Response

  It’s a simple thing, but it’s a good idea to have the default setting for any multiple choice items to be “no response” that is when all the fields are not selected.  I would also consider adding a “not applicable” or the like,  response as well. Mainly because there can be cases when the respondent has no experience with what you are asking.

• Getting Likert Scales Right

  Likert Scales are those multiple choice responses that go “Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Agree” . Now these are very good at gathering information where there is going to be a distinct difference of option. However the result of a Likert scale question is not a series of interval measurements. But in fact it is just a scalar representation of extremes from agreement to disagreement (in this case).  When using a Likert scale it’s a good idea to have a mid point (odd number of values) to allow the measurement of the common mid point.

  ALso if you are measuring a very subjective issue.  It’s  a good idea to label all the scale with the equivalent labels to help remove any bias or misinterpretation.

• Pretest the Questions

  Writing survey question is something you have to do carefully. Respondents will attempt to interpret your questions. And subsequently provide you with the information they think you are expecting to get. Also they will try and determine how you are going to use their answer and respond appropriately. This leads to bias in the results.

  The way to avoid this is to pretest your questions. A pretest will tell you the questions that are always going to be skipped, give similar answers, and questions that are just confusing or misleading. Just like we user test, so we also need to user test the survey as well. Ironic really.

• Stop Question Skipping

  It’s simple your respondents will skip a question if they don’t understand it, are confused or just plain bored with a your too long questionnaire. The solution is keep it short and on topic and ensure the questions are not confusing.

• Multiple Choice Order

  Ordering the multiple choice responses is very important.  However if you put the responses in their natural order (high to low) or just listing them as you think of them is dangerous. This presents bias to the respondent. Who will select that response that looks like it is the one you want.

  What you need to do is scramble the responses. Still,  expect some respondents to lean towards selecting the first or last items as they see these as the important ones.

• Duplicate Answers

  The arrangement of your questions can have a great influence on the responses.  If you put too many questions that have a similar response or layout together (especially multiple choice). You will get a leaning toward the same response for all the questions. You have to vary the responses and keep the respondent on their toes. However you don’t want to confuse them. So mix it up a little.

• Leading Questions

  This is something you would think wouldn’t be happening in surveys, but it still does. The use of leading question is still an issue.  Ensure the words you use don’t imply any unwanted  response.   and that they don’t point the respondent to any sort after response. I have always found that open ended questions like those in an interview are the only way to go here.

• Ambiguous Questions

  Supplied responses to questions need to have no ambiguity in them at all. Remember what you interpret as meaning one thing, someone else will see if as completely different. It’s recommend that you ensure that all supplied responses are 100% rock solid in what you want them to mean. Use the contemporary language and terms of your audience, also avoid verbs that have a double meaning.

• Negative Questions

  The use of negative terms in a question is not a the best solution. In a lot of cases people will mis-read the question as an implied positive. Which will give you a completely skewed dataset. The simple solution is just to present all the questions as a positive outcome.

  If you really have to use a negative, a way around this is to highlight a simple negative  like for example – NOT. Just bold and capitalise it.

• Getting Ranges Right

  When you ask about a range or the like, don’t imply a level of use for a response. As the respondent will just assume you are looking for answer within this level of the range.

  For example. “How many times do you visit our site a week:” this is bad, it implies you must visit at least once a week. Where as “How often to you visit our site:” is a better alternative as it leaves the value ranges to the supplied responses.

  Pre-testing on the supplied responses will also give you a realistic response range as well.

Now this list is by no means complete, what additional pointers would you include as UX professionals?

The other day I was chatting away with a potential client, I asked for their phone number, as you do. They replied with 1800 GETT AWEB (no that’s not real) . I asked what that was a real number, there was silence for a moment, then “I have no idea,” was the honest reply.

It’s not that phone names are anything new, but it did get me thinking.

The use of the phrase (name) as a number was all well and good if I wanted to remember the number. It’s well know that people remember words and phrases better in general than they do strings or numbers.  Clearly why phone number names are so popular.

However in this situation I just wanted the contact details so I could transcribe them into my client contact record. So a string of numbers would have been fine.

Phrase verses Numbers

Instead, getting the phone number as a phrase meant I had to translate this back into the real number. Which involved finding a phone with an alpha-numeric keypad. Not a really hard call in our geeky household. Then you have to stare at the phone and  letter by letter translate the name. Laborious at best.

Sure I could leave the number as is and just do the translation each time I dialed it. Again it’s really just a pain when all I want to do is plug in the phone number and ring the person.

I have done a little  biased unscientific research on twitter on this topic, to reveal that most people feel the same.

A phone name is great to remember when you are at a set of traffic lights, reading the side of a bus,  billboard or if you are just trying to recall the phone number.

However it’s a real frustration if you have to dial the number off the phone name alone.

Presenting the Contact Details

It just  comes down to the presentation of contact phone number or phone name.

Sure presenting a call to action phone number as a phone name will help the users remember the number. But this will fail if they are visiting the web site in order to ring you. Remember people are often just looking up websites now for contact details as well now.

The solution is simple, present both formats, together.  Most savvy web sites do this, but a lot don’t.

Having the real number on another page or somewhere else on the page – that is not near the phone name, is also a bad idea.  It is  just as likely to result in the user going elsewhere, if they can’t find the real number quickly enough.   Yes, as a user, we are all lazy, we don’t want to have to translate your phone name.

It’s a simple thing, just remember a user experience is a contextual thing; mainly relating to the environment and context in which the experience is presented.  And that people are lazy.