Noted my dear engineers.
Tag Archives: Users
Iteration is About the Users. Justifying is About Yourself.
Some (bad) designers don’t care about validating their designs with the users – real people. They have confidence that as a designer, they will always deliver the best experience to the users. While it’s good to have confidence in your design skill, making something useful that matters to the users is something that differentiates good designer from the bad one. It’s so absurd to design something for people, and never had any interaction with the users. Breakthrough innovation comes from understanding the needs and context of the users. Testing our web/app with the users is a way to validate and iterate quickly, not to justify your design.
Iteration is about the users. Justifying is about yourself.
There’s no excuse to not do testing with the users. We always have limited time and budget, but we should be able to find solutions to any challenge. For example, it’s challenging to get people to come to our office at Viki (with the current location), so we did remote usability testings. We didn’t get budget to give incentive, so we’re trying our luck to recruit people who don’t mind with no incentive, and we got 4 people!
I felt so good after listening to the users. A lot of great insights about how they behave in general, and how they’re actually using our design. It needs practice to be comfortable talking to the users, and it’s worth the effort. I always learn something new, and it gives me positive energy to keep improving the design.
The Easiest Way to Find Out What People Actually Need
Most people can’t articulate what they need. Sometimes what they say they want, is not what they actually need. The easiest way to find out what people actually need, is by asking why, repeat the answer, and ask why again. When you find out the need, you can come up with many solutions, instead of focusing on one aspect that might not serve the need. For example, you design a webpage, and there’s this blue button that says “Buy Now“. Others might say “can we change the color to bright red?” Instead of being defensive about the color, and start a lecture about your visual design style, ask Continue reading
Don’t be a Cruel Designer
Feedback is good. Getting a lot of feedback from people outside of the design team (internal people or end-users) is awesome. It’s awesome because people took time to look at my design, and it makes me think more of why I made certain design decisions. Combining design sense, best practices, and users feedback, or results of an A/B test, or any other research, gives me the best design rationale. People who have weak design rationale tend to be defensive when they get feedback. “All cruelty springs from weakness,” said Seneca. Continue reading
Delay The Launch for The Public Good. You’re a communist.
Dilbert: The results of our beta testing are in. Our user interface triggered wide-spread despondency and self-mutilation…. Obviously we’ll need to delay our launch for the public good.
The Boss: When did you become a communist?
From Dilbert Comic strip.
Don’t Care What’s Inside The Box
“Users do not care about what is inside the box, as long as the box does what they need done.”
Jef Raskin
Customers Always Know What’s Wrong
“Customers always know what’s wrong. They can’t always tell you what they want, but they always can tell you what’s wrong.”
Carly Fiorina
Inspiring UX 