Rute Cotrim
June 20, 2021
If you’re working with UX/UI you know you go through complex processes aiming to offer the user the best experience possible. Every part of the process is an important step until the final proposal of a design. Forgetting to focus on an important topic while designing a product is a possibility, as there are a lot of responsibilities a UX/UI designer should embrace and priorities come to the surface. Most of them not only come from research but also from external feedback.
In this brief article, I will summarize some of the common overlooked topics, myths and mistakes made in UX and also when designing an interface (all of this, of course, in my opinion).
1. Not knowing enough about the business
Let’s be honest here. How can you ever present a good design solution if you don’t care about knowing more about the product you’re working with? I don’t mean someone working with UX/UI should also know a lot about some other technical fields, such as finances or so. But, as someone who deals with the UI design of a specific product, you should at least get an overview of the business, business strategy, services/products delivered and how they should work. That’s why working with UX is not easy. It makes you think a lot, find answers to a lot of questions, find solutions when there’s no turn around in sight…so that you’re not designing in vain. So that you can add value to the product.
2. Giving the user too many choices
If you give your user far more choices than the ones needed, the user will turn out to feel confused. Let’s talk about a practical example. You have a website selling some solutions and there’s this pricing view where the user is able to choose a plan. But there are not two or three options. There are ten options with feature comparison. Some of the plans are similar to slightly different changes. Too much information turns out to be stressful for the user, as he won’t be sure if he’s choosing the right thing. In worst cases, it can create something called the “Buyers Remorse”. You can learn more about it in this video from Nielsen Norman Group, about choice overload.
3. Discarding details such as microinteractions
They are a great way of improving your design implementation and the user experience. It will for sure mark a difference if you care about this “small” things — but they are not as small as they may seem. A microinteraction has some parts and each one of them will take an important role: it makes clearer what action is the user about to perform, it shows progress and it sometimes gives feedback at the end. Also, for me sometimes they almost create like a sense of reality to an interaction of this level. You have pretty nice examples related to buttons, elements opening and closing, navigation…and so much more!
A great example of Microinteractions. From Izaac Crayton’s article, on Prototypr.io.
4. Not investing time in copy related discussions.
Copy is as important as the design. Your role doesn’t include UX writing? Don’t worry. Even though it might not be directly related to the UX/UI work in some cases, it’s at least important to keep in touch with the people responsible for creating content. It’s important that the designs are adapted to the data they need to include but these people will also need your help to adapt the writing to a certain context. Bad copy can completely destroy a design. Your Call To Action (CTA) might not have the power you want them to have if you don’t use the right words. You can also be using the right words in a wrong context or position. So, be sure you know how to get the best copy architecture possible, in order to create the right contrast and not to get the user confused or lacking feedback. Just like microinteractions, you might also like to pay attention to microcopy. You can check this article if you want to know more about microcopy.
5. Base your design strategy mainly on user clicks.
It’s not unusual to hear people tell you that a website is better if the user has to perform less clicks. Well, generally this is not a lie, but only if less clicks equals to less effort. So, this is not that straight forward. You can have a lot of clicks which creates an easy flow to the user and the other way around using less clicks. Actually, in some cases, having more clicks can even untangle a process. For instance, let’s imagine a situation where the user needs to get to the end of a process but he needs to fill out a form. He would definitely perform less clicks if a form was shown on a single page. But does this equal to less effort? Wouldn’t it be too tiring in comparison to a form divided by some steps wizard? Keep in mind how the clicks are all different. You can’t only create designs based on user clicks if you can’t think about the effort a specific click has to the user. Below is another great video from Nielsen Norman Group, talking specifically about how the “three click rule” is not viable anymore (if it ever was).
6. Not using the right tone and forgetting about Acessibility
You should think not only about your product itself but specially about your target, which are ultimately your customers. Think if you’re trying to communicate with children or adults, with formal or not so formal audience and, last but not least, if your target includes people with disability. In the end everything is important: copy, fonts, colour palette that matches the brand identity, using round corners or squared elements to create a funny or serious scenario, audio helpers or support for colour blindness…and so on. If you ever have questions, don’t be afraid to make them to someone that can help you or to take a step back to research more. Find out what works the best for you and your work. Here you can find all about WCAG (Web Content Acessibility Guidelines) acessibility fundamentals, principles and guidelines, from W3C.
Want your users to fall in love with your designs?
Fall in love with your users. — Dana Chisnell
There are a lot of other important topics but I feel these are the ones that are most likely to be overlooked. Among a lot of other goals, you should be able to create consistency, to create content easy to understand, to be clear about the actions about to be performed and to always add value to your product. All of this, summed up in beautiful interfaces :)