Good design in daily life. Did you ever think about it?
For exercise 3 in preparation for the part-time UX/UI class at Ironhack Berlin, I will go through the 3 best and 3 worst examples of design in my daily life and reflect upon them against the backdrop of my own design principles.
What does good or bad design mean? Depending on who you ask, this question might vary. There are several takes on what good design encompasses. Widely known are the 10 design principles by Dieter Rams, one of the most influential industrial designers. As an aspiring UX/UI designer, I reflected on them and came up with my very own 10 principles:
- Good design is accessible
- Good design is inclusive
- Good design is transparent
- Good design is clear
- Good design is resourceful
- Good design creates value
- Good design is substantial
- Good design takes risks
- Good design challenges
- Good design evolves
Judging the daily life around me, plenty of bad user experience examples came to my mind. I guess those moments when you got super frustrated are just sticking the most.
Worst User Experience
RMV (Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund) App
One of the worst user experiences I recently had was with the local transportation app in Frankfurt am Main, RMV. Overall, the app provided all the features needed for a local public transportation app, the utility of the app was therefore granted.
When it comes to usability, I have to say, the app was far from pleasant. Especially negative I remember the overall process of signing up. The information had to be entered on a screen clearly not designed for a mobile version, I had to fill several pages of information and was kicked out a couple of times, which is why I had to enter the same information over and over again. The design of the interface was not at all transparent or clear and the sign up was completely different from the look and feel of the rest of the app, which is why it is my №1 example for bad design.
Urban Sports
My №2 example of bad design is the Urban Sports app. Instead of having a clear overview of the sports locations and offers close by, I find it unclear and overwhelming. The filter options don’t really improve the overview, as you cannot filter by date or timeslot. Therefore, you have to click through the single offers and locations to find out about their offer. If you filter by sports, you get a list of venues that sometimes don’t offer classes or the sports you were looking for at all. Overall, I found the app bad in terms of usability.
FreeNow
This is a great example of how one “small thing” can ruin the entire user experience. This is the case for me with FreeNow. I repeatedly used it when I was getting from and to the train station in Berlin coming from or going on a business trip. Overall, the app is allowing me to conveniently order a ride and as there are a lot of drivers around, it is quite cheap and only takes a few minutes. However, there is a huge pain point that whenever I get off at Bahnhof Südkreuz, a larger train station in the south of Berlin, it would always get my location wrong and won’t let me allow to adjust or change this afterward. I tried ordering from different spots and it would almost always pick up the wrong location which forced me to get in contact with the driver, explaining to him where I actually was. In an otherwise seamless user flow, this cost me a lot of time and stress.
Best User Experience
BVG App
As we already talked about a negative example of a public transportation app, I am happy to mention the Berlin transportation app (BVG) as a quite positive example. The design of the app is clear and simple. It is transparent, as you get a good overview of all the available ticket options. It even offers different tourist passes in a special “For tourists” section. This way it includes all the information by not overwhelming or annoying the local Berliner. The colour and typography are simple and minimalistic, while at the same time using a bright yellow which for a public transportation company seems quite courageous. Overall, it is fun to use.
Apple Pay
A great example of good design is the ApplePay function. With just two clicks you can make payment with credit cards a quick, simple and painless experience. It saves the user the time of reaching out to the wallet and that way saves everybody involved in the experience (from the cashier or waiter to the people standing in line behind you) a great amount of time and stress. It is not a flashy, but simple and transparent design.
N26
Also in the field of digital payment and banking, I have to mention the great design of N26, the online bank. Especially in terms of transparency, N26 scores high, as you instantly get a notification for every payment you make. The interface is clear and gives you a great overview of your finances by also allowing to create spaces and filter your payments by category. The design of N26 takes risks as I think you can legitimately say that they challenged the finance industry, by making banking an easy, accessible and transparent process. This way it creates great value for the user.
Reflecting on good and bad design in my daily life, it is fascinating, how deeply it impacts you without even noticing. Especially the negative encounters with bad design and the frustration those encounters led to, I could envision very clearly. On the other hand side, you rarely appreciate good design, which incorporates clear, transparent and intuitive design for me. I am looking forward to how my understanding of good design will shape in the next couple of months and how a better appreciation of good design will impact my life from now on.
