Practical examples of creating more value through the components of the value equation. — The value equation Did you know you see over 10,000 ads every single day? In the digital age, making your product stand out in the sea of competition is extremely difficult. The best approach is to figure out how to create value for your customers. But how do we define and measure value…

A list of UX concepts and examples for improving onboarding, checkout processes, and low-converting user flows. — Have you ever felt excited to try a new product or service, only to have your motivation dampen after seeing a long tedious onboarding process? As designers, it’s not only our responsibility to craft visually appealing and intuitive interfaces, but also to tap into the psychology of motivation and engagement…

How UX designers can leverage status games, social capital, and network effects in the design of social platforms. — As a society, we are constantly seeking ways to differentiate ourselves from others and assert our social status. This desire for status has always been present in human nature, but in today’s digital age, it has taken on a whole new level of importance in consumer social products and social…

Let’s talk about Feature Bloat, Time to Value, Aha Moments, Hyrum’s Law, and the Sunk Cost Fallacy. — Feature Bloat Kills Products Products with a ton of features tend to make the user experience worse for most people. Despite this, most products (especially enterprise ones) eventually end up with “feature bloat.” While feature bloat might not necessarily make you lose your top enterprise customers (they’re the ones who requested all these features…

The importance of appropriate and immediate feedback in user interfaces. — I often reference Jakob Nielsen’s 10 general principles (heuristics) of interaction design when teaching interaction design to my mentees. The first (and most important) principle is “visibility of system status”, which states: “The design should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable…

Learn how the labor illusion and benevolent deception works to improve our perception of interface loading times. — Did you know every second Walmart shaves off of their e-commerce website improves its conversion by two percent (860 million out of 43 billion dollars per year)? Studies show that a mere 0.5-second delay results in a 26 percent in user frustration and an 8 percent drop in engagement. …

Understand and learn how to harness the four kinds of luck — No matter what career you’re pursuing, luck plays a role, whether you like it or not. There are four different kinds of luck: Accidental, magnetic, accidental, and prepared. Some luck you have no control over, but others you can influence with your actions. …