Designing for quality, one bug at a time

A lot of design is just thinking through the several edge cases a product would be subjected to. As a designer, your responsibility does not end at defining the vision of the product. You need to think about, talk through and visualize all the ways a user might use the product.

Of course, you cannot account for every single edge case. There will be some things you fail to account for and it will result in a slightly negative user experience. As a designer, you need to constantly comb your product to discover these unaddressed problems.

For example, Sumo Logic often comes up short with error messages. Error messages are especially tricky. They are the unsexiest part of user experience design and accounting for every single error condition can be a daunting task. Luckily, they can also be some of the easiest components to fix. It’s easier to fix copy than functionality.

I think it’s more valuable to define a process to fix these issues than go after them whenever you have time. Maybe, it’s the responsibility of designer in charge of a feature to do a thorough comb after the feature is developed. Maybe, the UX team schedules one day every month to collectively comb through the product, catch, document, and design for these bugs. Maybe, you assign a person to collect these bugs and slowly drip solutions into the product all the time.

Originally published at www.rohansingh.me on November 24, 2015.