After all, my epiphany is based on common sense Part-2

How are we responsible for the creation of new services and growth of the mobile first approach? Well, apart from the fact that industries are created around solving a common problem, it also has to do with how the apps are built based on how we function as human beings.

We can learn a lot about the design and functionality of a product or service by working your way backwards.

Take the example of the Swiggy’s restaurant listing page,

Swiggy’s restaurant listing page

As we can see in the above image there is a search bar, filter and sort options, the list of restaurants and app section icons. Each an every section of this page has been designed in a such way to provide you with the best possible food ordering experience. This page makes use of some of the Heuristic and User Experience principles,

1. Heuristic principle of consistency and standards —
   The app sections menu icons are looking simple and lack some flamboyance right? It’s not eye catchy and looks plain. There is a reason for it. Our main goal here is to not focus and understand the visual nature of the icons, rather it is to get quickly familiar with the icons and start using it without the need of any cue cards.
2. Heuristic principle of flexibility and efficiency of use—
   The app has filter and sort options. As you can see from the image, I cannot scroll through 1000+ restaurants to order a single meal and also I cannot manually go inside each and every restaurant to find out what they serve. This is where the main filter, quick filters and sort options comes in handy. I can swiftly choose the type of food I want, at the desired price range and the optimal delivery timeframe. This reduces the number of restaurants available thus making it easier and quicker for me to choose what I want to order.
3. Jakob’s Law —
   The law states that users would prefer your app to function the same way as other apps. This applies to the layout and visual cues of any page of the app. We can see in the above image that the app section icons are easy to understand and familiar to certain apps out there. The restaurant listings layout is exactly the same as other food ordering apps and quick commerce apps. We wouldn’t want browse the restaurants like we browse through tinder profiles right? Swiping hundreds of times back and forth to choose a restaurant? No thank you. A simple list type layout with good visual signature serves the purpose.

Now let us see the search results page of the same app,

The above page contains the search bar, search results and some recommendations. This page makes use of the following Heuristic and UX principles,

1. Heuristic principle of error prevention —
   The search results page shows the search result for a restaurant named Wendy’s. But the restaurant shows as closed and the entire tab is greyed out indicating that we cannot place any order. By indicating that the restaurant is closed by changing the color to grey and showing when the restaurant will open next we prevent the user from placing an order.
2. Fitt’s Law —
   The law states that the time to acquire a target is a function the distance to and size of the target. The search results of the app displays the restaurant details in a big font with big pictures and the entire tab of the restaurant is big thus enabling a wider click radius which in turn means its easier to click and interact with the listings and it takes less time to reach to that location of the page.

These are just few examples of the many Heuristic principles and UX principles that are in existence. Almost all them are created around how we respond to something. This could be anything from using a physical product like a backpack or a mobile app like Swiggy. It is in our nature to seek active feedback and respond to it accordingly. By making use of these principles mindfully, we can create magnificent experiences that benefits both the business and users. In the long run, these experiences coupled with the growth of technology enables us to explore and build new products and services that we can fully utilize to make our lives better.

My experience with the workshop has not only been enlightening but it has also managed to change my thought process on how to design and develop for the end users. The endless pursuit of building amazing experiences around a product or service has always kept me hungry, wanting to know more. But the only way I can know more is to ask questions. Boy am I lucky to have clicked on that YouTube ad for it has shown me the path towards learning how to ask just the right questions.

Ever since I took up engineering in college, I have always pictured myself in a future where I am one of the core contributors for building products that the general public can use. But in doing so I should not lose track on the technological advancements we make everyday. But this was hard for me to materialize in the reality as I was not able to find a solid pathway or career trajectory until now.

Out of the many options I explored, one stood out. This option gave me the best of both worlds, hardware and software and It requires me to use common sense mixed with some research work as a driving force. UI/UX design is the answer to my problem. This path I am about to commence will not only make me ask the right questions but will also enable me to learn about what goes into making a product, the technology behind it, the research behind it, basically everything from start to finish whatever goes into launching a product or service, I will get to know about it.

I can’t wait to impact the lives of thousands if not millions of users. Is it too soon to say that I have struck gold? After all, my epiphany is based on common sense.