Design For Time
Issue 25
Adventures in UX Design is a newsletter helping you navigate UX roadblocks
It used to be fun to talk about building habit-forming experiences. After all, we are creating products that we want people to use and value, to incorporate into their daily lives. In a sea of competing products, our work needs to stand out.
But the last few years have seen the rise of a growing tech backlash. Humans are pausing for a moment to consider the ethical ramifications of what they create and experience, to ponder what they’ve released into the world, and why they feel more distracted and stressed. Some are reconsidering what engagement means beyond metrics. And others, how foreign advisories could have owned the American public by gaming its own networks.
Everything we create carries meaning and consequence that our customers want to understand. Who can we trust with our personal information? Where can we find valid information? What experiences are worthy of our time? How much screen time is too much screen time, for adults and kids? Is it normal for a grown human not starring in Black Mirror to sit for two hours on an airplane, repeatedly refreshing the same Instagram image? Asking for a friend.
How would you define ethical design standards? How do you create experiences that build trust and are mindful of people’s time and attention? We might not have all of the answers yet, but we do have best practices that user experience designers follow to build trust, create meaningful experiences, and design thoughtful, unobtrusive interactions — the bedrock of good design.
Mindful UX Design Practices
The pace of technology soldiers on, ethical concerns notwithstanding. Mobile experiences are changing the way we interact with products and services with the introduction of new features like Apple’s Face ID, facial recognition, which Facebook is also employing.
As the writers at AltexSoft Inc. tell us in their Medium post, advancements in voice assistant technology may make typing a thing of the past. They’ve put together 15 rules for making apps “that stick” and we think they’ve covered some solid best practices, from not going overboard with your onboarding to being cognizant of your customer’s time; from being aware of when — and when not — to ask for deeper commitments from people, like requiring registration, and granting access to contacts, phone cameras, and their location.
Other recommendations include the following:
- Make registration simple. The writers at AltexSoft Inc. note that it will cost you 85% of potential customers if you try to push registration before showing value first.
- Provide context: If you need permission to access a customer’s information (geo-location, etc.), explain why, and make sure you have a good reason.
- Address customer goals in the experience.
- Design for fingers and not cursors.
- Design for smooth transitions between platforms.
- Make it easy to leave. Provide instructions that are easy to find to remove or delete an account.
- Build Trust. Make sure mobile payments are secure, easy, transparent, and convenient for customers.
- Provide immediate feedback, especially during the payment process when customers look for progress bars and confirmations.
- Provide relevant notifications.
- Offer personalized content.
READ: Mobile App UX Design Principles: 15 Rules for Creating Apps That Stick
