7 Key UX insights

It seems wise to start this article with a big disclaimer as these 7 key insights in UX are my personal opinion on some fundamental UX topics. These 7 insights are the result of more than a decade of learning about & working in what is known as the User eXperience area of expertise and collaborating and discussing with some great UX colleagues in and outside of ING that are considered the best in the business in the Netherlands and beyond. These insights are by no means “the truth“ or even thoroughly researched, so happy to hear your opinion on these topics.

So what are my key insights in the User experience field of expertise? Well, I will highlight a broad summary of each of these topics and maybe eventually write more elaborate articles about the specific insights in the future (I did already on the last topic). But, let’s dive into the first one.

1. The simplicity of interaction design

Let’s start with a fairly simple one. UI design is a big part of UX and is not so simple at all. Especially in the B2B domain where I have been working for most of my design career. However, when looking at UI in its core foundation, in all simplicity there are only 2 types of screens. One for output and the other for input. It’s as simple as that. Communication 101 does apply to UI design, in the end, it is all about the exchange of information and the quality of that exchange without interference and misinterpretation. So the main goal of each interaction irrespective of the device you experience it on is always with the purpose to either provide information as output or facilitate the input of information. All additional complexity is added by us on top of that basic context. Furthermore, I would argue that to keep that clear distinction one should always separate input and output as clear as possible so a user has a proper understanding of what is expected. Viewing UI design in its most basic form has helped me reduce any noise to zero, so we can gradually pile more complexity on top. One of my first questions is always whether a screen is primarily input or output. Once you establish that it is much easier to build and organize your screen to accommodate that purpose. In short, when in doubt, go back to the very basics of communication, which is input and output and proceed from there.

The foundation of any UI

2. The foundation of UX

I have often heard people talk about their view of what the foundation of UX design is. In my opinion, most of them get it wrong. If I would ask you guys, what is the foundation of UX? What would you answer? Or to rephrase; which scientific area is this area of expertise grounded in?

Is it psychology? Of course, psychology is a very big part of UX as Cialdini highlighted in his book “Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion”. Certain psychological patterns can be utilized in our profession (FOMO / peak-end rule etc). However, the technology component and how it affects behavior is grossly uninvolved if we look at the core of what psychology is. So, therefor I personally do not think it is the foundation of what we do.

So art maybe? Art is designed and it creates an experience. Therefore it must have something to do with UX, right? Of course, there are similarities, but art lacks an additional thing other than creating an experience itself. It lacks additional purpose and desired outcomes. And most of all: UX is not about making things look pretty! :-)

Are we scientists then? Of course, we research and derive data from that research. However,our sole purpose is not to collect data or insights without utilizing that to bring value to our users. So also mere research and gathering insights is not enough. In the end, the purpose of both data and the insights they bring is to improve experiences towards a desired outcome. Optimizing for our customers / users and our business.

Maybe we should combine these elements to get somewhere? What we most of the time are aiming for is to create a:

The desired outcome of behavior for a human through the experience of using technology or service that brings value

And with that intentionality and the persistent pursuit of value, we can ask ourselves what are these values we desire as outcomes for our user? When is some intended outcome considered good, or bad, and when is it valuable for our users? These are actually very philosophical questions that enter us into the realm of Ethics. So in my view, UX is grounded in Ethics and the rest (art, science, psychology, technology) is a part of that. And I’m not alone in this view, so to quote my favorite Dutch tech philosopher:

“The design of technology is, in fact, doing ethics, by other means.” — Peter Paul Verbeek

Getting ethical in the office

3. This era’s UX visual obesity problem

When looking at the state of UX at this moment it is clear that a lot is still very heavily focused on visual UI’s and interaction patterns that are designed for displays. I coined the terminology “visual obesity” for this current way of thinking. In other words, most design is display/visual heavy with little to no room for all other senses. Most of this is caused by the ‘limitation’ of the devices we have today, which influences how we create and ‘consume’ experiences. But we have to keep in mind that nobody designed for mobile 15 years ago. So, things can shift quickly once other nonvisual interaction patterns become mainstream. Looking at the future interaction with technology will by no means limit itself to screens only considering future technological progress.

Of course, voice, gesture-based UI, VR and AR are emerging but none of these have become mainstream yet. In addition, I don’t think one of these will ever fully replace the need for visual UIs, but we will merge these as additional options into an adaptive UI that adapts to the environment the user is operating in. For example, a UI that primarily facilitates voice UI when driving a car or perhaps disabling voice UI when in a public space like a restaurant. In the end, we might end up with something like Iron Man’s Jarvis as an example of an adaptive UI interacting through all senses we possess and evolving beyond screens and the visual sense we use currently.

To conclude this 3rd insight, technology is much, much broader than the screens on our devices. It is also the buildings we live in, the cars we drive, the products we use and even the clothes we wear. As a profession, I think we should not limit ourselves to visual UI’s only and begin to utilize the full spectrum of the senses we as humans possess, so we can create truly valuable experiences for our users and tailor experiences better depending on the context the users find themselves in.

Bladerunner 2049 AR in action

4. The never-ending UX story

This insight has 2 sides. One on never-ending discussions and the other on final designs. Both have the potential to be never-ending stories and in one case that is preferred and the other is not. Hope you already have a feeling of which is what ;-). Let’s start with the first one.

I’ve witnessed a lot of personal and online discussions about UX on a theoretical level, in many cases those discussions seem never-ending design discussions, especially the discussions between UX professionals. There is only one way of ever resolving these discussions and that is simply by adding context. For example, the discussion if labels in front or on top of form fields are “better” is just plain silly if the context is missing. As in this example the viewport is context that cannot be left out of that discussion. Or for example, a discussions triggered by Jared Spool on letting UX researchers be in charge. In my view, a team makeup including the role of UX researchers depends on the organization, UX maturity and goal you want to achieve and you can’t disregard the availability in the job market for this as well. Ergo theoretical UX discussions make no sense at all if context is missing, so don’t waste too much energy participating in never-ending UX discussions when there is no context.

Context is key in any meaningful UX discussion

On the other hand, I’ve also seen a lot of “final” designs, heck I even created them myself. But in all honesty, I think design should never be final. Maybe we could sometimes have to implement a design freeze to be able to hand it over for development. Originally final designs meant they were ready for print and nothing could be changed after that. In a digital world, this does not apply anymore as even an implemented design is the first but hopefully not the last version. So, even an application that is live is by no means ever final. Especially since it can always be improved, and will be outdated at some point so have to be updated to current standards eventually. So there is no such thing as a final design and in that sense design is a never-ending story.

There is no such thing as a final design ;-)

5. The emptiness of UX knowledge

This topic relates a bit to the first part of the last topic. I think there is a bit of a misconception within UX and that is that a good designer has a lot of theoretical knowledge. This is wrong in several ways:

• It is not about what you know, but how you apply that knowledge.
• It is not about what you know, but what you are willing to find out.
• Thinking you know best, leads to assumptions. And assumptions are the mother of all… (fill in the blank ;-)
• To repeat the first part of the 4th insight. Context is key otherwise any meaningful discussion is pointless.

Still, any professional should know the theory first, after that these points become more important.

So even if you are a seasoned UX professional, how should you then conduct yourself? Well, my approach to any UX problem or for any new UX project I take on is a very Socratic approach as I believe the best way to start anything is to: “Know, that I know nothing” (but I’m willing to find out everything). Or maybe rephrase it; don’t be a design diva know-it-all, as any prior experience could be helpful, but could potentially be harmful as well. So, try to help your company and its customers / users as well as you possibly can without bringing in biased assumptions that might not be helpful in the new situation you’re in.

Socrates by Kate Sivtseva

6. The consistency optimization paradox

Once design systems began to pop up there was a big and hard-needed push for consistency taking place. But it also sparked a lot of tensions between design system enforcers aiming for consistency and rogue designers trying to optimize the user experience. This paradox is at the heart of many discussions within design teams momentarily and I have been in many myself. Let’s look at the main drivers of this debate:

• A good practice is to keep consistency throughout the application.
• A good practice is to provide the best possible user experience.

The problem is these two statements don’t necessarily go together. Because:

1. If you want to be consistent, you cannot always provide the best experience in every situation.
2. If you want to provide the best experience in any given situation, you cannot always remain consistent.

So, how can we navigate this conundrum? Well, there 2 main solutions based on 3 factors; Balance, Temperance & facts:

• In general aim for both, the rule in my view is to aim for consistency unless you consciously want / need to divert from it. Facts and research help to make that decision. But you as a designer need to make the call to consciously follow one of these paths.
• Being consistent is not a goal in itself, providing the most optimal experience in a certain context also isn’t. Delivering value for your users / customers is always the main objective. And the good thing is that value for users can be achieved while, not being 100% consistent, but also by not providing the very best user experience. Sometimes good, is good enough if consistency is what you are aiming for. So value for users as the main objective should help you to pick which path to follow in which context.

So even though it seems like a paradox at first, it might be more like Yin & Yang.

Consistency & optimization should be balanced to benefit the user.

7. The ultimate UX dilemma

I’ve already written a full article on this topic but of course, it had to make this list of 7 as well. So what in my view is this ultimate dilemma? In essence, it is the design question:

“Do you lead your user, or does your user lead you”?

So following UX convention, it is probable that we should always let the user lead. They should know best what they need, right? But is that always the case? Ask this:

• Do users always know what they want?
• Does a user always know what is in their best interest?
• Does a user know what he doesn’t know?
• And What if users contradict one another?

Dilemma’s..

In other words, users are humans and humans are flawed. So should we then ignore users? No of course not, as they are the ones we need to deliver value to.

In short, the solution is to make sure we gain insights from all angles to be able to make an informed design decision. Sometimes in favor of what the users bring to the table, and sometimes in favor of what is required. But it should always be in the best interest of the User (ethical, see point 2 ;-) even if that is not necessarily what they answered during a survey.

So these are my 7 key insights of UX, as mentioned some of these topics might need an article in itself to dive deeper. But for now, I’m really curious to read your opinions on these 7 topics. Do you agree? Could there be more? Or less? Thanks for reading and let me know in the comments.

About the author: For over a decade I've worked in the digital domain, moving from UX consultant to Design lead to Chapter Lead UX. The necessity to improve the lives of people through easy, understandable, and beneficial technology & services is deeply rooted in my character. I learned to serve and lead by example during my time as a Marine and as Chapter Lead UX I still advocate these principles. As a father of 3 sons, I try to be as much of a role model as possible. I played football for over 30 years and still love seeing my boys play. Now I'm doing more individual sports like selfdefence and running. My main hobbies are reading (military) history, UX and philosophy. Furthermore, I picked up a guitar during the pandemic and practice every day. I still do not sound that well, but decent enough next to a campfire.