Common & simple UX mistakes

small things that can make us nervous

Gauthier

Published in

Good UX / Bad UX

4 min readMay 5, 2014

Welcome to the internet

If you are like me and spend most of your time on the web (via mobile devices & desktop computers), I’m sure you have experienced some of these uncomfortable situations as an app or website user.

I’m being irritated by simple UX mistakes which are — in most cases — very easy to make up. At first, I was thinking it was an exception because these details were so obvious to me. I noticed that in reality, they appear more often than we thought, so I decided to share it with you.

Specify inputs type when it’s possible

The first thing I’d like to highlight is the “new” types that HTML5 brings for styling forms: email, password, number, date & much more.

When it’s time to sign in or register, you have to complete forms & inputs. On several websites, I noticed the type is missing on these inputs. This is very frustrating mainly on mobile devices.

type=”tel” shows up dialog keyboard as type=”email” displays up the “@” sign directly. It’s getting worse when the date is not provided in the type attribute so you have to enter a date without the native datepicker.
Good luck…

I exaggerate a little, but these small details are important to me. They provide satisfaction & ease the users navigation.

Provide positive error messages

Something happens regularly is to forget your password or your login credentials. You have no time to recover your account so you try to login whatever. In most cases, you have forgot one of the two then it doesn’t work.

Not telling your user what’s wrong is the best way to make him quit (perhaps for ever if it’s not the first time which is more serious).
For example, I tried 2 days ago to login in CloudUp. It’s a free Droplr, Cloudapp like. I love this service but here is the error message I received :

Ok…but what’s wrong ?
Bad login ?
Password mistake ?
Server error ?

I find this very frustrating because you don’t know what you missed in the login process. I think if you are more precise, you have more chance that the user will understand his error and so on insist & then succeed to login.
Btw, I still have few invitations so feel free to tweet me if you want some. ;)
This is a wonderful service.

Keep email in the input if an error comes out

Last week, I tried to login on Dribbble on another computer which didn’t had my login info. I made a typo in my password and when the page has reloaded my email just disappeared. What’s more annoying to have to retype something correct?

Hey Dribbblers, where my email has gone to?

Don’t forget the unsubscribe link

I’m sure we’ve all experienced this one day :
You receive a newsletter which you subscribe voluntarily or not. You’re fed up with these stupid commercial so the first thing you are looking for is the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. But… you don’t find it, you look twice but you finally understand that there is no way to leave the mailing list. Again, it might looks stupid & logic but I assure you I saw this many times.

There is something new I just discovered today :
There is an unsubscribe link… but guess what? It’s not a link! Placeit is a very great service which allow you to showcase your app design into beautiful stages pictures.

Believe me or not but the “*Don’t email me*” is simply text... There is nothing behind!

Modal box, mobal box everywhere!

Here is another detail I’d like to point out too. The page has just finished loading that I get a modal box. I can understand the intention of the site’s owner, he wants to promote an event but let’s imagine you enter in a shop. Barely through the door, a seller offers you the brand new discounts. I think there are more subtle ways to catch the user. Allow him some time to get its bearing & let him having a look around before soliciting him.

I haven’t read a letter that I already get a pop up window

Conclusion

Fix these details can improve UX. A user enjoying using an app or a site easely & freely will strengthen his loyalty & will increase the possibility of further visits.

This is it. Am I crazy or did you already faced some of these mistakes?
Feel free to share your thoughts, some bad situations you’ve experienced or few tips to enhance UX.

Thanks for reading. If you liked my article, follow me on twitter. I share design & front-end stuff ;)