How NOT to do UX
User experience — What the users experience while interacting with your product. Do they understand intuitively how the product works and are they able to fulfil easily the purpose for which they started using your product?
UX fails come in all shapes and sizes because UX is not just about how it looks. It is just as much about how it works. And it’s about the actual process behind the design.
If a structural engineer doesn’t get it right, and something is a few millimetres out, the building can be off-kilter and the consequences could be huge. Does being a UX designer carry less pressure? Sometimes, bad UX decisions can have huge consequences. Presenting you seven UX mistakes ranging from bad to worse to straight-up nightmares. As we progress through the list you will see how bad UX can not only cause loss of money but can also lead to Nuclear Reactor Malfunctions.
Icons, Icons everywhere
Let’s start off simple, highlighting the day-to-day struggles of users while interacting with a lazy thought-out design-
Due to the limited screen estate on mobiles, it seems a no brainer to save space by replacing text labels with icons in apps wherever possible. Icons take less space, they don’t have to be translated, and people are familiar with these after all, right?
With this assumption in mind, the designers working on the Google translate app hid functionality behind an icon that was actually pretty hard to recognize. Assuming that you never used Google Translate before, what functionality would you expect to access by tapping the icon below?
This gets a 2/10 fail rating.
It’s a common mistake to assume that your users are either familiar with abstract icons or they’re willing to spend extra time exploring and learning them. Google Translate did eventually understand the user struggles and fixed this mistake.
Microsoft Toolbars
Next up we have continuous addition of new features by Microsoft in their toolbars. Who doesn’t like increased functionality, right? Well, most of the time, continuous addition of new product features beyond the original scope usually results in cost and schedule overruns. This may lead to the accumulation of too many features that end up crippling or even sometimes killing the end product.
If anything, just remember. More is not better! Except sometimes.
Have a look at the classic Microsoft toolbars which clearly have been inspired by the stakeholders who ended up thinking that they know what is best for the users!
This gets a 3/10 Fail Rating
Pretty frustrating for the users, but since Microsoft has such a large market share, people eventually got used to this daily struggle of complex toolbars and professionals even become good at taking advantage of these complex but feature-filled toolbars. Still overwhelming and frustrating for the new users though.
Google Wave
In 2009, Google was hot on the need for a new kind of project management product with collaboration at its heart. But the design was not so hot. Let’s say that this was the first wave of its attempt to improve collaboration across teams. The result not only bombed, it totally languished.
This is what the first iteration looked like. Never mind the dated design; the problem was that Google failed to “Keep It Simple Stupid.”
This gets a 5/10 Fail Rating
The platform was much too busy and felt complex — too complex for an individual to even want to try and navigate. Coupled with its limited user adoption strategy, the project gained zero traction and was an unmitigated disaster.
Windows 8
Three years later, the Windows 8 disaster proved to companies the power and importance of continuity and consistency.
Microsoft abandoned their initial interfaces entirely, which lead to users not able to find even the most basic functions.
Navigation was a nightmare and these major changes came at the expense of their users’ expectations. Windows 8 removed the Start menu and the default Desktop screen, completely pulling the rug out from under users who, over years of loyal and expected use, now had ingrained expectations.
This gets a 6/10 Fail Rating
Windows 8 intended to be both click and touch-friendly, drastically failing on both the fronts. After the ensuing chaos and uproar, the customer experience was completely diluted. Sure, Microsoft re-introduced the Start button in version 8.1 — but not before many chose to downgrade to Windows 7.
The USB
Yes, the USB that you have known and used from the day you first interacted with a computer, is still an example of pretty bad UX. About 50% of the time, USBs are inserted incorrectly. The user sighs, frustrated, then pops it in again, fingers crossed, hoping and praying to the powers that this time, it’ll actually stay in. We all know how this story ends.
This serious design flaw has a pretty simple fix. To understand it, just look to its predecessor: the plug. Sockets and outlets have their own configurations that are visible to the user, neatly indicating how plugs should be inserted.
This gets a 7/10 Fail Rating
It is such a widely used product but to this day, we’re never quite sure whether we’ve inserted it right. This design flaw is eventually leading to the elimination of the USB connector once and for all and opt for a design that doesn’t depend on the orientation of the plug. For example, the lightning connectors in Apple devices or the Type- C cables in androids have been rapidly replacing the USB.
The UK Government wastes £12 billion on a Failed Patient Records Management System
UX fails are not confined to companies — in 2011, the UK government was forced to scrap a £12 billion project for a patient records management system because of repeated issues.
The UK government embarked on an optimistic program to centralize the entire country’s patient records. Cited in many articles as the ultimate in government IT project failures, it was scrapped in 2011 because of failures to meet targets for usage, functionality, and benefits.
This gets an 8/10 Fail Rating
Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley said the program let down the National Health Service (NHS) and wasted taxpayers’ money by imposing a top-down IT system on the local NHS, which didn’t fit their needs. It is unlikely that the required level of user research or testing had been done for a financial disaster this big — more scoping should have been done to make sure the design solution was completely fit-for-purpose.
Nuclear Plant Bad User Interface Results in Partial Meltdown
Finally, we get to our number one, the Biggest Loss that a UX flaw has caused yet in the history of humanity.
The accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating System on March 28th, 1979 was rated a five out of seven on the International Nuclear Events Scale: Accident With Wider Consequences. There were mechanical failures but these were exacerbated by plant operators not recognizing the situation due to a lack of training and poor UI and UX design.
Coolant escaped the nuclear reactor because a valve was stuck in the open position — this led to the reactor overheating and the release of radioactive gases.
This gets a 10/10 Fail rating
By the time the plant operator raised the alarm, nearly half the uranium had melted. Luckily no lives were lost, but 140,000 people within a 20-mile zone were evacuated due to the radioactive xenon-135 and krypton-85 gases which were released.
So what was the main catalyst of this horrendous incident? It came down to a light on a control panel. The light showed the status of the relief valve. If the light was on, the valve was open and if the light was off, the valve was shut.
At least that was what the employees thought. Unfortunately, the light went out as soon as the computer sent the signal to the valve, telling it to close. The fact that the valve was stuck open wasn’t indicated on the interface, meaning that employees weren’t alerted to the fact that there was a problem with the valve.
So mighty disaster would not have happened if someone designing the interface had thought of the context of how this light would be used and had made sure it only went out when the valve was properly shut.
Conclusion
Not everything that goes wrong comes down to bad UX design, but there’s something in common through all the examples that I’ve provided here: things are not working the way users intend them to.
It’s a long list of conditions that should be met in order to provide a good user experience, but it’s, undoubtedly, worth the effort. There’s really no reason to not play it safe.
Assume less, research more and make your ideal user a happy user.
Probably most of the companies are really only doing innocent mistakes and we shouldn’t be questioning everything either. However, every time someone misjudges the importance of UX, the consequence is the same:
Users get angry.
You should get angry.
About me
I’m Kartik Gupta, a UX/UI design enthusiast and Member of Design Wing at Geekhaven, IIIT Allahabad. The fascinating interactions between people & products inspired me to explore the field of Design. Reach out to me on Linkedin.
