The birth of the Shiteration

A startup I was going to be mentoring for arrives at their first session with me. The team of three enters the room one by one and I sense a sullen mood in the team as they take their seats at the table.

“Is everything ok?”, I ask. I genuinely feel that someone close to them might have died recently. The mood is that solemn.

“Yeah…”, one of them says, “…everything’s ok…*weak smile*.”

“So…how can I help you today?”

“Well…you see, we’ve got this problem…”

“Go on…”

“Well…we’ve got this page you see…and…well…we don’t know where to put the register button.”

“…”

“Yeah.”

“Well…ok…look…based on my experience, I can probably suggest where you should put the button. But that wouldn’t help you in the long run. The point of a mentorship is that I teach you how to succeed without me and then you come to me for bigger problems.”

The answer is obvious to anyone in the UX/HCD/whatever field:

“What do your users think? Have you asked them?”

“….no….”

“Ok here’s what I suggest….just put it somewhere, anywhere….and then…show it to a user, ask them to try to register, and see what happens.

You’ll learn two things from this: how not to do a usability test because the first one of anything you do is usually pretty bad. Remember learning to walk? You didn’t start off very good. The second thing you’ll learn is where not to put the register button. You’ll put it in the wrong i.e. a less than optimal place. Then you’ll change it and put it somewhere better and test again and repeat.

You’ll start off shit and with each new iteration you’ll get progressively less shit.”

And thus, the shiteration was born.

Stuck in analysis paralysis? Have an idea but don’t know how to get started?

In your home? In your office? In the street?

Shiterate!

Thanks to Manny Nepomuceno who commented on my Facebook post at the time and coined this beautiful word .