What my designers taught me about UX design ?
The majority of what you learn as a product manager is on the job. Business, technology, and user experience (UX) are our focus areas. Fortunately, we already have courses like engineering and business in which we can learn the first two skills. UX can be a bit tricky, you can read books and watch videos about UX, but until you get your hands dirty in the actual implementation, you will not understand UX design. That’s where our designers come in handy. By using their experience in UX design, they can help us learn the finer points of what factors need to be taken into account when designing the product. In this article, I share some of the learnings from my product journey that I learned from designers
- Users recognise patterns and actively look for them: The people we’re dealing with are people just like you and me, who try to figure out how to use the product better by finding patterns. You must have noticed that products within the same domain replicate each other’s behavior. There is no other reason to do this than to decrease the cognitive load for end users by using patterns across these products. A large number of icons are incorporated into the product design to assist the user in easily identifying its functions.
2. Users see the product much like they see a painting : Almost everyone recognises Monalisa’s smile and her mesmerising face, but have you ever tried to remember the background of that painting? You probably would not. A prominent piece of advice I have received as a product manager is that users do not actually look at the edges of the screen. As a result, every essential element should be placed in the middle or in the top third of the screen when designing a feature or implementing a change. Moreover, the essential items are designed in such a way that they follow the usual reading style of the end user, which is usually from left to right.
3. Reading and comprehension are two different things: As a product manager, do not assume that people will be able to comprehend everything that appears on the page if they are reading the text on the screen. Their previous experience with your product and the instructions they received at the time of viewing it has a lot to do with their decision. Hence, a clear heading and simple text is needed to explain the feature or the page. Make sure the fonts are simple and the contrast is ample so that the text is easy to read and the user can easily scan it. By doing this, the reader can easily comprehend what they read.
4. Information is consumed in bits and pieces rather than all at once : The most common mistake a product manager can make is overloading the user with data at once. When users move through your product, they cannot remember more than four items at a time. Too much information at once can overwhelm users. Some people prefer to get things done without delving into details. The same way no one reads the terms and conditions when installing any software or apps. When such a scenario arises, progressive disclosure is used, in which the information is released incrementally rather than all at once. As a result, the end user has a lower cognitive load since they do not have to spend a lot of time thinking and remembering stuff.
