Mindful Design — by Scott Riley
Design for people
Was it any good?
Yes. I picked up this book as my responsible read for my month off. It was recommended to me by a friend and fellow UX enthusiast so I was prepared for a treat. I was very satisfied.
While it wasn’t exactly a beach read, it was most definitely a very enjoyable and extremely educational one. It is written by someone who truly understands what the true purpose of design is and takes steps to spread that understanding.
The only part I didn’t like was going into all that detail in the design-music analogy. It is hard to follow for someone who has never read music or played an instrument.
Nevertheless; I recommend it to all UX, UI and digital product designers. Yes, not just UI designers. Design was never about pushing pixels. It was always about helping someone perform a task.
⭐️ Four Shiny-Glittery-Stars.
Design, when it’s done right, makes you fall in love with it as job every single day.
And God, I love design. What other job in the world has you researching people’s needs and diving into human nature one day; analyzing data the next day, solving problems based on that data another day then becoming a full-blown artist and animator to give that solution a usable interface. Test, repeat.
And this is why I enjoyed this book so much. It respects the key role of design in everyone’s life and helps readers appreciate it as well. It reminds me of Ruined by Design, which is a tough but crucial read for anyone who calls themselves a designer.
Major lessons and outtakes from the book
The entire book is packed full of learnings. These are only the major ones that stuck with me after finishing the book.
You had me at vulnerable ❤
user testing is pointless if we don’t consider the vulnerable, exhausted and impaired people.
→People are mentally whiplashed
Life is full of noise & distractions. Everything around us is trying so hard to hijack our attention. It takes energy to regain focus after single distraction.
Therefore when designing any product or interface we should design for the tired, distracted and vulnerable user if we really aim to build a successful product.
→Real Testing happens where real action happens
Will people mostly use the product in crowded cafes? test in cafes. In the street in a usually sunny city? then test it in a busy street under sunlight.
What’s the point of a user test in a nice, quiet, air-conditioned room on a device with no notifications or distractions? it does not remotely represent actual use cases or users’ real state of mind.
Help people Focus
because of all these distractions, we should help users find signal within all the noise. When designing UI, make the current task the most prominent part of the interface. Think of Medium’s and Calmly Writer’s writing and/or reading experiences.
→ Use contrast to drive people’s attention to a learning experience or an important part in the screen.
→ Contrast is more about the difference between an element and its surroundings than its actual color.
→ Animated elements are the most contrasting part of any interface. Use animation wisely and only to drive focus to things the user cares about.
→ Don’t cut user’s focus while loading. Let them use the interface while blocking only the loading element.
→ Communicate changes in state to help people understand their action’s effect on the interface.
→ Communicate errors clearly and make sure it’s understandable by any user. Provide next-step assistance and help people overcome this obstacle in their user-journey.
Help people learn
Some professional products are built with complex functions, that is ok. We just need to take a mindful approach to easing people into the product.
→Offer to teach people key features on app launch, give them a template to fast forward their work, then provide tool specific help within the main UI
Some product apply this beautifully. The book mentions Photoshop which is truly an amazing example of helping people use a ginormous product. From my experience this also applies to Airtable, Coda and Sketchbook for iOS and MacOS.
→Use mental models
Help people understand the product using analogies that compare complex concepts to models they know and understand. Like using Folders model to help non-technical users understand the data organization system within computers.
Or the use of eraser, patch, scissors tools naming in visual design softwares.
→ Innovate and test
When you don’t know if something really innovative is valued by people is test and see if they bother to learn it.
BE A HUMAN
It is easy to fall into functional mode and forget that the product is meant to be used by humans. Make sure to think of a feature from an emotional perspective as well as functional.
i.e. do you think someone would be happy if you show them a memory from a loved one’s death from a year back?
Our work is an infusion of emotion and craft an idea and giving a damn.
— Scott Riley, Mindful design
The book is available for buying or renting from Amazon. Get it here!
Best of love! Keep designing.
