User experience fundamentals — A practical guide
To think like a User Experience designer (UX) it’s important to know the basics. And since every story has an origin, learning about UX ‘s key pioneer Don Norman will provide a clear idea of how we are all affected through good and bad design. It was Don, a cognitive scientist and usability engineer, who coined the term ‘User Experience Design.’ He did so because, in his words, “I wanted to cover all aspects of a person’s experience with a system, including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction, and the manual.”
Norman viewed psychology as a core part of understanding systems and how we can break them down to bring technologists and designers together to help teams empathise with product users and the problems they may face.
Norman’s book ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ features principles that can be exercised and applied by everyone into problem solving for all objects and mechanisms. Whilst the book was originally published in 1988, its lessons are still taught in professional and academic environments today with the aim of raising curiosity about issues surrounding the usability and accessibility of our digital environments.
Below are eight essentials from ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ to think about UX when designing products which have helped shape our UX at Upgrade Pack.
Affordances
“…the term affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used. […] Affordances provide strong clues to the operations of things. Plates are for pushing. Knobs are for turning. Slots are for inserting things into. Balls are for throwing or bouncing. When affordances are taken advantage of, the user knows what to do just by looking: no picture, label, or instruction needed.”
Don Norman (1988)
A lack of affordance in design is something we take for granted. Taking a push or pull sign on a door as an example, a lack of appropriate signage or indicators affect our ability to process how to enter or exit the room. If a user was to pull or push and the door didn’t open, then the expected action fails. Without simple affordances, the user won’t know what action to take, leading to a feeling that the user themselves are the problem, rather than the poor design.
Norman states the designer is at fault, rather than the end user if (in this example) a door doesn’t function as expected. It’s the designer’s job to make sure there is no overflow of information from misusing the door in case the building is busy or if there is an emergency.
Signifiers
A natural way to use signifiers is to inform the user through signs. Returning to our door example, if the perceived action (a push / pull, or slide) wasn’t clear enough to the user or they are familiar with an existing system, signifiers are a way of directing the user more clearly.
A user’s frustration could be lessened had they been consulted throughout the design process, through user testing sessions or the use of conventional industry standards; resulting in a more pleasurable product regardless of its medium.
Skeuomorphism
A concept based on representing real world objects in design fields like user interface design, web design, architecture, interior design and other forms of design. The purpose is to make the interaction feel seamless with the real world by creating real life counterparts in design form.
This technique was important for early products between humans and machines, due to the unfamiliarity that digital objects had to look like their real-life counterparts to help users understand the interaction behind the digital objects.
Observation
The importance of observation and its relevance to design is as important now as it was in 1988.
Watching and observing users as they interact with a product is imperative to enable designers to identify potential improvements to optimize a user’s experience. Observation has been a fundamental part of our design process as we’ve built and tested iterations of our product, and something we will continue to throughout 2020.
Visibility
The interface or mapping of product design must give users the right visual cues to have a thoughtless experience. Norman explains the importance of making things visible so the user can know what to do next or how to continue with the task at hand.
If features aren’t easily accessible, our products can create unexpected user experiences. As a result, our features, no matter how beneficial, would be deemed useless if what the user is trying to achieve is hard to navigate or use.
Mapping
Mapping is considered good practice for artefacts because a user’s basic controls and actions need to be fully understood in order to create fully-fledged product.
Bad mapping can lead to confusion, which can lead to a dissatisfied user and them not returning to use your product again. In an age of public opinion, this can have a secondary impact on your brand awareness and reception.
Consistency
Creating a consistent and easy-to-use experience relates to all design having a sense of familiarity or relatable style. Consistency helps the user recognise operations and aids them to have a seamless experience where they complete their end goals easily.
If a good product has a bad interface with inconsistent design, it can cause confusion and make users feel at fault when what they are trying to achieve isn’t straight forward.
Constraints
Constraints can be a good way to create borders and restrictions to make sure there aren’t loose ends or recurrent errors. They can also help keep the the design and scale of a product within the required time limit to ensure a product’s timely release.
Without constraints, your user experience can lead to additional elements being added and unanticipated work, resulting in bad time management and a deterrence from core features.
These are the core user experience principles that we employ every day at Upgrade Pack, whether it’s when working on our industry-first upgrade app, our web platform or how we approach an efficient and scalable workflow.
The next issue in our user experience series will be discussing how the scientific method influenced modern design and how user testing can lead to great business insight.
Many thanks to Nick Richardson and Luis Ouriach for helping shape this piece.
Thank you, and see you next time,
Neel from the UP Design team.
