UX PROCESSES AND HEURISTICS
Making the right decisions when it comes to implementing User Experience (UX) at your organization…gathering the right material in terms of research and actionable insights matters a lot. You can drive growth on all scales. Marketing, Product, Finance, Execution, and even accounting…believe it or not UX touches every sphere of an organization. Relatively all other departments of a working capital-driven organization are indirectly influential within the organizational structure. UX has the unique situation opportunity within every section of a business to make the experience of other users or being used in the process of driving business growth. We must look to UX processes and the heuristics of great UX by Jakob Nielsen. These points are stated as heuristics because they are broad and have an umbrella approach with an abstract implementation on a specific level.
DESIGN HEURISTICS ALWAYS SET OUT A CLEAR PATH TO SUCCESS!
In this article, I will be discussing three of the ten heuristics out there by the N&N group that prove necessary for great design implementation. The first one looks at making the design system in such a manner that mimics the real world. Remember that Jakob’s law pertains to the reference of ten other products that people are already used to. It does not ask you to mimic the product but the real world by spotting visible patterns within the ten products that real-world problem solutions. So let’s take for example the idea of social media apps, they have at least five things in common with each other. They have a user base that they have to provide relevant content. The social media app lets users create and document their personal lives in a virtual world where they are connected across a digital plain free of physical distance. The social media app tracks and provides strong business opportunities to those looking to provide their user base access to better content. Catering to these different user bases to create a general yet specific user experience that is not only excellent but creates less cognitive load as well is super important. What these features mean is that there needs to be a source of natural mapping. What natural mapping means is when a design’s controls follow real-world conventions and correspond to desired outcomes. Hence system design following real-world conventions is very important. There are many tips you may follow in order to keep this heuristic
The second heuristic that is to be followed for great design implementation is the idea of consistency and standards. This means having a structure that follows a line or multiple lines and does not create avenues for user confusion. What this also means is that users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or orations mean the same thing. Follow platform and industry conventions in order to maintain continuity. Some familiar frameworks that follow this heuristic are known as the Gestalt Principles The most relevant principle in that framework that relates to this heuristic is the continuity principle. That allows for users to consume simple design and move on from the task at hand as easily. UX processes matter a lot here as you must iterate and iterate in order to perfect your craft and design. Let’s take a look at this from a good design perspective. This takes time to think and experiment. On deadlines, most of the time you just have to execute your first good option and ship your deliverables. Sometimes, the finer details of your interactions get lost in the shuffle of engineers pushing to get the product built. And that’s okay. As important as iteration is collaboration…do it. Talk to other team members and the relevant stakeholders who matter in the project execution cycle in the direct linkage to the user experience and overall. The best ideas are conceived in a room with all stakeholders involved with a whiteboard and plenty of markers. Through these conventions of UX, you can attribute to the design being clear, logical, convenient, and easy to use in other words the Usability of the product is straightforward. The Utility of the product which provides useful content as well as solves real user problems is tied into the usability of the product as well. Through collaboration, a lot of design problems can be tackled proactively rather than being in a cluster environment that is not productive or UX aware.
The Third Heuristic is where recognition can be found. Working on minimizing the user’s memory load by making elements, actions, and options, visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the interface to another. Information required to use the design such as field labels or menu items should be visible or easily retrievable when needed. Some tips in order to achieve this heuristic within your design. Let people recognize information in the interface rather than having to remember (“recall”) it. You should also reduce the size of information as well as the information that users have to remember. Asking leading questions to help users retain information as well. Let's take for example the capitals of countries. In the case of capital, we might ask users “what is the capital of Lisbon rather than the Capital of Portugal which creates a shroud of uncertainty. Speaking of making the user interface much more friendly you must be able to carry out usability testing. No product Is fully designed until it has gone through some test or stress test of implementation. You only need five participants ready to go through an implementation phase to get everything fully knowledgeable on your usability testing.
With that being said always ask yourself three questions when it comes to improving your UX process.
1. Does the product’s interactions need work? Take note of what works and what doesn’t at the end of each iteration and include UX improvements in upcoming sprints.
2. Did stakeholder buyout actually work out? Make sure it did. Try user stories and whiteboarding with the relevant stakeholders to help them understand the power of collaboration
3. Were people unsure of the product or how its suppose to work? Try getting everyone to endorse user stories and sources of truth for your team.
4. Do you need more user testing? Grab five people from around your office, offer them coffee and conduct some quick usability tests.
It doesn’t take much to do all of this. You need to write the script, set the stage by creating a comfortable environment for the end user, and complete all the design objectives and goals you have set out. The rest is history. Happy designing!
Final thoughts?
Fight for the users. Every user, not just the end user. And I will leave this on a short note…Make use of the three Heuristics that works within your own workplace and try to push for a greater design. With great design comes great responsibility. Look at what matters to everyone, without compromising the objective and goal you have set out for yourself. I have listed out the 10 Heuristics below and I have only used three here. In the coming articles, you will see more of these.
