This document discusses common obsessions of people who work in user experience (UX) design. It presents a "top 10" list of things UX professionals tend to get obsessed about, beginning with stationary supplies and ending with door handles being identified as the number one obsession. This is attributed to Donald Norman's influential book "The Design of Everyday Things" which analyzes everyday objects like door handles and engenders an obsessiveness in examining the design of common items. The document explores each item on the list in turn, providing examples and explanations for why they capture the attention of and fuel the obsessions of people in the UX field.
22. Can you have too many?
https://plus.google.com/+originalartiste/posts?pid=5999657580888958402&oid=111541287404252539466
23. Itâs competition time.
Spot the UX family at the park.
http://www.etsicommunication.fr/blog_etsi/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Swiss-Cancer-Foundation-Post-It-Man-03.jpg
24. Itâs competition time.
Spot the UX family at the park.
http://www.etsicommunication.fr/blog_etsi/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Swiss-Cancer-Foundation-Post-It-Man-03.jpg
27. Each year I ask each member of my
team to give me their definition of UX.
And each year they give me slightly
different answers to the previous year.
28. We continually evolve our definition,
refining to ourselves what we do.
It can get very philosophical.
34. âUX Designâ is an awkward umbrella term âš
for things that already have names: âš
interaction design, information architecture,
visual design, user testing.
I donât know what a UX Designer does.
Although according to Peter Merholz,
itâs an âawkward umbrellaâ.
http://www.peterme.com
Peter Merholz
35. Further evidence there is no such thing as âš
âUX Designâ
Read the 15 answers from âUser Experience Expertsâ
to the question âWhat is UX Design?â
And then come backand tell me if there is actually
such a thing as UX Design. I suppose there might be
15 things as UX DesignâŠ
And this is verging on existentialism.
http://www.peterme.com/2015/09/24/further-evidence-there-is-no-such-thing-as-ux-design/
Peter Merholz
36. âUser Experience is a commitment to developing products and services
with purpose, compassion, and integrity.
It is the never-ending process of seeing the world from the customers'
perspective and working to improve the quality of their lives.
It is the never-ending process of maintaining the health of the business
and finding new ways to help it grow sustainably. It is the perfect
balance between making money and making meaning.â
Thanks to Whitney Hess for this eloquent definition. âš
Should we all agree to stick with this one?
https://whitneyhess.com
Whitney Hess
37. âŠthe concept of user experience attempts to go beyond the task-
oriented approach of traditional HCI by bringing out aspects such
as beauty, fun, pleasure, and personal growth that satisfy general
human needs but have little instrumental value.
Therefore, when compared to basic usability, enjoyability plays
an essential role in user experience. The extent to which an
interactive product is enjoyable to use is referred to as the
productâs hedonic quality.
No, we shouldnât. Youâll always discover new definitions. To continually
redefine means we question, understand, and evolve what we do.
http://www.academia.edu
Marc Hassenzahl
42. Whatâs worse than a pie chart for visualising information?
http://dashboardspy.com/img/Sales-Dashboard-ERP.jpg
43. Whatâs worse than a pie chart for visualising information?
Yes, thatâs right. A 3d pie chart.
http://dashboardspy.com/img/Sales-Dashboard-ERP.jpg
45. Fortunately there are some thought-leaders
in visualising information, guiding us in the
world of dashboard design.
46. First came Edward Tufte, one of the forefathers and
pioneers of visualing information.
http://www.edwardtufte.com
EdwardTufte
47. Stephen Fewâs book Information Dashboard Design
is an absolute must read for enthusiasts.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Information-Dashboard-Design-Effective-Communication/dp/0596100167
Stephen Few
âA dashboard is a visual display of the most important
information needed to achieve one or more objectives;
consolidated on a single screen so the information can
be monitored at a glance.â
48. Noah Iliinsky is also on the recommended reading list, particularly
Designing Data Visualisations, co-authored with Julie Steele.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Designing-Data-Visualizations-Noah-Iliinsky/dp/1449312284/
Noah Iliinsky
49. Having been through the dashboard
obsession myself, Iâd like to share a little
dashboard nugget I picked up along the way.
50. When presented with a spreadsheet
and asked to make some kind of
judgement or decision based on the
numbers we see, we use our working
memory to hold individual pieces of
data as we make sense of it, and as
we process our decision.
51. But working memory has limited capacity âš
(to three of four items, by modern thinking).
So we expend effort in just making sense âš
of the data. And this is inefficient.
52. Holding pieces of data in our working memory is like spinning plates,
where you can only ever get three or four plates spinning at once.
Working memory
53. Add a new plate, and one of the other plates falls off.
Working memory
54. Iconic memory Working memory
But if you visualise the data, you engage the readerâs visual systems. This is very
powerful as it alleviates effort from our working memory in making sense of the data.
55. Iconic memory Working memory
And this frees up working memory to help us focus on the decision
making. As a result, this leads to better decisions. Beautiful.
Long term memory
58. Itâs easy to slip into this obsession.
Weâre constantly surrounded by signage,
and working in UX seems to hone our
ability to spot poor signage.
59. An instruction for a light switch. Notice the instructions have
been added as an afterthought. Not that this really helps.
http://www.globalnerdy.com/
60. If you visit this lavatory, be sure to allow plenty of time to read the door
instructions. Failure to do so could lead to embarrassmentâŠ
https://www.flickr.com/photos/keithbraithwaite/3545334842/
66. Working in UX can be an odd
education in customer service.
67. On most projects we spend at least
some time with the customer.
And even when this canât happen, we
still strive to deliver the best possible
experience for the customer.
68. Itâs perhaps this constant attention
we give customers that makes us
more aware of our own customer
service experiences.
77. Iâm always surprised to hear people ask for
âsimpleâ, and âclearâ in briefs.
Iâm pretty sure this is part of the job description.
We certainly donât set out to create complexity.
80. But our obsession with reducing complexity
can sometimes take us too far, creating
products that may not work.
Simplicity versus complexity is about balance.
84. Forms.
Not the most exciting topic.
Yet this is an area we easily
become obsessed with.
85. eggcupwebdesign.com/web-design-usability-best-practice-support-your-users/
Well designed forms look effortless, yet this is
fiendishly hard to achieve.
We constantly have to push for fewer form
fields (and sometimes this can be a hard sell!).
There are the affordances of form fields to
consider because not all form fields are equal.
And if weâre really keen we get into fixations
and saccades.
87. But if thereâs one thing Iâve learned about form design, itâs this:
Luke Wroblewski knows everything.
Web Form Design is compulsory reading.
http://www.lukew.com
Luke Wroblewski
92. When we first discover Social Proof,
we feel empowered.
Itâs like weâve discovered the silver bullet
to persuading people to do anything.
93. http://www.influenceatwork.com/
But we soon learn thereâs much more
to influence than Social Proof alone.
Robert Cialdini's best selling book
âInfluenceâ, introduced many to âthe
big sixâ elements of influence.
94. Reciprocity
Social Proof
Commitment and consistency
Authority
Liking
Scarcity
From Cialdiniâs six elements of influence, you quickly slip into a
world of psychological principles, heuristics and biases. From thisâŠ
95. Reciprocity
Social Proof
Commitment and consistency
Authority
Liking
Scarcity
Concession
Curiosity
Status
Achievements
Humour Effect
Value Attribution
Limited duration
Familiarity Bias
Proximity
Peak-End Rule
Self-Expression
Sequencing
Serial Position Effect
Visual Imagery
Status Quo Bias
Sensory Appeal
Limited Access
Duration Effects
Chunking
Priming
Recognition Over Recall
Set Completion
Variable Rewards
Commitment and Consistency
Contrast
Loss Aversion
Need For Certainty
Limited Choice
Reputation
Uniform Connectedness
Framing
Feedback Loops
Ownership Bias
Conceptual Metaphor
Anchoring and Adjustment
Gifting
Positive Mimicry
Pattern Recognition
Endowed progress effect
Fear appeal
Reflection effect
The Overjustification Effect
âŠto this. And much more.
98. The top 10
10. Stationary
9. The Definition of UX
8. Dashboards
7. Signage
6. Customer Service
5. Every Hardware Interface
4. Reducing Complexity
3. Forms
2. Social Proof
1. �
109. http://www.influenceatwork.com/
Normanâs seminal book, âThe Design of
Everyday Thingsâ, is the top of many a
UX recommended reading list.
And a significant chunk of the book is a
narrative from Norman describing a day
in his life, where he analyses the design
of the things he comes into contact with.
He discusses alarm clocks, coffee pots,
light switches, door handles (of course),
and so on.
110. Normanâs insights and his own obsession
engenders obsessiveness in all of us to look
at everyday things in a new light.
111. Most people working in the field of UX at some
point readThe Design of EverydayThings.
This equates to a lot people obsessing about
door handles.
113. The top 10
10. Stationary
9. The definition of UX
8. Dashboards
7. Signage
6. Customer service
5. Every single hardware interface
4. Reducing complexity
3. Form design
2. Social proof
1. Door handles