Hi y’all!
It’s been a while - happy new year to you all! I’ve personally had a crazy two months, but I’ve been saving plenty to share.
1: Something that has been on my mind for a while - how do we design for failure? Most times, we design for the path that we want our users to take - read an article, sign up for an email list, receive a few emails from our funnel, pay for a product, etc. But what happens when customers reach a point of “failure”? How do we correct for this? Our users are busy and often distracted. Good design takes this into consideration. I enjoyed reading this post from the Nielson group about how to keep “bad” options away from “good” options when designing an interface: “Dangerous UX: Consequential Options Close to Benign Options”
2: UX and product people are always telling you to talk to your users. In the past, this meant going out and speaking to your users wherever they might be. In their office. In your office. In a coffee shop. In Yaba. In fancy coworking spaces in VI. At meetups. But then, the ‘rona happened. And nothing has been the same. However, it doesn’t excuse you from speaking to your users. So how do you do it? Here are 30 tips from David Travis (video) to help you make the best of it. (I still think there’s no substitute for being in the same room as your users at least some of the time, but health and safety must take priority right now).
3: I started a Product Management course at the Product School this week. I’m really enjoying it so far (hopefully this stays the same through all 8 weeks!). The best product managers have a healthy understanding of human-centered design principles and use it at work every day. A lot of the tools that designers use are also used by product managers. We talk a LOT about users at Product School. Like, every hour! If people aren’t using your product, do you really have a product? Here’s a link from Product School on how to create your user journey maps.
That’s it for this week - let me know if you want to see other types of design content!
Keep well,
Uyai