Design Bits #6

Cashless payments are great, except when they're not!

I’m a big fan of the Experientia blog. They’ve been putting out amazing design content for YEARS. I personally know the lift required to build great content year in and year out, and haven’t done so well at it myself (as long-time Design Bits subscribers can attest to).

But, I digress.

Here’s what I’ve been reading recently:

#1: The problem with Cashless Payments

I saw a post by Experientia recently, aptly titled “The Problem with Cashless Payments”. It immediately hooked my attention. Electronic payments are certainly convenient, more easily tracked, and more hygienic (no COVID-19 in my bank account lol).

My readers from Nigeria will know that 1) Nigeria is still largely a cash-based economy and 2) our Central Bank has been trying out initiatives for over 10 years to move people towards a more cashless economy. A lot of those initiatives have caused pain to the segments of our population that either are unable or unwilling to transition, and have had to be rolled back.

Looks like approximately 23 million people in Europe are in the same boat.

How do we design for these people as well? We can’t necessarily force them to adapt to electronic payments, and yet they should also have the right to access goods and services like the rest of us.

A wicked problem.

Here’s the full article from Tristan Dissaux on The Wire.

#2: A Comic To Help You Moderate Your First Usability Test

I love finding resources that aren’t the traditional checklist or training, though of course those are useful.

This is a comic (of all things lol) and has a step-by-step guide which includes:

• Three important phases for a usability test.

• How to explain 'thinking aloud' to participants.

• Step-by-step instructions for demonstrating 'thinking aloud'

• Good and bad questions to ask during a test.

• How to adapt the instructions if you're testing a paper prototype.

• How to adapt the instructions if you're running a test with children.

It has also been translated into multiple languages, also available at the link.

#3: My New Design Community

I kicked off a new community lately to help people who want to implement design principles in their business.

Design thinking has lost its shine of recent, which is a shame, as I believe a lot of the tools are genuinely useful in designing products and services for humans. I agree that a lot of it seems very high level or fancy, and it’s difficult to know what tool to use in what situation.

I work with larger businesses on a 1:1 basis, but I figured there needs to be something in between private consulting and this (relatively infrequent) newsletter where we can keep the conversations and tips going.

I am not offering a design thinking course in this community as there are so many good one already available. It’s all practical and actionable tips that you can use in your business or organization. This week, if you want.

Please join us here - we'd love to see you!

(Design Bits isn’t going away though. I’ve written 2 posts in 2 months, see? Already doing better than all of 2022!)