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blatherskiteOff running errands this afternoon, when to my surprise and delight, CBC Radio ran a short interview with a guy who designs custom hand-planes for woodworking, and who does a good enough design job that his products are world-famous. As a result, he was invited to a recent usability and user experience ("UX") conference to talk about what he does and how he does it.
Turns out, there's no mystery to good UX design: his success results from the fact that he uses his own products, pays attention to what it feels like while he's working, and fixes anything that annoys him.
In that one sentence, I've just saved you the cost of an entire university degree in UX design. Just about any product we use is annoying and frustrating to at least some degree; some have motivated me to hurl them across the room, most often virtually but sometimes physically. This reaction arises because most designers are not required to actually use their own designs. At best, they test the design once or twice to ensure that it works without crashing and burning, and maybe one or two more times to test for edge cases. But that's it.
Every product could be improved by adding one simple step to the design process: use each new feature repeatedly for at least 15 minutes without pause to understand what it feels like to the eventual end-user. I'd say 30 minutes would be better, and 60 minutes would be optimal. Sometimes a feature doesn't annoy you enough after 15 minutes to motivate a change, but give it half an hour to an hour and you'll be sure to know whether it chafes. For bonus points, try putting the product away or cleaning up after you're done with it. There's a special circle of Hell for engineers who create products that meet the functional spec, but that are difficult or impossible to clean safely and efficiently after use. (I include most kitchen products in this category. I speak from personal experience as chief bottle washer chez nous.)
Of course, we can't hold designers solely responsible for bad design. Most product managers won't allocate half an hour for UX testing of each feature. Engineering time is simply too expensive, and release dates are based on artificial deadlines rather than on producing a usable product. But the technical communicators who work on describing how to use a product are ideal guinea pigs for such tests; they're already doing this kind of testing to figure out how to teach` someone else how to use the product's features. All that's necessary is to give them the authority to insist on usability improvements when a feature is painful or inefficient to use. Having worked in software documentation, I know from personal experience how easy this is to do.
And while we're at it, Santa Claus should be reinstated with full salary, the Easter Bunny should be given a budget for dark Belgian chocolate, and politicians should be honest. Yeah, that'll happen Real Soon Now.
Turns out, there's no mystery to good UX design: his success results from the fact that he uses his own products, pays attention to what it feels like while he's working, and fixes anything that annoys him.
In that one sentence, I've just saved you the cost of an entire university degree in UX design. Just about any product we use is annoying and frustrating to at least some degree; some have motivated me to hurl them across the room, most often virtually but sometimes physically. This reaction arises because most designers are not required to actually use their own designs. At best, they test the design once or twice to ensure that it works without crashing and burning, and maybe one or two more times to test for edge cases. But that's it.
Every product could be improved by adding one simple step to the design process: use each new feature repeatedly for at least 15 minutes without pause to understand what it feels like to the eventual end-user. I'd say 30 minutes would be better, and 60 minutes would be optimal. Sometimes a feature doesn't annoy you enough after 15 minutes to motivate a change, but give it half an hour to an hour and you'll be sure to know whether it chafes. For bonus points, try putting the product away or cleaning up after you're done with it. There's a special circle of Hell for engineers who create products that meet the functional spec, but that are difficult or impossible to clean safely and efficiently after use. (I include most kitchen products in this category. I speak from personal experience as chief bottle washer chez nous.)
Of course, we can't hold designers solely responsible for bad design. Most product managers won't allocate half an hour for UX testing of each feature. Engineering time is simply too expensive, and release dates are based on artificial deadlines rather than on producing a usable product. But the technical communicators who work on describing how to use a product are ideal guinea pigs for such tests; they're already doing this kind of testing to figure out how to teach` someone else how to use the product's features. All that's necessary is to give them the authority to insist on usability improvements when a feature is painful or inefficient to use. Having worked in software documentation, I know from personal experience how easy this is to do.
And while we're at it, Santa Claus should be reinstated with full salary, the Easter Bunny should be given a budget for dark Belgian chocolate, and politicians should be honest. Yeah, that'll happen Real Soon Now.