5 Reasons Why Your User Experience SUX

When UX doesn’t consider ALL users, shouldn’t it be known as “SOME User Experience” or… SUX?

Billy Gregory could not be more right about it in his Tweet.

Have you ever felt lost watching the latest hyped-up Youtube video and waiting for the punchline, thinking, “When should I start laughing?” Same thing with the UX/UI design. Many designers tailor their UI to the narrow niche of early adopter users (most often other designers) that get new design trends but don’t take into account late technology adopters and other edge cases.

Here are 5 UX/UI design mistakes to avoid when you build a digital product:

UX/UI designers often assume that users are tech-savvy, just like them. As a result, designers project their behaviors and reactions onto the end-users. Testing high-fidelity design mockups and interactive prototypes with real users (not your teammates, friends, or family) allow you to learn how to create products that are right for those who will use them.

The definition of an attention span is the amount of time someone concentrates on a task without becoming distracted. Modern apps and websites need to provide meaningful content that users can digest.

Keep your app interface simple.

Remove unnecessary elements or content that does not add value to users or overwhelm them with too much information.

Due to the limitations of human memory, designers must ensure that users can automatically recognize how to use certain product features instead of making them recall this information. Strive to minimize the cognitive load by making information and interface functions visible and easily accessible. Showing users elements that they can easily recognize improves interface usability.

Skipping prototyping and putting a lot of effort into building an actual product is another common (and dangerous) mistake among many design teams. Prototyping allows you to test your hypothesis before spending the expensive engineering time building an actual product. Data shows that investing in user testing and UX/UI design upfront will offer up to 500% ROI in the long term.

It’s important to understand that UX design isn’t a linear process. The phases of the UX process often have considerable overlap, so there’s a lot of back-and-forths. As you learn more about the problem, users, and project details, it may be necessary to revisit some of the research undertaken or try out new design ideas. Don’t think that it’s possible to make your design perfect right after just one iteration. To make great products, you need to make lots of changes and test them.

If you want to talk about designing digital a product or service that you are working on or a design audit for your existing products or service, send us an email at hello@forcoda.com.

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