6 ms·

How to Pretend You Know UX When You Don't

61 points by JoelMarsh 13y ago

dingle_thunk 13y ago
11. Write an article like this one.
stevecooperorg 13y ago
Not a lot of concrete help, here. What am I looking for in a good UX conversation? I would be interested in an article that explains how a good conversation proceeds. Any thought?
- JoelMarsh 13y ago
  No, you're right. I wasn't aiming at a "be-all, end-all" post though... just highlighting some common ways people piggy-back their preferences on "UX". However, your suggestion is good and I added it to my (relatively short) list of articles-to-do. To be fair, a good UX conversation can take many forms depending on the project and context, but there are certainly key points to cover no matter what. I have written about good ux before: http://thehipperelement.com/post/51160057897/ux-is-a-science-not-an-art http://thehipperelement.com/post/51160057897/ux-is-a-science... http://thehipperelement.com/post/51569751954/protip-tuesday-5-launching-is-an-experiment http://thehipperelement.com/post/51569751954/protip-tuesday-...
  - stevecooperorg 13y ago
    Thanks for the follow-up! These are what I was looking for. :) I look forward to your future work.
  - tsieling 13y ago
    Thanks for stepping back in to clarify. I think what hurt this article the most was its emphasis on conflict over collaboration. How can people work around these habits of dressing up preferences? Telling them to 'call bullshit' is kind of empty, and it sounds like you've got experience that can inform those situations better.
runningdog 13y ago
The title should be "How to argue with someone who knows what they are doing when your self efficacy exceeds your ability"
nchlswu 13y ago
to be fair, there are some use cases where focus groups (maybe not traditional focus groups, but focus group style discussion) can be useful. I'd generally still agree with that comment as well though
jonahx 13y ago
JoelMarsh, I enjoyed this article and agreed with all the points. However, I am calling bullshit on the title "Experience Architect"
- JoelMarsh 13y ago
  That has been my title for several years. If you can be a User Experience Designer or an Information Architect (both well-established job titles), what is wrong with "(User) Experience Architect" if you do both?
  - jonahx 13y ago
    To be honest, both "User Experience Designer" and "Information Architect," especially the latter, have a ring of bullshit, but they are at least in common enough use that I know approximately what the job actually entails (again less so with information architect). So when you make the change to "Experience Architect," dropping the "User" prefix, it becomes vague to the point where I literally had no idea what you did for living, although I guessed from the article's content that you worked in UX somehow, presumably designing user interfaces or consulting about them. But as someone who (rightly) rails against vagueness in marketing and against bullshit that masquerades as expertise, I would think you'd be averse to a title which trades clarity for puffery.
    - JoelMarsh 13y ago
      Your thoughts are not uncommon, unfortunately, but they come from a lack of, or confusing, information... not a high level of bullshit. And oddly enough, I wrote an article about that too. :) Maybe this will help: http://thehipperelement.com/post/47950319899/do-you-have-the-wrong-job-title http://thehipperelement.com/post/47950319899/do-you-have-the...
      - jonahx 13y ago
        Another good article. It has not changed my mind, however :) As someone who values making scientific decisions, I would challenge you to survey people in the tech industry (programmers, visual designers, UX experts, etc) and ask them if they know what an "Experience Architect" does. It is difficult enough that some people don't know that user interaction and user experience are jobs different from a graphic designer and front end developer. But I think user interaction and UX are at least somewhat known. As you said: "If you do information and interaction and UX, go with “UX” as a job title." It sounds like "UX Designer and Information Architect" might be accurate in your case? And it sounds almost as impressive as "Experience Architect" :)
raverbashing 13y ago
This is bad, comes across as a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" rant "There is no such thing as a “design perspective.”" Hello? There's a whole theory of design: grids, colors, hierarchy, typography, etc. It's not as simple as "drawing something pretty" as most may think. This may of course clash with UX and a good professional will know how to balance them. (And of course some may pull this card as to push their personal preferences, as developers pull the "this can't be done" card often for the same reasons) About 7: yes, it's a bad idea if you do it blindly, but it may often be your best guess. Adapt to your situation and check if it works for you.
- JoelMarsh 13y ago
  I love this comment, thanks for writing it. There is a DEFINITELY a theory and a method to design. I would never say otherwise, and you're absolutely right. The second part of your comment was precisely what I was getting at: people who hijack "UX" or the "design perspective" as a way of justifying their preferences without any further discussion. I literally saw this happen the day I wrote this post. They offered no other explanation than "The design perspective says..." If you're working with a grid, you can certainly discuss how something fits or doesn't fit, or works within that grid. Colours have meaning, hierarchy is crucial in aesthetics and usability, and typography is a whole discipline of its own. I wholeheartedly agree. If someone knew all of that and used it to justify their choices, they wouldn't need to co-opt the "design perspective" as their argument of choice. It's when someone says that "Blue is the best colour for links" or "the 960 grid is the most usable" or "sans serif is the most readable" — from a design perspective — that we have a problem. Thanks again.
  - nilliams 13y ago
    If a person can backup or explain their use of terms like 'the design perspective' with appropriate nuances, it's not bullshit. If they can't, then sure, they're bullshitting you. That's not to say the simplified version of the rule isn't useful though. It can save us from forever explaining x years of experience to everyone we encounter, as well as potentially confusing people new to the subject. Teachers do this a lot, intentionally.
annnnd 13y ago
Great article but terrible (misleading) title. :) Unfortunately, the info is mostly helpful in hindsight. One must have had an experience with a so-called "UX expert" to really appreciate this article, but I'm not sure it would have helped me in occasions I had the clash with some self-appointed UX "guru"... But it was a fun read nevertheless and very very very true! Thanks!
meerita 13y ago
I love when people list some fallacies online. It's a good reminder of the practices you need to avoid. This article does that in a funny way but the problem i see is the lack of solutions that the author offers in it. There's little to learn in there, in my humble opinion, for any person interested in UX. This article would be awesome if every point is related in the sense of situations. For example, you're in situation A where you probably will need to use the infamous X argument, don't use it, try to argue Y better. That explains both problem and best exit and, also denotes the process you need to do for making a seriously good UX.
- jbeja 13y ago
  Is a rant what would you expect?
  - meerita 13y ago
    I said what I would expect. You can't tell someone what is bad if you can't say what would be the good side of it.
saltvedt 13y ago
Perhaps even more infuriating than this is the notion that by virtue of being a user of a system, the user knows how the UX should be. It's often repeated that "developers don't know UX", but some has taken that to mean that UX/UI decisions should be taken by anyone other programmers.
- nchlswu 13y ago
  and as a 'UX Designer', it's hard to avoid this. I loathe when peers use rationale, but I understand.... because as a designer, ou're expected to use your experience as a guide you
prof_hobart 13y ago
>Never use jargon if you can help it. Funny in the context of an article peppered with the term "UX". I know what it means, and I suspect most people on HN know what it means, but does the average "client, boss, and colleague" know what it means? If not, then it's jargon. Oh, and "eye tracking, card sorting, .. , A/B testing". Ditto.
mattkevan 13y ago
Extract the UX part and the article could be a primer on how to blag your way in pretty much anything. That's not to say I disagree with what it says. As a UX designer I've been on the receiving end of most of these - and probably perpetrated a few as well. (Slightly off-topic: I don't think the term Information Architecture is helpful even though that's what I do. IA, UX, UE, EA, whatever - it's all design. Though Information Architect or Experience Architect does sound fancier than just Designer.) Design perspectives are vital as good design is about finding creative solutions to problems, best practices and patterns are useful as they help avoid common mistakes and research and testing is useful for refining and developing existing ideas. However, the main difference between a blagger and a real expert is that the latter is able to articulate where and why each rule, guideline, finding etc. should be followed or broken.
nextstep 13y ago
This is terrible, it's just a list of 10 things NOT to do. I didn't learn anything about UX.
- alextingle 13y ago
  Useless AND insufferably smug.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
coldcode 13y ago
Sometimes I laugh when I see articles like this. Yelling at people is so effective. Before there was UX there was UI. UX is a modern concept that basically came with the web. Yet people designed effective interfaces in applications long before the web (which is why it was called UI). Back in the 80's the idea that artist type people could design interfaces was not common at all, in fact it was more of a programmer speciality (today people laugh at this). The point was that you were trying to identify how people could effectively interact with your application and generally you had to do that in code. There was no Photoshop to draw pictures in. I used Hypercard in those days when I needed to show how I thought it should work to product managers or other programmers. Then I did the implementation. In those days you usually had to figure it out yourself as their were few resources to even look at. Today the concept of UX is very different and few UX people would ever consider implementation part of their job of even consider it in their design work.
- nekopa 13y ago
  On a related note: I read somewhere that your HyperCard methodology was the reason PowerPoint was created- to explain complicated processes visually, so engineers could talk to business people. It's sad to see where that ended up.
  - coldcode 13y ago
    I actually worked on Persuasion which shipped before Powerpoint. That category (presentation software) was another late 80's "invention". Hypercard was an amazing product that sadly died young.
    - nekopa 13y ago
      If you don't mind me asking, what happened with Persuasion? I was working in the industry at the time (not coding though) and I can't remember hearing about it.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  > Before there was UX there was UI. UX is a modern concept that basically came with the web. Yet people designed effective interfaces in applications long before the web (which is why it was called UI). In a submission about design bullshitting, nice job (by Po's law, I can't tell if you are serious or not)! UX has been around for far longer than the web. The term UX gained popularity in the 90s to emphasize that its not just about the visuals. These days, things are a bit more specialized: we have visual designers whose primary tool is Illustrator (a few are still crazy pixel-based photoshoppers, but most have moved onto vector), but then we also have lots of interaction designers whose primary tool is visio and powerpoint (many designers in web do both and might even code, but this doesn't work for complex products). Most programmers still don't get design and can't really tell the difference.
eof 13y ago
Came looking for little nuggets of wisdom; being a programmer that has mostly had other programs as my 'users'. Left with nothing more than having spent some time watching the OP pat his own back. (I Still don't know how to pretend I know UX or feel any better at sniffing out fakers)
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  This is my feeling as well. I wanted to have a more rational foundation for how I design my interface, but this is a list of pet peeves, this does me no good!
300bps 13y ago
This article is spot on. It is applicable not just to designers but to anything web-related in general that is not a hard science. I've seen these techniques used most often in discussions of design and SEO. I am amazed at how many times I've heard from charlatans, "We have data that shows..." which is analogous to your "The research says..." Then when you ask for the non-existent data it turns into a "don't look behind the curtain" discussion straight from the Wizard of Oz. Don't let the angry designers commenting here make you think that your post isn't accurate. It is. I suspect a lot of people erroneously think you're talking about them merely because they've never had the displeasure of working with a true fraud who uses these techniques constantly.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mattyfo 13y ago
The author of this article failed in stating up front a basic assumption about UX which is that you need to be making your decisions from a position that is informed by quantitative and qualitative observations about the actual users. When you collect the data you can test things 'from a design perspective' and 'best practice' standpoint and see if those hold true. Any other way and you're making stuff and justifying your decisions after the fact. If you're not talking to users then you're not doing USER experience design, you're just making up an experience design. See Whitney Hess: http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2011/04/23/youre-not-a-user-experience-designer-if/ http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2011/04/23/youre-not-a-user-expe...
rfnslyr 13y ago
How is this @ +50 votes? Why do people vote on these articles? I've seen awesome articles floating at ~10 with 0 comments a lot of the time.
timme 13y ago
I'll take data over bullshit articles like this any day.
grumblestumble 13y ago
So let's break this down: 1) "From a design perspective" - bad wording, true, but the underlying idea is "from a user-centric perspective" as opposed to "from an implementation, engineering, or data-centric perspective". The latter still being unfortunately the driving force behind most interfaces, any designer will need to use some form of this phrase fairly frequently in most real-world situations. 2) "Best Practices say" - again, this can be misused, but heuristic and expert evaluations of an interface are the bread and butter of most designers' toolset. A/B testing, on-site user testing, user interviews, et al, are all great tools, but in many cases, they're luxuries. When you're part of a small team trying to hit a MVP, starting with baseline best practices is the pragmatic way to go. Insisting on reinventing every dropdown or tabset is a sure fire way to singlehandedly sink a startup. 3) "Let's use an analogy" - generic, applicable to any problem-solving endeavor. This has nothing to do with UX. This is where the whole article started really stinking of linkbait. 4) Jargon - industry jargon is a powerful way of communicating specific, granular concepts to a peer audience. Yes, if you're using UX jargon when presenting your ideas to an outside audience, you're doing it wrong. But saying jargon is wrong is just dumb, and once again, jargon is hardly a UX-specific phenomenon. 5) "The research says" - let's just repeat #2 and blather on some more 6) Again, see #2. 7) Ok, so the basic idea here is that the True Pure UX involves coming up with brilliant new concepts in a vacuum. Leveraging successful ideas is verboten. I'm not sure how this guy could get anything done without the support of a 20-person UX team, with the other 19 people covering for his theoretical brilliance. 8) To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever heard the term focus groups used by anyone in the UX field, and I've been at it since '98. But you need 10 bullets on that list, I guess. 9) Probably the only point on this list that I agree with, and something I'd never seen until very recently. The concept of "stupid users" has obviously been entrenched in the development side since Day 1, hence the need for UX in the first place. But it's definitely disturbing to start seeing supposed user advocates start to toss this one around. 10) Big numbers are bad unless they're the right big numbers. Gotcha, mate. Misusing statistics and measurements is obviously an epidemic confined solely to the UX sphere, and not a basic human foible.
Demiurge 13y ago
Ok, so as someone who has used the "design perspective" to avoid verbalizing something I simply understood to be true intuitively, what are good resources for understanding the theory and explaining UX choices?
- JoelMarsh 13y ago
  I respect the fact that you asked. :) There are lots. Not to be self-serving, but I post all the best links I find on www.thehipperelement.com, if you feel like scanning through them. But a few, off the top of my head are: - www.alistapart.com - http://www.uie.com/articles/ http://www.uie.com/articles/ (run by Jared Spool, I think) - www.smashingmagazine.com is a bit hit and miss, but what they lack in quantity they make up for in quantity. - www.unbounce.com - www.goodui.com is a good, quick, visual reference for best practices. You could make a career just from enforcing some of those, haha. And these two books would lay a good foundation in general: - "Web Form Design" by LukeW (his blog is also interesting) - "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug If you only spent a few hours on those you'd be ahead of the game. And if there is anything you feel is missing from the world, let me know on Twitter and maybe I can write something about it. @HipperElement Hopefully that helps.
  - Demiurge 13y ago
    Thank you, I'm actually prepared to spend a lot more than a few hours. I wish this was integrated in Computer Science programs. Not being able to objectively justify some of my choices has been pretty traumatic and your list nicely summarized why :)
    - JoelMarsh 13y ago
      This was nice to read. Let me know if there is anything I can help with (seriously).

61 points by JoelMarsh 13y ago

11. Write an article like this one.

Not a lot of concrete help, here. What am I looking for in a good UX conversation? I would be interested in an article that explains how a good conversation proceeds. Any thought?

JoelMarsh 13y ago
No, you're right. I wasn't aiming at a "be-all, end-all" post though... just highlighting some common ways people piggy-back their preferences on "UX". However, your suggestion is good and I added it to my (relatively short) list of articles-to-do. To be fair, a good UX conversation can take many forms depending on the project and context, but there are certainly key points to cover no matter what. I have written about good ux before: http://thehipperelement.com/post/51160057897/ux-is-a-science-not-an-art http://thehipperelement.com/post/51160057897/ux-is-a-science... http://thehipperelement.com/post/51569751954/protip-tuesday-5-launching-is-an-experiment http://thehipperelement.com/post/51569751954/protip-tuesday-...
- stevecooperorg 13y ago
  Thanks for the follow-up! These are what I was looking for. :) I look forward to your future work.
- tsieling 13y ago
  Thanks for stepping back in to clarify. I think what hurt this article the most was its emphasis on conflict over collaboration. How can people work around these habits of dressing up preferences? Telling them to 'call bullshit' is kind of empty, and it sounds like you've got experience that can inform those situations better.

runningdog 13y ago

The title should be "How to argue with someone who knows what they are doing when your self efficacy exceeds your ability"

nchlswu 13y ago

to be fair, there are some use cases where focus groups (maybe not traditional focus groups, but focus group style discussion) can be useful. I'd generally still agree with that comment as well though

jonahx 13y ago

JoelMarsh, I enjoyed this article and agreed with all the points. However, I am calling bullshit on the title "Experience Architect"

JoelMarsh 13y ago
That has been my title for several years. If you can be a User Experience Designer or an Information Architect (both well-established job titles), what is wrong with "(User) Experience Architect" if you do both?
- jonahx 13y ago
  To be honest, both "User Experience Designer" and "Information Architect," especially the latter, have a ring of bullshit, but they are at least in common enough use that I know approximately what the job actually entails (again less so with information architect). So when you make the change to "Experience Architect," dropping the "User" prefix, it becomes vague to the point where I literally had no idea what you did for living, although I guessed from the article's content that you worked in UX somehow, presumably designing user interfaces or consulting about them. But as someone who (rightly) rails against vagueness in marketing and against bullshit that masquerades as expertise, I would think you'd be averse to a title which trades clarity for puffery.
  - JoelMarsh 13y ago
    Your thoughts are not uncommon, unfortunately, but they come from a lack of, or confusing, information... not a high level of bullshit. And oddly enough, I wrote an article about that too. :) Maybe this will help: http://thehipperelement.com/post/47950319899/do-you-have-the-wrong-job-title http://thehipperelement.com/post/47950319899/do-you-have-the...
    - jonahx 13y ago
      Another good article. It has not changed my mind, however :) As someone who values making scientific decisions, I would challenge you to survey people in the tech industry (programmers, visual designers, UX experts, etc) and ask them if they know what an "Experience Architect" does. It is difficult enough that some people don't know that user interaction and user experience are jobs different from a graphic designer and front end developer. But I think user interaction and UX are at least somewhat known. As you said: "If you do information and interaction and UX, go with “UX” as a job title." It sounds like "UX Designer and Information Architect" might be accurate in your case? And it sounds almost as impressive as "Experience Architect" :)

raverbashing 13y ago

This is bad, comes across as a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" rant "There is no such thing as a “design perspective.”" Hello? There's a whole theory of design: grids, colors, hierarchy, typography, etc. It's not as simple as "drawing something pretty" as most may think. This may of course clash with UX and a good professional will know how to balance them. (And of course some may pull this card as to push their personal preferences, as developers pull the "this can't be done" card often for the same reasons) About 7: yes, it's a bad idea if you do it blindly, but it may often be your best guess. Adapt to your situation and check if it works for you.

JoelMarsh 13y ago
I love this comment, thanks for writing it. There is a DEFINITELY a theory and a method to design. I would never say otherwise, and you're absolutely right. The second part of your comment was precisely what I was getting at: people who hijack "UX" or the "design perspective" as a way of justifying their preferences without any further discussion. I literally saw this happen the day I wrote this post. They offered no other explanation than "The design perspective says..." If you're working with a grid, you can certainly discuss how something fits or doesn't fit, or works within that grid. Colours have meaning, hierarchy is crucial in aesthetics and usability, and typography is a whole discipline of its own. I wholeheartedly agree. If someone knew all of that and used it to justify their choices, they wouldn't need to co-opt the "design perspective" as their argument of choice. It's when someone says that "Blue is the best colour for links" or "the 960 grid is the most usable" or "sans serif is the most readable" — from a design perspective — that we have a problem. Thanks again.
- nilliams 13y ago
  If a person can backup or explain their use of terms like 'the design perspective' with appropriate nuances, it's not bullshit. If they can't, then sure, they're bullshitting you. That's not to say the simplified version of the rule isn't useful though. It can save us from forever explaining x years of experience to everyone we encounter, as well as potentially confusing people new to the subject. Teachers do this a lot, intentionally.

annnnd 13y ago

Great article but terrible (misleading) title. :) Unfortunately, the info is mostly helpful in hindsight. One must have had an experience with a so-called "UX expert" to really appreciate this article, but I'm not sure it would have helped me in occasions I had the clash with some self-appointed UX "guru"... But it was a fun read nevertheless and very very very true! Thanks!

meerita 13y ago

I love when people list some fallacies online. It's a good reminder of the practices you need to avoid. This article does that in a funny way but the problem i see is the lack of solutions that the author offers in it. There's little to learn in there, in my humble opinion, for any person interested in UX. This article would be awesome if every point is related in the sense of situations. For example, you're in situation A where you probably will need to use the infamous X argument, don't use it, try to argue Y better. That explains both problem and best exit and, also denotes the process you need to do for making a seriously good UX.

jbeja 13y ago
Is a rant what would you expect?
- meerita 13y ago
  I said what I would expect. You can't tell someone what is bad if you can't say what would be the good side of it.

saltvedt 13y ago

Perhaps even more infuriating than this is the notion that by virtue of being a user of a system, the user knows how the UX should be. It's often repeated that "developers don't know UX", but some has taken that to mean that UX/UI decisions should be taken by anyone other programmers.

nchlswu 13y ago
and as a 'UX Designer', it's hard to avoid this. I loathe when peers use rationale, but I understand.... because as a designer, ou're expected to use your experience as a guide you

prof_hobart 13y ago

>Never use jargon if you can help it. Funny in the context of an article peppered with the term "UX". I know what it means, and I suspect most people on HN know what it means, but does the average "client, boss, and colleague" know what it means? If not, then it's jargon. Oh, and "eye tracking, card sorting, .. , A/B testing". Ditto.

mattkevan 13y ago

Extract the UX part and the article could be a primer on how to blag your way in pretty much anything. That's not to say I disagree with what it says. As a UX designer I've been on the receiving end of most of these - and probably perpetrated a few as well. (Slightly off-topic: I don't think the term Information Architecture is helpful even though that's what I do. IA, UX, UE, EA, whatever - it's all design. Though Information Architect or Experience Architect does sound fancier than just Designer.) Design perspectives are vital as good design is about finding creative solutions to problems, best practices and patterns are useful as they help avoid common mistakes and research and testing is useful for refining and developing existing ideas. However, the main difference between a blagger and a real expert is that the latter is able to articulate where and why each rule, guideline, finding etc. should be followed or broken.

nextstep 13y ago

This is terrible, it's just a list of 10 things NOT to do. I didn't learn anything about UX.

alextingle 13y ago
Useless AND insufferably smug.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

coldcode 13y ago

Sometimes I laugh when I see articles like this. Yelling at people is so effective. Before there was UX there was UI. UX is a modern concept that basically came with the web. Yet people designed effective interfaces in applications long before the web (which is why it was called UI). Back in the 80's the idea that artist type people could design interfaces was not common at all, in fact it was more of a programmer speciality (today people laugh at this). The point was that you were trying to identify how people could effectively interact with your application and generally you had to do that in code. There was no Photoshop to draw pictures in. I used Hypercard in those days when I needed to show how I thought it should work to product managers or other programmers. Then I did the implementation. In those days you usually had to figure it out yourself as their were few resources to even look at. Today the concept of UX is very different and few UX people would ever consider implementation part of their job of even consider it in their design work.

nekopa 13y ago
On a related note: I read somewhere that your HyperCard methodology was the reason PowerPoint was created- to explain complicated processes visually, so engineers could talk to business people. It's sad to see where that ended up.
- coldcode 13y ago
  I actually worked on Persuasion which shipped before Powerpoint. That category (presentation software) was another late 80's "invention". Hypercard was an amazing product that sadly died young.
  - nekopa 13y ago
    If you don't mind me asking, what happened with Persuasion? I was working in the industry at the time (not coding though) and I can't remember hearing about it.
seanmcdirmid 13y ago
> Before there was UX there was UI. UX is a modern concept that basically came with the web. Yet people designed effective interfaces in applications long before the web (which is why it was called UI). In a submission about design bullshitting, nice job (by Po's law, I can't tell if you are serious or not)! UX has been around for far longer than the web. The term UX gained popularity in the 90s to emphasize that its not just about the visuals. These days, things are a bit more specialized: we have visual designers whose primary tool is Illustrator (a few are still crazy pixel-based photoshoppers, but most have moved onto vector), but then we also have lots of interaction designers whose primary tool is visio and powerpoint (many designers in web do both and might even code, but this doesn't work for complex products). Most programmers still don't get design and can't really tell the difference.

eof 13y ago

Came looking for little nuggets of wisdom; being a programmer that has mostly had other programs as my 'users'. Left with nothing more than having spent some time watching the OP pat his own back. (I Still don't know how to pretend I know UX or feel any better at sniffing out fakers)

GhotiFish 13y ago
This is my feeling as well. I wanted to have a more rational foundation for how I design my interface, but this is a list of pet peeves, this does me no good!

300bps 13y ago

This article is spot on. It is applicable not just to designers but to anything web-related in general that is not a hard science. I've seen these techniques used most often in discussions of design and SEO. I am amazed at how many times I've heard from charlatans, "We have data that shows..." which is analogous to your "The research says..." Then when you ask for the non-existent data it turns into a "don't look behind the curtain" discussion straight from the Wizard of Oz. Don't let the angry designers commenting here make you think that your post isn't accurate. It is. I suspect a lot of people erroneously think you're talking about them merely because they've never had the displeasure of working with a true fraud who uses these techniques constantly.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mattyfo 13y ago

The author of this article failed in stating up front a basic assumption about UX which is that you need to be making your decisions from a position that is informed by quantitative and qualitative observations about the actual users. When you collect the data you can test things 'from a design perspective' and 'best practice' standpoint and see if those hold true. Any other way and you're making stuff and justifying your decisions after the fact. If you're not talking to users then you're not doing USER experience design, you're just making up an experience design. See Whitney Hess: http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2011/04/23/youre-not-a-user-experience-designer-if/ http://whitneyhess.com/blog/2011/04/23/youre-not-a-user-expe...

rfnslyr 13y ago

How is this @ +50 votes? Why do people vote on these articles? I've seen awesome articles floating at ~10 with 0 comments a lot of the time.

timme 13y ago

I'll take data over bullshit articles like this any day.

grumblestumble 13y ago

So let's break this down: 1) "From a design perspective" - bad wording, true, but the underlying idea is "from a user-centric perspective" as opposed to "from an implementation, engineering, or data-centric perspective". The latter still being unfortunately the driving force behind most interfaces, any designer will need to use some form of this phrase fairly frequently in most real-world situations. 2) "Best Practices say" - again, this can be misused, but heuristic and expert evaluations of an interface are the bread and butter of most designers' toolset. A/B testing, on-site user testing, user interviews, et al, are all great tools, but in many cases, they're luxuries. When you're part of a small team trying to hit a MVP, starting with baseline best practices is the pragmatic way to go. Insisting on reinventing every dropdown or tabset is a sure fire way to singlehandedly sink a startup. 3) "Let's use an analogy" - generic, applicable to any problem-solving endeavor. This has nothing to do with UX. This is where the whole article started really stinking of linkbait. 4) Jargon - industry jargon is a powerful way of communicating specific, granular concepts to a peer audience. Yes, if you're using UX jargon when presenting your ideas to an outside audience, you're doing it wrong. But saying jargon is wrong is just dumb, and once again, jargon is hardly a UX-specific phenomenon. 5) "The research says" - let's just repeat #2 and blather on some more 6) Again, see #2. 7) Ok, so the basic idea here is that the True Pure UX involves coming up with brilliant new concepts in a vacuum. Leveraging successful ideas is verboten. I'm not sure how this guy could get anything done without the support of a 20-person UX team, with the other 19 people covering for his theoretical brilliance. 8) To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever heard the term focus groups used by anyone in the UX field, and I've been at it since '98. But you need 10 bullets on that list, I guess. 9) Probably the only point on this list that I agree with, and something I'd never seen until very recently. The concept of "stupid users" has obviously been entrenched in the development side since Day 1, hence the need for UX in the first place. But it's definitely disturbing to start seeing supposed user advocates start to toss this one around. 10) Big numbers are bad unless they're the right big numbers. Gotcha, mate. Misusing statistics and measurements is obviously an epidemic confined solely to the UX sphere, and not a basic human foible.

Demiurge 13y ago

Ok, so as someone who has used the "design perspective" to avoid verbalizing something I simply understood to be true intuitively, what are good resources for understanding the theory and explaining UX choices?

JoelMarsh 13y ago
I respect the fact that you asked. :) There are lots. Not to be self-serving, but I post all the best links I find on www.thehipperelement.com, if you feel like scanning through them. But a few, off the top of my head are: - www.alistapart.com - http://www.uie.com/articles/ http://www.uie.com/articles/ (run by Jared Spool, I think) - www.smashingmagazine.com is a bit hit and miss, but what they lack in quantity they make up for in quantity. - www.unbounce.com - www.goodui.com is a good, quick, visual reference for best practices. You could make a career just from enforcing some of those, haha. And these two books would lay a good foundation in general: - "Web Form Design" by LukeW (his blog is also interesting) - "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug If you only spent a few hours on those you'd be ahead of the game. And if there is anything you feel is missing from the world, let me know on Twitter and maybe I can write something about it. @HipperElement Hopefully that helps.
- Demiurge 13y ago
  Thank you, I'm actually prepared to spend a lot more than a few hours. I wish this was integrated in Computer Science programs. Not being able to objectively justify some of my choices has been pretty traumatic and your list nicely summarized why :)
  - JoelMarsh 13y ago
    This was nice to read. Let me know if there is anything I can help with (seriously).