"Do you know why Silicon Valley doesn't make things people want? Because it never really did, and now it's stuck in a terrible mess of its own making."
Did I promise to write a specific newsletter last week? Does anyone remember? (Please don't go check.) Yes, I did, and I should know better.
We all like to laugh at this scene, but Pegasus basically provided the qualitative data that made Seto Kaiba create the Duel Disk as we know it.
I can imagine Seto thinking "Pegasus you manipulative wuss you're a grown ass man not a child just throw the damn thing," but after Mokuba was dragged out, tension and terror aside, he probably looked back on the memory when he reached the lab, thinking:
"Crap, there are people who may not have the strength or skills to throw this properly."
So he totally scraps the yo-yo concept and redoes the Duel Disk to make it more user friendly by the time Battle City comes around.
Ergo, Pegasus being genuinely awful at sports contributed to making the Duel Disk better.
do you use spotify? do you think it could be better?
that's crazy, me too!!
hey! my name's oliver and i'm a user experence designer. my current project is a ux-focused redesign of spotify. to make it happen, i need your help!
i'm doing research to better understand how people use spotify, what features they value, and their level of satisfaction with the current interface.
as part of my investigation, i have created a short survey. if you have 5 minutes, i would be so grateful if you could take it. all responses are anonymous and no personal information is collected.
Hello! Today I wanted to talk about UX design. This post was supposed to be longer but Tumblr deleted my draft and I’m feeling (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ so here is just part one.. We’ll be covering the “Empathy” step which includes:
Exploring the problem space
Conducting User Research
Defining User Personas
I believe that taking time to do design thinking when creating a product avoids bad door knobs and confusing app interfaces. Here’s a handful of hilariously bad UI demos for taste: https://mattw.io/bad-ui/.
Here’s some other common pitfalls:
Too many choices for a user (overcrowded toolbars)
Not enough options for users (accessibility)
Poor feedback (“Did that form actually go through?”)
Inconsistent interfaces (“Do I push or pull on this door…It says push, but has a pull handle!”)
●~•────────What is a prototype? ─────────•~●
A prototype is an early model mock-up of the product you want to build. We’re focusing on digital products in this case, so the product can be an app, website, or any other applications. Prototypes are useful for conceptualizing and visualizing your ideas for the product. It's also meant to showcase the "flow" of using the app from a user's perspective, as well as show the layout and organization of your product.
●~•───────What is the design thinking process? ────────•~●
The design thinking process is an iterative process to approaching designing products. It's not necessarily linear, but we'll walk through what you should consider at each step. In practice, you may find yourself revisiting steps to refine your problem, ideas, and mock-up itself after getting user feedback. Let’s talk about the first step, empathizing!
Part 1: Empathize
●~•─────── Step 1 ────────•~●
⭐ Pick a problem space.
What problem are you trying to find a potential solution for? It could be as simple as "Tumblr’s draft system sucks" or maybe your friend just said "This book tracking app could be better.." Sources of inspiration are everywhere!
Coming up with your own: Think about your own experiences as a user of different products or services. Have you encountered any frustrating issues or pain points that could be addressed with a potential solution? Maybe you struggle with finding parking in your city and wish there was a more efficient way to find available spots. Or perhaps you find it difficult to keep track of all your passwords and would like a more secure and user-friendly password manager. Consider your own needs and experiences as a starting point for identifying potential problem spaces.
Interacting with others: Talk to people in different industries or fields, or attend events or conferences related to areas you're interested in. This can give you exposure to different perspectives and potential problem spaces that you may not have considered before. For example, if you're interested in education technology, attending an education conference could help you identify common challenges and needs in that space. Or even reading through r/professors or talking to your own instructors!
📚 Resources:
https://www.uxchallenge.co/ - List of problems
https://uxtools.co/challenges/ - Walkthroughs on tackling specific problems focused on UX skills
●~•─────── Step 2 ────────•~●
⭐ Understand the users affected by the problem.
Once you have a problem space, don’t jump ahead and start thinking of solutions! First, we must understand the problem from a variety of user perspectives. Why? Because by understanding the users affected by the problem, we can gain insights into their needs, pain points, and behaviors. This understanding can help us develop effective solutions that address their needs and improve their experiences.
There’s a variety of user research methods we can use to collect user perspectives, this is just a handful of them:
Survey: If the product already exists (and it’s yours), you could add a survey in-app for feedback on a specific feature. Otherwise, you can create a survey assessing a user’s impressions on a problem they might have (“Do you encounter this..?”, “Would you be interested in a product that..”, “What kind of features are most important to you?”).
User Interviews: This involves talking to users one-on-one to gain insights into their experiences, needs, and pain points. It's important to ask open-ended questions and actively listen to their responses to understand their perspectives fully.
Online Research: Checkout user impressions on products by looking up existing reviews online. This can be from Amazon, Reddit, the app store, whatever. To make this kind of data useful, you can identify patterns of what is often mentioned or common pain points users express online. It’s going to be better if you can connect more directly with users about your specific problem area, but this is something to start with.
⭐ Create User Personas to represent the types of users your product will be addressing the needs of.
The user persona shouldn’t represent a specific (real) person, rather it should represent a realistic archetype of a person. I think of it as like a character sheet. For example, if we’re creating an app for book tracking our user personas might be “Reader Rhea - A college student looking to organize books from her classes” or “Bookworm Bryan - A young adult looking to get book recommendations”. The persona should be based on the research you did prior. Creating user personas will help you better understand and empathize with your users, and make design decisions that align with their needs and goals.
Here’s a quick checklist of what to include in a user persona:
Name: Give your persona a name that reflects their characteristics and needs.
Demographics: Include details like age, gender, occupation, and location.
Goals: What are the persona's primary goals and objectives when using your product?
Pain points: What are the main challenges or problems that the persona faces when using your product?
Behaviors: What are the typical behaviors and habits of the persona when using your product?
Motivations: What motivates the persona to use your product?
Personality: What are the persona's personality traits and characteristics?
Scenario: Describe a scenario in which the persona would use your product or service.
Quote: Include a quote that summarizes the persona's attitude or perspective.
https://www.justinmind.com/blog/user-persona-templates/ - lots of examples and explanations here
●~•─────── That's All! ────────•~●
Phew, ok that is all for now! In a future post, I will go over the second step in the design process. If you have anything to add to this topic, pls share! :D Thanks for reading
