It’s strange to be writing on such a seemingly obvious topic, but if you’ve clicked on a link to get to this article, then there’s a good…
This is a brilliant, basic, non-obvious topic for an article. I am jealous that I didn’t write about it myself. :)
It is similar to the idea of saying “I don’t know” — it’s something that is surprisingly hard to do.
Why is it hard?
1) It’s an ego thing. Asking for help means being vulnerable, and we humans hate being vulnerable.
2) You usually have to know you need help to ask for it.
The second point is what the linked article goes into a lot, and they offer some great tactics for managing your uncertainty, even when you don’t realize you’re uncertain.
Do you understand or just feel like you understand?
In UX, I think “empathy” gets all the attention, but “understanding” is really the thing we should be talking about. Understanding things that are hard to understand is hard, and that’s why most people settle for the feeling of understanding instead.
Have you ever asked someone what a book was about, and they struggled to give you more than a couple sentences, or one of the anecdotes from the book? Odds are, they did probably read it, but they didn’t actually understand it.
As UX designers, we don’t have the luxury of that mistake. We need to know the difference between feeling like we understand (aka empathy) and actually understanding the user’s problems.
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Understanding is hard. Feeling like you understand is easy.
When you read a blog post, like this one, and you understand what I am saying, that is “surface comprehension”.
I am using words you can read.
I am saying things that make sense, even if you don’t agree.
And if I tell you a story you can imagine, then we’re good.
You feel like you understand, because you DO understand!
But you understand the words, the article, and the examples.
You don’t actually understand the idea yet, because you haven’t spent any time thinking about it. That’s the key.
You haven’t asked any questions.
You haven’t tried to find reasons I am wrong.
You haven’t tested this idea in your work, or in meetings when other people are making this mistake.
You haven’t risked anything.
So you don’t really understand yet.
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We are surrounded by things that make us feel like we understand.
If I explain something to you, and I use words you know, and I take time to clarify the parts that are not familiar to you, you will feel like you understand.
The problem with that is: feeling like you understand kills your motivation to understand in a deeper way — and you still don’t actually understand anything.
A clever blog post with a list of points you agree with can make you feel like you understand.
An entertaining conference speaker with beautifully simple slides can make you feel like you understand.
“Empathy” for your users will make you feel like you understand.
But when you actually get back to your desk, or when someone asks you to do design something new... will you be able to use it? Will you recognize the feeling of understanding, and say “wait, I need to know more?”
Even when you could easily say you understand and everyone in the room will agree with you?
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In UX, understanding the problem is your job.
If the problem was obvious, everyone would understand it. But we don’t, which is why you have a job. So when you do understand it, you should be able to explain the parts that nobody understood in the beginning.
In other words, which parts are not common sense? Which parts are counterintuitive? Which parts are hidden to the “untrained eye”? And how do they change the solution you will design?
To do that, you need to know where all of your ideas, assumptions, and decisions came from. ALL of them. What is the context? Whose work are you trusting? Do you have objective data? How many reasons do you have for thinking you are right? Are you willing to disagree with a room full of people about this? Would you bet your salary on it?
As designers, we cannot be satisfied with the feeling of understanding. Our job is to solve problems, not just empathize with them.
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“Learn as if you have to teach it.”
One of the best tips about learning is to approach every new thing as if you will have to teach it to someone else when you’re done.
It’s one of those “easier said than done” things.
When you start to research something new, book the meeting to explain it to everyone else and call it “UX Research Presentation: Prove me wrong”.
Before you do the research.
It is AMAZING how much your approach will change. I promise. Empathy will suddenly seem like the weakest little tool in your belt, and you will cling to analytics and real users like they are a lifejacket.
Lots of people read books about smart things. But if you had to teach a class about every book you decide to read... could you do it? Would you choose the same books? Would you check the sources of the book? Would you read it more than once? Would you tell people that you read the book at all?
Not so confident that you “read the book” now, huh? :)
That’s difference between understanding, and feeling like you understand.
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Do you understand? Prove it.
At this stage in this article, hopefully I have created a feeling of understanding. But you haven’t actually changed as a person. Only you can do that.
If you have never tried — and failed — to demonstrate your knowledge of something in a meeting or group, you might not actually understand this idea yet.
If you have never failed, and then learned enough to succeed on your second try, you might not understand this idea yet.
But how do you “fail” to understand?
To prove you understand the user’s problem — more than just empathizing with it — you must try to eliminate it.
Design a solution.
Make a prediction about what will happen if the problem is actually solved.
Try it in real life, with real users.
Measure it to see if your prediction came true.
Simple enough, right?
Well then do it. ;)
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“What I cannot create, I do not understand.” — Richard Feynman
William F. Whitaker
American Artist
The only reason you can’t think of many “old masters” in digital UX is because the internet hasn’t been around long enough yet. You could be one of the first. Start now. Also, women have exactly as much potential... read the meaning, not just the fragile words. ;)
As a general principle, there are two ways you can brainstorm ideas, and it all depends on where you start: with possibilities or limitations. However, one of those methods will often lead you down the wrong path, and the other prevents that risk.
When it comes to “creativity” most people tend to start with inspiration and work toward something useful.
Anyone who has a process that starts with “inspiration”... isn’t actually solving problems. Not very often, anyway.
One curious thing you will notice if you talk to a lot of experienced designers (in any type of design) is that most of them don’t start with inspiration. In fact, they kind of hate working like that.
Instead, they seem to love limitations.
As an inexperienced designer, this might seem like the worst thing ever.
Doesn’t that, like, kill all the cool ideas, man?
Yes. Yes it does. And that is exactly why the experienced designers like to start there.
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Limitations RAISE your standards by KILLING weak ideas.
The funny thing with “inspiration” is that it only has to achieve one thing: it has to inspire you.
It doesn’t have to make users more effective.
It doesn’t have to make money.
It doesn’t have to win the A/B test.
... it doesn’t even have to inspire anyone else! Just you.
Last time I checked it was called UX, not YouX.
On the other hand, limitations define the “minimum quality” that will “work” in your situation. And as soon as you do that, a lot of your ideas suddenly don’t qualify as “good” anymore.
That’s valuable.
Therefore, adding limitations raises the level of what you can consider “good”.
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To find your first requirements: start with a problem, not an idea.
Many companies are obsessed with “ideas” but — oddly enough — that is not a very productive mindset. You should be obsessed with problems.
When you work with products and things that people have to use, the best place to start is often by defining the problem you’re trying to solve. That isn’t always easy — but it’s always valuable.
Why? Because problems have built-in requirements. If your solution doesn’t solve the problem, you ain’t done shit. And that makes you smarter during the brainstorming part.
When you understand the problem well, you can brainstorm a lot of different ways to solve that problem, and by default — since they all solve the damn thing — you’re only talking about productive ideas.
All the ideas that don’t solve the problem aren’t even part of the conversation. That’s good!
For example, let’s say you have a restaurant with a long waiting line, but not in a good way. It’s too long. You don’t have room for the people, and they are annoyed. You need a way to reduce the length of the line, and make it less annoying to wait. Hmmm... tricky problem.
You sit down with your team to brainstorm some possible solutions.
Maybe you can have a big guy outside who only lets people in when there is room for more. Maybe you can use a “take a number” system. Maybe you can add two hosts so guests can be seated faster. Maybe you can make people eat faster, by serving smaller portions or by collecting payments faster. Or maybe you can give people one of those “buzzer” things so they know when their table is ready.
On the surface, all of those might seem reasonable enough. Your team really likes the “two hosts” idea, since they would get to work together which is more fun. (The idea that is best for the team is often the favorite in UX design too, careful!)
If you just stopped there, their favorite idea would win and you would start having two hosts. But how do you know if that is really the best idea?
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Add limitations!
Wait, what?! Doesn’t that make it harder?!
Yes!
That’s exactly why it works. By making it harder to meet all the requirements of the problem, you will start understanding which solutions have the most value.
And we’re not just adding random details... we are adding requirements that would be “even better” than “just” solving the problem. Ask yourself: what would the “perfect” solution look like in real life? What’s the dream scenario?
For example... in this case, your kitchen is already working at full capacity, so serving more customers is not reasonable. That’s a good requirement.
You do a bit of research and learn that customers are not ok with paying the same price for less food, and you can’t afford to charge less, so that’s a new requirement. (See how “solving” a long line could have caused you to lose money if you didn’t do research?! Ideas can be dangerous!)
Seating people faster and taking payments faster would be a small improvement, but since you can’t make the food faster, you decide that it won’t be enough. Speed is not the answer!
A “take a number” system sounds good at first, until you realize that those people still have to wait and watch the “now serving” sign, and the whole problem is that you don’t have room for the line, so taking a number could actually make it worse. No good.
The big guy outside would fix the problem with too many people waiting, but it would still make people stand in line, so it’s equally annoying, and now everybody is outside... that might be worse. (Let’s pretend that you’re not an exclusive club in LA that wants to use the long line as advertising...)
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So we started with one problem: too many people are waiting in line and it’s annoying.
And we have added a few more requirements:
1) We can’t increase the load on the kitchen.
2) Prices must remain the same.
3) Portions must stay the same size.
4) The solution must allow people to wait somewhere else.
Aha!
These requirements eliminate all of our ideas except one: the “buzzer”. A buzzer would allow people to wait anywhere they want and come back when they get the signal. Shorter line, less annoying wait. Perfect!
Sometimes you will eliminate all of your ideas by adding requirements. That doesn’t mean there is no solution, it just means you need to work on it more.
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Now... if you had just brainstormed to get new ideas for the restaurant, you might have ignored the problem of the long line, so your ideas might have been totally useless.
If you had only tried to solve the long line problem by itself, you might have gone with the “two hosts” idea, which would not have made a big difference (but you would get lots of positive feedback from the staff! Uh oh!).
But by making the problem harder you made the solution better.
Holy shitballs, Batman!
The reason lots of people start with inspiration is because inspiration feels good. Nobody likes limitations because limitations are hard and they ruin our feel-good inspiration. Boo. Our big dumb monkey brains are wired to like things that feel good and avoid things that are hard.
And that is why starting with “inspiration” or “ideas” can be a big problem for you and your team. Over time, you might spend so much time exploring trivial — but awesome — ideas, that you won’t actually achieve very much.
But a little hard thinking can lead you to solutions you would never have tried otherwise. Real innovations. Rockstar-level thinking.
Ideas that will inspire other people.
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The most valuable time to invest your patience is at the beginning. Smart requirements will raise your UX game.
There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.
A US scientist, on the reason why it is hard to design a bear-proof garbage can. Blatantly stolen Enthusiastically quoted from this Quora answer by Claire Jordan.
Unfortunately being smart isn't enough. By Christian Jarrett
If you take away anything from this blog, one good lesson would be: UX design is not about what you like the most, or what looks the best.
That means: to be a better designer you need to be a better thinker.
A better thinker? What does that mean? Better than what? Better than who?
You need to think better than your intuition tells you to. Intuition is the default way of thinking, not the best way of thinking. When we make something “intuitive” it doesn’t mean that it is smart... it means that it fits the way people think by default. I could almost use the word “subconscious” here.
So, if “intuitive” is the lowest form of thinking, what does “better thinking” look like?
In a word: science.
Science is often described like an “ideology” — like christianity or communism or something — which is stupid. Science is not a “belief system” or anything like that (honestly, science vs. religion is a useless conversation).
Science is a process designed to find or prevent assumptions. That’s it. And “scientists” are people that use that process to study things.
Like users, for example. UX designers study users, and science is a good way o approach it. It will make you a better thinker.
In other words, the process of “doing” science forces people to think better. And it’s not easy!
With me? Ok. Then the linked article, written from a “pure” science perspective, is a great place to start thinking better. It talks about really common ways we can be tricked into thinking intuitively rather than rationally and how easy it is to fall into those traps (proven by science!).
You might design several versions of something. If each version isn’t better than the last, then what are you actually doing? But if you are able to make version 4 better than versions 1, 2, and 3... why didn’t you just make version 4 from the beginning?
The answer: you learn things in between, but only if you’re willing to fall out of love with something immediately after you make it.
As a product designer you have to make a lot of designs that you have strong emotions about, and make a lot of designs that represent you as a designer.
As a good product designer you also have to kill most of those designs, either by designing something better, or, sometimes, by measuring it and learning that it doesn’t work. And sometimes there is just a better idea, and you go with that instead. Or maybe the client didn’t like your favorite idea.
I often say “I am better at version 2.” Once I get version 1 out of my system, suddenly I see all the things I could have done better... so I do.
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Magic requires ignorance.
As soon as we understand the trick, the magic becomes a method. Less fun, but more impressive when you think about it. Suddenly you realize how much practice it took to make the method look like magic.
It’s hard to be impressed by something that is obvious, but nothing is obvious while you don’t understand it.
When you suddenly know what made something amazing in the first place, it stops being beautiful because it was mysterious, and starts being beautiful because it is elegant.
It’s hard to improve on something that is mysterious to you, because you don’t know what to change.
If you design something that works really well, but you don’t know why, you will be afraid to change it. You will feel like you’re going to break it. And the truth is, you might.
But you’re not doomed. You’re just not informed yet.
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Things only seem sacred and untouchable when you don’t understand them.
And the simple truth is, designing a lot of things tends to reveal the ingredients in the sacred recipe. Testing your designs reveals the ingredients even faster.
You notice connections.
You discover patterns.
You learn “rules of thumb”, which you will unlearn and re-learn until they get really good.
You get surprised. A lot at first. Less and less over time.
You start to get faster at deconstructing and improving designs you like. Maybe even systematic.
And eventually the magic is gone, but now you can do something pretty crazy: create sacred things whenever you need them!
But that’s also when you become a designer, and stop being an artist.
Master designers can imagine whole systems of design for any problem you might throw at them, and if you change the requirements, they imagine a new system of design for that instead.
And they are not upset about killing their first idea at all, because it wasn’t the right design for the situation. For the master designer, the magic isn’t about how much they love a design, it’s about how well the design solves the problem.
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There are two aspects to improving your own designs: knowing why you did something, and knowing why it worked.
If you do your research, it’s not that hard to know why you did something.
But knowing why your design works means you have to prove that it works, and that it wasn’t something else that made it work. That’s hard.
My best advice is to deconstruct your designs. A lot. Set high standards and make your designs pass them.
Take it apart and question everything.
What if that button was red, what would change? What if the text was more fun? What if you made that headline and that button look more like a group? Or less?
If people aren’t clicking your button as much as you would like, question why you made the page in the first place. Is that what the user thinks? Is that what the copy says? Are you leading the user’s eyes to the button, or to something else? If you stand across the room, is the most obvious part the most important part? Why not?
It’s endless, but it’s not stressful. It’s progress. If you are good at thinking about your own thinking, and if you do it a lot, and if you test and question and learn along the way, you might be surprised what is hidden in version 4.
You just have to understand version 1, 2, and 3 first. ;)
The Nielsen Norman Group is probably the most influential usability consultancy in the design industry. So, when they publish an article…
Two weeks ago, I shared a link to a Neilsen Norman study that compared eye-tracking and clicks from “flat” design and “non-flat” designs, which appeared to show that non-flat elements tend to be better.
Sean Dexter has written a good article on Medium, which basically points out that the study actually compares bad flat design and better non-flat design, which isn’t what the title of the article says.
I agree. Mostly.
And I can admit that I was a little too quick to hop on that bandwagon.
Sean is entirely correct that the study isn’t “fair” in terms of “flatness”. Often there are a few things being tested at once, and flatness is not the only thing. For example, color is often the main difference (i.e., contrast) and flatness has nothing to do with it. Calling it “flat design” is misleading and a way to get more eyeballs on their site.
So to Sean, I would say: good on ya. This was a smart and savvy reply to Neilsen Norman’s clickbait headline, which misleads readers about the point of the study.
However... (you knew I was going to say that...)
Without disagreeing with Sean — because he is right — the truth is, many of the styles that were tested in the study are super popular in flat design (or just design) and this is the real danger of trends vs. UX. Flat design made those mistakes more popular.
Good design and bad design is not as simple as “flat” or “not flat”.
When “flatness” arrived as a trend, many designers —and I am talking about millions of people now — interpreted “flat” as “subtle” and that’s where the big problems are hidden.
The NN study that Sean is (rightfully) criticizing measured obvious links (with color and underlines) against non-obvious links (no color or underlines), and as Sean says, no one is surprised when the obvious links win.
But wait, is that true? Good UX people might not be surprised, but is nobody surprised?
Because half of the startups in the universe have menus made of links that look exactly like every other non-link text on the whole fucking website. If it’s so obvious to everyone that subtle links don’t get clicked... why the would your menus look like that?
Exhibit A, Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/l/en-gb/
Exhibit B, Slack: https://slack.com/
The NN study also showed that colored buttons get noticed more than “ghost” buttons. And again, it was implied that everybody knows this and NN is just being deceptive.
But again... Dropbox, Slack, Nylas, and Medium all use that style of buttons for the thing that makes them money: sales. And those are just a few examples from many, many sites that I could have chosen.
Ghost buttons are supposed to be for the things you don’t want users to click, like a “cancel” button, or the “free” option.
I could go on, because everything else in the NN study is the same story. Apparently “everybody” knows those things don’t work, but those mistakes are everywhere, because they look better... and that’s what “flat design” means to a LOT of people.
Yes, the study does compare ineffective flat design with effective non-flat design, and yes, NN used clickbait-y copy to get you to read the article (which worked!), but a lot of people out there think subtle links and ghost buttons and depth-less design is what “flat” design means, and therefore a lot of people need to see the exact stuff that NN studied.
Sean said it best himself:
“When looking at secondary usability research make sure to read past the headline. Don’t take the conclusion presented at face value without understanding the research that was done. Often a blanket statement about particular design elements will be based on examples that are poorly implemented or examined within a very narrow context. It may be that flat UI does have some disadvantages when compared to UI with depth but it’s risky to make that determination based on a single study like the one we’ve reviewed here.“
Some User Experience designers think they are entitled to great jobs out of the gate. They think that just going to college and getting the degree is enough. That presenting the wireframes from a college project represents a portfolio. That it’s okay to ask for $100 per hour when you really have nothing to show […]
If you were looking for a Friday dose of #realTalk, here it comes. The linked post is from 2011, and it could have been posted yesterday. It will probably still be relevant in 2025.
I talk a lot about how to start being a UX designer, and how to learn UX design. That’s all well and good, but it’s not enough to read a book and start looking for your $100K salary my friends.
Not nearly enough.
The linked post is solid, no bullshit advice, about how to get “in”. Not how to start designing, but how to start being a real designer. A professional.
And if you really want to know how good this advice is: I just joined a new startup, and the author of this link is/was working for one of our competitors at the time.
After having lunch with one of my founder friends today, I was reminded about how important it is — make or break — to know what you’re final goal is when you’re designing, and how much it can make or break your company.
One of the questions I ask every time I start working on a new project, or with a new company, is: “What are you trying to make?”
You’d be amazed how often they don’t have an answer. They get a quizzical look on their face, pause for a few seconds, and say, “what do you mean?”
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The question is harder than it sounds. If you’re not saying “no” to most ideas, then you don’t know what you’re building.
“Money” is the same as no answer. A billion things can make money. It doesn’t allow you to say no to anything.
The next-worst answer starts with the words, “we want to make the best...” and ends with “in the world.” Everything in the middle is usually something that many companies have done before.
Why is that a bad answer? Because they are hiding behind “the best” and 9 times out of ten, they can’t tell me why theirs will be better than anyone elses. So there is no plan.
The most common bad answers is describe what you have already built. If the people at Facebook still think they are building a “social utility” then they have no plan. If the people at Google think they are building “the best search engine in the world,” they have no plan.
Why? Because they already built that. (I suspect that they have a better answer.)
There are companies that have great answers to “what are you trying to make?” but not very many.
If you can’t tell me what you will have made 10 years from now, and why that is needed in the world, then you don’t have a goal. And if you don’t have a goal, you are just wasting time, and money, until you fail.
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It’s better to build nothing than to build something nobody needs.
As a senior UX person, I get into a lot of conversations about new product ideas. Since I started my career in agencies, where you have to say “yes” to whatever ide the client has, my first instinct is not to shoot down ideas. My first instinct is to think about how to do them well.
That’s why I want to know what the idea is... judging “ideas” is often a waste of time. Only execution can be judged... not the idea. But the space between an idea and execution must be filled with a plan.
I have seen a location-based app where everybody in the app gets notified when anybody on their list comes within a certain distance of them, and people earn points for meeting each other. When I asked “what are you trying to make?” the creator of that app had no idea what this app would become. He just imagined that the benefits were obvious. 10 years from now, his app was just going to be... whatever he builds in the next 10 years.
A few days later, I got an email saying that he couldn’t stop thinking about what his app should become, and decided to scrap it and work on a better idea that he had in his backlog, which had a more promising future.
All from one simple question.
I have seen an app that shows you deals on products and services you may or may not be interested in. When I asked what they were trying to make, they said “the best deals app in the world.” So... they didn’t have an answer. I pointed out that the ideal user of such an app would be very irresponsible with their money, which would create a worse world, not better.
After a few weeks of discussion, they started to imagine a future where brand loyalty was recognized and customer appreciation was more than just deals... and that took their idea in a whole new direction.
All from one simple question.
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The best companies in the world know what they are trying to make.
You don’t have to ask AirBnB what they are trying to make. They say it all the time. The talk about things like “a way to rent your spare room,” and “the sharing economy,” and “a place to belong.”
So when someone at AirBnB has an idea that isn’t on the road to those goals, it is easy to say no and keep focus on the right stuff.
Nobody ever had to ask Steve Jobs what Apple was trying to make. It was usually the first thing he talked about. “A computer in every home,” or “a bicycle for your mind,” or “graphics so good you want to lick them.”
So when someone at Apple wants to do something that isn’t on that path, the goals are why you say “no”.
And the founder friend I had lunch with the other day could tell me exactly what his company was going to have made in 10 years. And it was good. It made sense, it is needed, and it would be an improvement on the world we have today.
I am sure he has 99 problems, but a focus isn’t one of them.
