Category Archives: User Psychology

User Experience, User Psychology, User Behaviour, User Experience Review, usability, Industrial Design, FuckedUpUx, #WtfUx

#WtfUx : Bad user experience design can make you feel dumb in the washroom

You must have heard of kids getting locked in the washroom but its so embarrassing to imagine if an adult was struggling to find his way out. Washroom is one place you would not want to overload your brain with any form of cognitive processing, i mean getting in and out of a washroom should be a piece of cakewalk right? Not for the washroom designed in the lobby area of The Trident Hotel- at BKC in Mumbai.  The hotel like one of those over-friendly friends who is constantly around for no good reason tried to be “over creative” by designing a very confusing looking washroom lock and in that process successfully flushing down the drain basic principles of user centric designs  which are required to be adhered while designing objects of daily use.

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(Image by RuthlessUx: Lobby area washroom / or as it is labelled in hi-fi settings as cloak room (ladies) at the Trident Bkc, Mumbai)

Why in the world would a designer have an open knob separate and a lock unlock knob separate? And to dig their own grave further add shabby “suggestive” stickers on them which are peeling off! Argh! I have coined a term for these kind of designers – “Creative Assholes” Lol. Because they’re doing something not just stupid and annoying, but mean.

Usability is a common courtesy that designers owe to their potential users and a good user experience designer  (not restricted to digital products, it could be a space experience designer, industrial designer working on ergonomics of usability etc) will always indirectly and lucidly amalgamate the abstract logic of usability with literal understanding of common sense in forms and designs that’s more digestible and intuitive based on the past experiences of the users and seems to be a part of common sense.

Why would a designer make a simple task like opening a washroom lock complicated – to be different? to think out of the box? to be abstract? – unless they wanted to do some sort of ‘IQ’ test on how peoples brain function after peeing or pooping? or may be are people that attentive after they have eased themselves? or can people find their way out of our so called innovative lock system?

 

The moment you make a user think for a task that is “more mechanical or routine” in nature and doesn’t really require “thinking” you have clearly lost as a designer and delivered a #WtfUx. In simple language any routine task where a user doesn’t have to think much and can understand fast from the design and placement of the sections or its intuitive design visuals is more probable to accomplish that task – (in this case its not the first time a person would be unlocking a washroom door to exit. which means its a learnt behavior and complicating that is stupidity)

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The left designs are way more usable and intuitive then the right hand one

Empathy is the key to designing usable products and we as designers should put our self in the position of the person who will will eventually use your product.

I mean i totally buy the fact that you need to be creative but this knob design does anything but give me a delightful experience.  If you wish to reinvent the wheel, then the usability aspect can never be compromised? Be it Maruti or Rolls Royce the wheel shape is round for both organisations vehicles. Rolls Royce simply because they can, don’t go ahead and build a complicated hexagon shape wheel.

I know complaining about a design problem at a luxury hotel might make you question “umm am i the only one who is feeling this knob is awkward? or do other people feel the same? Its intimidating and most people i interact with just feel that its them who are incapable of figuring the way out and feel they will be seen as a fool or a less intelligent person if they speak about a problem such as this.

So keep a watch for that “Creative Asshole” around you.

Cheers & Keep it #RuthlessUx

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design thinking, FuckedUpUx, usability, usability testing, User Experience, User Experience Review, User Psychology, ux review

The new LinkedIn is so bad its not even funny anymore!

With installing the LinkedIn app and then uninstalling in within 3 minutes i knew they cannot get it more wrong than what they already have.

I knew way back im using LinkedIn for UTILITY and not usability.

The recent update in LinkedIn’s UI made me go “What a cheap imitation of Facebook‘s UI! These guys refuse to learn!”

The overall site looks like it has been robbed of its “Freedom of Expression” hope this not the Trump effect.!

There is so much thats hidden and is left for the user to explore and help themselves. Features important are hidden only to make the experience more distasteful.  Amy Parnell, the company’s senior director of experience design,  said it had “too much noise, too much cognitive load.”  But i guess atleast we had something then now we are left with BLANK SPACE to eat!

List of hate items: *not limited to but 5

1) White Space: Its too white spaced for my comfort. Everything looks scattered and hanging. Empty! Amy Parnell, the company’s senior director of experience design, felt it had “too much noise, too much cognitive load.”

Probably she thought users using linkedIn -who let me tell you had already adapted to the previous matrix of your UI – certainly could have put up with a little more.

Sadly underestimating “Users Cognitive Abilities” is the last thing one might want to do especially in terms of user experience.

This only points out two things either you were over confident and landed up doing a bad job or you just lived in a matrix where you felt your users are stupid to handle an upgraded ui.

 

 

 

 

2)Publications / Projects : So you decide to show less and make us click more to see more? what kind of handicapped user experience is this? And then show us less relevant content and shove us with more white space? trying to get the KKK way are you?

Surely you don’t seem like a white spremacist then why is that the0ry adopted in your UI? It’s only making is very difficult to view things at one glance or let us check out a connection’s latest project, publication, or article.

 

 

 

3) Groups hidden too: C’mon why do you think you got it all right? did you even do user testing with real users? or your experience design team went to japan and hired a bunch of robots to get the made-to-order feedback. There are like 4 clicks i need to do before i actually get to My Groups Page.

 

 

 

 

 

4) Menu sticks around like an overfriendly pal: So you have decided to live in the Stone Age time and not improve your icon design or menu? like i totally understand you wanted to copy facebook but then the menu icons look like a garnishing which is more compared to the quantity of food.

 

 

 

 

5) Achievements, Awards, Certifications and Honors  given step motherly treatment:

Why are things just hidden?

In the previous version the awards, certification honors and achievements and certifications were not hidden. Now you can barely see them at all and to add to your Cognitive Load is that your mind has to figure that you keep to keep clicking on the fu***ng “See more” link all the time to well SEE more of things that you should be seeing by default.

Another annoyance is that t is a full-width arrangement and one column instead of two, which drastically increases the page length as well as it ceases to show you less information which you could have probably viewed at a glance.

It’s like placing the refridgerator in

 

 

Bummer!!!

There isn’t a way to go back to the old version of LinkedIn. Sadly you can’t throw rotten tomatoes on your screen for a mistake thats not even yours. However, If you are still enthusiastic about nagging go follow this thread https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/forum/question/474766 and give your feedback

Thank me later.

–RuthlessUx

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design thinking, Interesting Marketing, Out of the Box, Product Review, User Experience, User Psychology

Durex Brinjal & Indian Food

 

Durex has just announced a launch an eggplant flavored condom.

These all dishes might taste a bit different but have a common ingredient? No points for guessing

 

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What if one fine day they decide to go extremely “Local” what would the brand look like then?

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Idli flavor? Misal flavor? Wada Pav flavor? Im sure our political parties would be more than happy to capitalize on this opportunity and regionalise and communalize the condoms.

Moving on to the Reason :

Durex is using this marketing stunt to promote a condom emoji because durex feels that introducing this emoji will help people talk freely talk about safe sex while chatting.

Currently people improvise on current emojis and icon to talk about the topic and rest is upto your imagination. By which i mean “people currently use brinjal icon for more than the purpose of using brinjal literally”

But simply to break the new “this is all just a marketing stunt and durex is not launching this eggplant condom”. Dear veggies you have been saved from being scared for the rest of your lives.

‘Durex belives launching Condom Emoji will encourage open discussions and raise awareness about the use and importance and hence propagate safe sex and protecting people against sexually transmitted diseases like including HIV and AIDS.

This is a good way to put your message across the and humorous too.

But how would this eventually lead to all that durex wants to achieve is a story of the next level.

 

Cheers

RuthlessUX

 

 

 

 

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design thinking, usability testing, User Experience, User Experience Review, User Psychology

If only opening doors was as easy as saying ‘Open Sesame’

Video

In the image below Can you figure which one is the door?

and how to open this door? Push? Pull? Slide?

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Entering the door of your office is the first th
ing most of the working class does before they start off and reach their desk for work.

Sounds simple ?

Recently i went to a Networking event at a posh corporate park in Bombay and had a great time. But B
eing the “paying attention to the details” kind of person that i am i figured that this entry door nothing
less than an algebraic  equation which i might not have been taught in school.

 

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So many of our doors are designed in a way that send confusing signals. Look at the doors in malls, Washrooms, Coffee Shops, Corporate offices etc.

I’m so sure we have all faced this one situation where we are pushing a door and someone at the opposite ends gets hit on the nose.

And worse is when we are using the revolving doors. There is a 100% possibility of you fumbling with your own-self and feel dis-balanced.

We are habituated instinctively to pull doors that have handles and  push doors that are flat or have no handles, so whenever a door does not fit in this regular realm of design, a sign or symbol of help is required. But then again it is not a guarantee that the door will be used as desired by the designer.

What may seem like a clever or minimal design soon seems as a design failure. I very often say “Simple and Minimal does not mean Kill the Utility or Make it Non-User Friendly”

Sometimes we might see handwritten arrows or signs or text indicating direction or action that needs to be taken.

For Eg: Toilet out of order! Yes that’s the sign i mostly see around

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At times the stickers are also insufficient to override what those handles are saying.

And sometimes signs alone cannot act as a solution in itself and hence there still must be some way of knowing what action and where it is to be done. Mostly a single word labels fail to signify or rather say build that intuition in a user to take action

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How many of us subconsciously land up pushing the door when it’s written Pull?

Words can be ambiguous when it comes to universal function and understanding. Hence we see Road signs use graphic illustrations. But words and graphics are together are understood much better.

“Doors do not need an instruction manual they should simply be “KISS” – Keep it Simple and Stupid” 

 

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And finally when you figure the way the product or item works user has a sense of achievement!

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Cheers

http://www.RuthlessUx.com

design thinking, Industrial Design, Product Review, usability, usability testing, User Experience, User Psychology

Inside a users Brain – When you design products to TEASE and not for EASE

Video

User Experience is a facet of design that touches human lives in more than one ways. Its omnipresent. Physical or Virtual “experience” is something people remember more than the product. People remember how they “felt”. Many a times i see a lot of sites or for that matter even physical objects put so much effort in making a product or services complicated that the reaction users subconsciously feel is exactly how Deadpool describes in this reaction below!

 

WHYS USERS FEEL THIS WAY?

Let’s see an example!

What i am reviewing today  the tea cup you see below which is  an apt example of putting the user under stress for no reason. There is a considerable amount of effort gone into making this cup a complicated one!

 

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It’s what we call a bad execution of #productdesign and lack of #ux sensibilities. The cup is difficult to use. So clearly #user and #usability aspects of #userexperience have been blindly ignored here.

Even though the idea of the amalgamation of a wine glass and a coffee cup seems artistic and exciting but not good in terms of #industrial #design — at Khar Social.

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To the designer who took the trouble to make this  cup!

Being a good user experience designer definitely involves creative imagination but it must be an enhanced version that’s not too far from usability if not reality itself. Imagine this the tea is hot, the upper portion occupies 75% of the hot liquid. Holding the cup with one hand is like trying to balance a Pyramid upside down on your finger tip. This might help you feel what i’m trying to convey.

Cheers,

RuthlessUX

design thinking, Product Review, usability testing, User Behaviour, User Experience, User Experience Review, user journey, User Psychology, UX Philosophy, ux review, Video Review

User Onboarding Review : Do’s and Dont’s

Video

One of the main concerns of any online portal and product would be acquiring new customers and users aka Acquisition.
More often than not i see businesses take this crucial aspect for granted by designing complicated user journeys and more complexed user onboarding process.

However this is not done deliberately but its the lack of understanding their users and gap between what the business goals are and what the user/consumer goals are.

And when there is a wide gap between goals of the business and goals of the user, the result is going no where but south.

Designing a User Experience Strategy is a matter of logic and empathy.

Couple of things required to do this is:

  1. User Study / Research : Studying what the end goal of the user is. For eg in this form the form the user wants to simply book a test ride. By adding hurdles like extra and irrelevant input boxes its making the journey long, tiring, confusing and boring.
  2. Communication: Give users what they need. I donot want to do product enquiry. Don’t force me to. By writing irrelevant information and content you are expecting the user to be a super user. It does not work that way. Be simple and minimalistic unless you are adding value by clutter just declutter.
  3. Time : Its the fast age. Dont expect users to sit and work for you. They would rather leave than get bored filling your forms unless you have a monopoly say you are the central govt and filling that form is a matter of your life and citizenship it is highly unlikely the user would choose to do it.

Product Designing  can be confusing but if applied common sense its easier than what you think.

And if you see no savior and have no clue “baby just eat the data”

Data Analysis is the God’s word. It will always speak the truth. Never ignore it. It will tell you your demons and what should be your next step and incase of a disaster your SOS plan.

Cheers,

Shaheena Attarwala