Four failures in user experience design

In her talk at the Monki Gras developer's conference last week, Leisa Reichelt, a freelance user experience (UX) consultant, gave a 15-minute talk on ways designers can avoid common pitfalls in how they develop user experiences.

More succinctly, her talk was called "Why most UX is shite."

Reichelt used the opportunity to rail against the oft-used simple-sounding but ultimately nonconstructive check-off list approach to UX. Instead, she devised her own list of common UX failures.

Herewith, Reichelt's list of UX design screw-ups (and her advice on how to fix them).

• "You're not making decisions..." Designers often put too many options and/or too much information as a way of pleasing or speaking to a wide audience. But the UX designer's job is to make some choices for the user, to guide the user.
• "You think your opinion counts..." UX designers can easily fail to make the user top priority and instead allow their cohorts or bosses sneak into that role. You might create UX based on what you think your boss wants. But his or her opinion doesn't count, either. The users count; their opinions count.
• "You don't measure it..." It's hard to turn user experiences into measurable metrics, but you should.
• "You don't really care..." And this is Reichelt's main point. If UX design was done more thoughtfully and skillfully -- if it was made central to an organization's mission -- it would be better. And there wouldn't be lists like this. She points to Apple and the way it "structures the operations of its entire organization to support the creation" of its user experience as an example of UX done well.

Via: Disambiguity

Image: Flickr / enriqueCARNICERO

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com