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Exploring Usability Principles of Efficiency and Self-evidency in Product Development

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It was in the final semester when I was pursuing my Bachelor’s degree in psychology that I first heard the phrase, ‘User Experience Design’. Having no prior knowledge about the field, I applied for an internship hoping that I would learn how to use my skills in areas that were traditionally less psychology-oriented. I soon learned I was rather mistaken given that UX design applies a lot of psychology principles to understand what motivates users to behave the way they do.

In this article, that is part of a two-part series, I will explain two prominent UX principles of design; namely designing for self-evidency and designing for efficiency,

Part 1 elaborates what designing for efficiency means against designing for self-evidency.

Part 2 discusses various psychological concepts that can be applied while designing for efficiency and self-evidency.

What constitutes efficient design?

As I began my journey as a UX Designer, one of the first lessons I learned was the importance of designing efficiently. An efficient UX design leads to a positive user experience and adds value to the business. Efficiency is the speed with which a user completes a task after becoming familiar with the user interface. A useful parameter to measure this is the ease with which a user completes a task; it could be through optimal number of clicks, through the use of clear, unambiguous instructions, and so on. Efficiency is an important usability metric that should be at the core of a robust design process.

Why should your design be self-evident?

Imagine you are designing a website with multiple pages. Each page should be self-evident and obvious; a user should be able to gauge how to use it just by looking at it. Sticking to existing design patterns is important but it’s hard to not explore given that as designers, we are always on the lookout for new and novel ways of problem-solving. In case you are tempted to try something novel, ensure that your design is self-explanatory, so the user can grasp how to use it with the necessary instructions.

What is the difference between self-evident and self-explanatory design?

As I learned more about user experience, I came across two interesting design approaches; self-evident and self-explanatory design. A self-evident design is easy to understand, simple, and crystal clear. A good self-evident design eliminates ambiguity and helps the user navigate an interface effortlessly, precluding a steep learning curve. A self-explanatory design has all the information upfront for a user to learn how to use the interface. There is only a small learning curve and a self-explanatory design will reduce the cognitive load for the user.

“Making every page or screen self-evident is like having good lighting in a store: it just makes everything seem better.” – Steve Krug

The first step towards efficient design is to get inside the minds of your target audience.This is where my background in psychology came in handy, a deep understanding of their goals and the ability to empathize with their pain points is necessary for the brainstorming process. I was introduced to tools such as empathy maps, user stories, and prototype testing. Usability heuristics is another important concept that allows you to test the usability of your design. Usability heuristics are a set of guiding principles that can be considered as best practices for ensuring your design is usable. Usability heuristics have their roots in cognitive psychology, social psychology, and social cognition. These tools aid in designing an effective interface that helps users reach their goals with minimal effort and addresses their pain points effectively.

The need for clarity

Clarity plays a huge role in users successfully completing their task. Clarity helps the user know what it is you are helping them achieve. In ‘The Design of Everyday Things’, Don Norman describes the gulf of execution as the “gap between a user’s goal and the means to execute that goal.” When a user sees an interface, they should be able to assess how to meet their goals and what roadblocks they may face. The harder the user finds it to complete their goal, the wider the gulf of execution is. If the user finds the gulf too wide, they may abandon the goal altogether. This is why it is important for design to be self-evident. It is imperative to design with the user’s primary goals as the main focus while also keeping in mind the limitations of the human memory and try to eliminate the several roadblocks they may face on their user journey.

Humans’ short term memory has limited capacity, this means your design should help them capture the most important information in about 15-30 seconds. Draw attention to crucial elements and reduce unnecessary or long text. Communicate a change in status when the user performs an action, such as changing the color of a button when they hover over it.

Visual clutter and overcrowding of information not only overwhelms the user but also results in high dropoff rates and poor performance. Adhering to visual hierarchy and categorizing information according to importance helps the user recognize where they should direct most of their attention to. You don’t need to impress the user, instead you should focus on getting them to feel instantly familiar and comfortable with the design.

Bad example: This Norwegian classifieds website is a bad example of design, it has incorrect color usage, poor navigation, tiny and even confusing typography, and lacks visual hierarchy.

Good example: The laws of ux website has a good visual hierarchy. It breaks down information into smaller chunks and gives varying font sizes according to the importance, letting the user know where they should direct their attention first.

Efficiency and self-evidency should be at the core of your design process. Instead of choosing one over the other, leveraging both to meet your user’s goals will result in a powerful end product which not only helps them complete their goals successfully, but also allows them to get the maximum use out of your product. It utilizes their time and effort in an efficient manner and your users will thank you for it.

Look out for part 2 of this article which will cover topics such as cognitive load and information scent and the role they play in creating a robust design.

Part 2

Designing for efficiency and self evidency are two distinct approaches to a user-centric, empathy-led design.

In part 2 of the blog, we will describe in detail a few more crucial concepts that play a significant role in designing an intuitive user experience for your digital products.

What is cognitive load and why do your users hate it?

Cognitive load is the amount of information your working memory can hold. Extraneous information and overloading will result in the user getting overwhelmed and making mistakes. Cognitive load occurs in everyday life, whenever you feel too overwhelmed before an exam due to the large portions you need to remember, you are experiencing cognitive load.

When you pose unnecessary demands on a user, it overwhelms the user and impedes the learning process. Unnecessary distractions and inadequate explanations are two such examples.

Users wouldn’t prefer having to do a lot of thinking to perform an action, and that’s where intuitiveness plays a key role. While designing for self-evidency, you should stay away from using a lot of text content and use illustrations thinking and we’re here to help them do less of it but achieve their goal at the same time. Instead of explaining it through long text, people understand better through examples. This results in improved success rate, better performance and boosts their confidence. User confidence is directly proportional to a great user experience.

In psychology, Gestalt theory states that our minds perceive the sum of the parts as bigger than the whole. Gestalt principles can be harnessed to make users’ lives easier. The human brain attempts to sort and filter complex information in order to process and understand it. Law of similarity states that the human mind processes similar information as one. By grouping visually similar items together, we can help user’s process information faster. Using such laws to group items makes it easy on the user’s brain and reduces cognitive load for the user.

Transference occurs when a person projects their feelings for another person onto an entirely different person. An example of this is when you meet someone new and they remind you of your friend, you may instantly feel friendly towards them and attribute your friend’s mannerisms towards them. I was pleasantly surprised to find out how this principle can be applied in UX practice. Humans rely on memory and habit while completing a task. This is known as the principle of perpetual habit. Based on their past experiences, users tend to expect certain design patterns when visiting a site for the first time. Catering to this need for familiarity will not only make the design more usable but also increase the user’s learnability.

Example: when visiting an e-commerce site for the first time, you may expect to see the cart option on the top right corner.

A strong information scent goes a long way

A popular Freudian metaphor makes use of an iceberg to explain the three levels of the conscious mind. This is similar to the iceberg syndrome mentioned by the Interaction Design Foundation. Freud states that the tip of the iceberg, which is the most obvious part of the iceberg, represents the conscious mind. The part which is completely submerged in water, the least obvious part of the iceberg, is the unconscious mind. The iceberg syndrome states that users assume a product/information is not available on a site if it is not in view when they first land on the site. If it is not in the most obvious part of the site, the user may think it is unavailable.

Information scent is the tendency to only pay attention to the things that are obvious, clearly visible and relevant to our goal. A good information scent will help the user on their journey to complete the task with clear indication of the steps required to meet their respective goals. The aim of an information scent is to eliminate obscurity, confusion, and clearly indicate what it is you want the user to do. It should be self-explanatory. Clear context, visual cues, and easy to understand text accompanying links are helpful.

 

Example: Amazon.com uses large pictures to accompany product titles to strengthen the information scent.

Always ensure your users are comfortable and in control throughout the user journey

One of the most important skills you’re taught as a student of psychology is how to navigate problem situations with empathy; this is crucial for UX designers as well. My background in psychology helped me empathize with the users, brainstorm different scenarios, and breakdown each portion of the problem to analyze how to make an interface more user friendly.

You don’t want your users to feel uncomfortable or confused; they should always feel like they are in control in order to successfully complete their goal. Irrespective of whether you are designing for self-evidency and efficiency, your user should know what to do once they land on the interface you’ve designed. They can achieve their goal in the shortest possible amount of time. If you can’t make it self-evident, aim for it to be self-explanatory, so the user can figure out how it works with clear instructions.

Author Bio

Thendrl is a student of Psychology working as a UX Designer at Ionixx Technologies. She believes psychology and design go hand in hand in creating user-centric products that redefine the future of UX.

 

 

The post Exploring Usability Principles of Efficiency and Self-evidency in Product Development appeared first on ixBlog.

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