THINK UX

Good design: hierarchy

More often than not I hear people saying…”you need to write less content so your site does not look crowded”…I have to say that is kind of a crappy thinking, the reality is that if you have poor design and user experience in your product no matter how much text you have, it will not do what it is supposed to do: engage your customers.

Less is more. There is no doubt about that. You also need to ask yourself, why less is more? When you say less is more, you are not really tackling the root problem. The root problem relies on hierarchy - good hierarchy. It does not matter if you only have three lines of text and a picture or if you have pages of text and a gallery. If you do not establish a good hierarchy from the start your design will go to hell.

The idea is that when your users get to  your site, they need to understand clearly where to start reading, and from there they understand. The first thing users should see is who you are and what you do, connect with their emotions in showing your product as a solution to one of their problems. The most successful products know exactly what problem they are solving and who they are solving it to.

Some ways of creating hierarchy are size, color, leading/tracking, caps, etc. Establish your styleguides and question yourself why you are choosing what you are choosing.

Remember that your ultimate goal is to express an idea or message to your users. The experience you design needs to be legible, forget about writing big chunks of text in serif typography, it is just the nature of this font, having more detail it is easier for it not to be consistent across browsers and resolutions. Serif fonts are always your best bet for longer texts.

Design with real content, or have in mind that your content will change all the time. You can have different scenarios, you might be designing a website for a small client, where the content might not be changing that much, then try always to design with the real text. If you are working with a more dynamic client that has more a channel of information with its users, then design having this in mind. Think that the title might sometimes be one line, sometimes two, that the paragraph might be one big chunk of text, sometimes might be two, etc.

Know when to bend the rules

One important lesson I learned while reading The E-Myth Revisited (which I strongly recommend reading) is that every process, rule or task you perform in your company more than twice should be documented. You should have manuals of everything in your company, this ensures quality and consistency.

You also need to keep in mind that your customer is always first.

This is the kind of train thought that makes Walmart one of the leading companies in user experience (and in everything really…)

As I have said in the past, acquiring a new customer is expensive, so try your best to keep the ones you have.

When you have regular customers, or users that are highly engaged in your product or company, you need to value that and offer always an exceptional experience, remember your users can go anywhere else, but they chose to use your services, value this.

You can buy millions of ad spaces but if you have a poor experience, your product will go nowhere. Positioning yourself organically is KEY, it is a chain reaction, when people talk, tweet, comment about how great you are, and you will always have more customers.

Know when to bend the rules, sometimes when you bend the right ones might cost you a couple of dollars in the moment, but might represent thousands in the near future.

The Hertz experience

I am a regular Herts customer, when I need a car I rent it, so the people in the Hertz office have seen my face before. One day I returned a car and apparently it had a small glitch. The Hertz representative mentioned it and let it go because they valued me more as a customer than $30 that he might have charged me, and have lost me probably as a customer.

The Jetblue experience

My airline of choice is Jetblue. I feel good about traveling with this company and as long as they travel to my destination, I will chose to travel with them. The experience in booking my flights is also exceptional. One day, I booked two flights to San Francisco, payed for them and two hours later decided that could not go, called the airline and after explaining the manager I was not traveling, they reminded me this was a nonrefundable fair but that they would issue a credit with the airline to the exact amount. 

The Starbucks experience

Not so long ago I was walking when I saw a small local cafe place next to a Starbucks, went to get a coffee there to supor locals, when I went to pay, they did not offer wireless internet, did not accept credit cards, I never carry cash…had to cancel my order and walk next door to Starbucks, which not only smells like coffee heaven, accepted my credit card and gave me wireless internet for free.

Nowadays your customers expect you go the extra mile for them, if you don’t they will notice and go else where. 

Users don’t always know what to do next

When designing a UX we always need to have our users in mind. Users are very different to designers, we are constantly thinking of how to solve a problem, how to make something easier, etc. Regular users don’t, they act very much spontaneously, they just go, they experience your product in a real way.

Users also get very panicked when they enter a new environment. They don’t really know what to expect from a new UI, what is next? now what do I do? and the fact that they do not have anybody physically in front of them telling them, gets them panicked. This is way the experience for all users, but mostly for new users, must be flawless, must run very smooth.

A good way to guide your user throughout your app is by creating blank states. A blank state basically is a message that you are giving your user in what to do next within your app, without the user having to look for it or going to a different page.

A great example is how Basecamp displays their blank states. When you create a new project in Basecamp, you get this screen, which clearly states what you should be doing next.

Another great example is how Timely does it. When you do not have any more tweets scheduled, they let you know, by giving you even options on what to tweet.

They also send you an email telling you that your queue is empty.

Having blank states designed and thought through when designing your app is a must. It is the only way to guarantee your user will take advantage of all the possibilities and value your app brings. Basically the only way to guarantee a successful and consistent experience.

Evolution - it’s all about iterations

All products start with an idea. I see all the time people wanting to create perfect products. There is no such thing as a perfect product. A product is never meant to be perfect at all. Instead it is meant to be iterated.

When you build a product you can think of so many things your user will want, or might need, however you don’t really know…most likely you are wrong. You have no idea what your users need until they tell you. 

The natural evolution of your products will radicate in often iterations. Release your product the fastest possible, and iterate based on your user’s feedback. Collect data, is the only way you will have metrics to guide your decisions. Always iterate based on data, never on what looks better or what you might think will work.

When you plan an iteration, plan for several iterations. Don’t try to build everything at once, leave ideas and things for future iterations, once your users confirm you they agree with you in the sense that they also like these ideas or features, then you introduce them to your product, and measure.

Your ultimate goal should always be to be better, to have a better product, happier customers.

THE COKE BOTTLE

When coke release their famous coke bottle, they never thought about how the user would carry or grab their bottle, over time and listening to user’s feedback they have morphed their product into a much more organic form bottle, easier to grab, easier to carry and somehow much more approachable for the consumer.

HEINZ KETCHUP BOTTLE

In the early stages of Heinz selling ketchup bottles, they used to be vertical regular bottles. What a pain this was! Every time you wanted to use the ketchup bottle, you would have to put it vertical for a couple of seconds or give it a few kicks on the bottom, when it was fairly used you would have to turn it upside down and just have upside down stuff in your refrigerator. Once their users made this behavior clear, they were able to just turn their packaging upside down, better brand placement, better brand recognition, better product = happy customers.

What is UX?

UX = User experience, but what is really user experience?

The first thing a designer must understand is that the user experience we create for users goes much more deeper into the user’s interaction with the product than we could ever imagine, this off course results in the user’s conversion.

User experience involves all interaction with the product, how your product is perceived and used.

When we talk about UX we should know that this is not only a design applied to a certain medium, it is much more than that. It is psychology, sociology, computer science, and design mixed together in one field. It is basically knowing about your user. 

The more you know the user you are designing for, the more probability of success you will have. Designing without knowing your user is like walking on a cliff blindfolded…pretty hard uh?

Cut the fat. In your UX design anything that does not serve a purpose is fat and should not be there. Simplicity is key.

Customer acquisition is high in almost every industry. It is very hard to get customers, so you need to make sure your customers/users are happy and feel good about your product, in fact so good that they would recommend your brand with others.