Hannah Atkin – UX Designer

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January 13, 2015 - Comments Off on Door-in-the-face

Door-in-the-face

Word: Door-in-the-face

Definition: The notion that refusing a large request (figuratively getting the door slammed in your face) increases the likelihood of agreeing to a second, smaller request, shortly thereafter.

Reference: A compliance method from social psychology, this technique works because of the principle of reciprocity (Cialdini et al, 1975). Saying "no" to a large request creates a feeling of guilt towards the asker, and in turn, the person being asked now feels as if she owes something. This manipulation strategy is often used in marketing.

The concept plays into design when dealing with subscription fees or add-on purchases, for example. Think about a time when you bought an online subscription. There is often multiple packages to choose from. Once you've looked over the choices and deiced the expensive option is outrageous, you are more inclined to see the less expensive option as more reasonable in comparison. Hence, your guilty conscious may lead you to buy yet another unwanted and unneeded steaming music service!

Thoughts/Questions: As a user experience designer, where does your job end and the marketing department's job begin? Should a line be drawn between marketing tactics and what's best for the user?

January 12, 2015 - Comments Off on Hick’s Law

Hick’s Law

Word: Hick's Law

Definition: The time it takes for person to make a decision increases with the number of choices available.

Reference: The law is named for British psychologist William Edmund Hick.

Countless studies in fields from psychology to marketing have investigated the affect of options on decision making and satisfaction (I suggest the jam study if you're looking for a good example). Widespread consensus shows that not only does fewer choices decrease time of decision making (a la Mr. Hick) but it also generates greater user satisfaction. The fewer the choices, the more satisfied the user is with her final decision. Seems counter intuitive, but science doesn't lie my friend.

Thoughts/Questions: While it is simple to see how Hick's Law is used in web design to justify menu and navigation decisions, you would be limiting yourself greatly if that is the only design feature influenced. If you dig more deeply, you will see that decisions are the crux of experiences and impact every move and click a user takes on a site.

Is there ever a situation where it's better to give the user as many choices as possible? What would it be?

January 11, 2015 - Comments Off on Skeuomorphic Design

Skeuomorphic Design

Word: Skeuomorphic Design

Definition: The design style in which old and familiar ideas are incorporated into new technologies even if the familiar no longer plays a functional role. In other words, the digital is made to look like the the old (in this case, the physical world) it represents.

Reference: Think of the early Apple iOS design in which the "Notepad" app physically looked like a ruler-lined notebook. Or my personal favorite, the first Southwest Airlines site that was designed to look and function just like the real world ticket counter. (Oh, how far we have come in the world of airline websites!)

Thoughts/Questions: We have long moved passed the "amateur" skeuomorphism of internets past and into a world full of flat and material design. Like fashion, will we ever see the day when skeuomorphism is so old, it's new again?

January 9, 2015 - 2 comments

F-Pattern

Word: F-Pattern

Definition: The natural eye movement by Western societies when scanning content rich webpages. Most people will automatically scan the top of a page, then skim down the lefthand side, and make a few occasional forays into into the center.

Reference: The pattern consistently appears during eye tracking sessions that use heat maps to follow a user's gaze. This word is best described with a picture so take a look below!

What does this have to do with design you ask? If you know and understand how a user most-often views a webpage, you can purposefully place specific content in the most effective areas for optimal attention.

Thoughts/Questions: The concept of an F-pattern has been understood for a long time and thrown around quite often. However, webpages are taking on new formats and a typical webpage today does not look anything like what users saw even 5 years ago. Do you think the F-pattern will continue to have a strong influence on design moving forward?

January 8, 2015 - Comments Off on Call To Action

Call To Action

Word: Call To Action

Definition: An interface element (usually in the form of a button, link, etc) that aims to prompt or encourage a user to perform a particular activity

Thought: The Call To Action should be displayed prominently to guide the user, focus the site, and measure success. Word of warning, less is more! Don't render your perfectly crafted Call To Action useless by offering too many actionable options. Be precise and determined in your placement. You should not take this topic lightly; take action instead!

Question: Is there ever a time when a homepage can work successfully without an obvious actionable call?

January 7, 2015 - Comments Off on Appticipation

Appticipation

Word: Appticipation

Definition: Proactive experiences based on location. Quite literally, the ability for a mobile application to anticipate the needs of its user, to think ahead, and to know what the user is about to do before she does it.

Reference: The term was created by Mike Schneider. The goal is to create more meaningful and engaging experiences between the user and the app. It is data that helps inform user experience and creates a new form of communication that is both personalized and proactive.

Example time! A personal favorite app of mine is the MLB.com Ballpark app, which recognizes when I, the user, have entered a stadium and goes on to provide me with coupons, discounts, concession maps, and seat upgrade offers. Sometimes a little too enthusiastically, but I appreciate the anticipation of my needs in the moment nonetheless.

Thoughts/Questions: While this particular term is fairly new, the concept has been around for a while now. However, at what point does appticipation become invasive? How do we balance the benefits with concerns of overzealous advertising?

January 6, 2015 - Comments Off on Anchoring

Anchoring

Word: Anchor

Definition: An anchor serves as a reference for comparisons.

Thought: Examples make understanding easier so here's one... When you buy a new phone your anchor point becomes $500. Therefore, when it comes time to buy a case for your new shiny toy, a $35 case doesn't feel like much in comparison to the anchor point. Now flip that around! If you bought the $35 case first (creating an anchor point), the $500 phone would feel like a lot more money.

What does this have to do with design? By understanding anchoring, designers are able to reset user expectations and assist in the arrangement or presentation of comparable items.

Question: Anchoring is commonly used on e-commerce sites to encourage consumer to purchase more products. I couldn't help but wonder... where do you draw the ethics line when it comes to your bottom line?

January 5, 2015 - 5 comments

Slippy UX

Word: Slippy UX

Definition: When a product is designed for "glance-ability", delivering a service or helping to solve a problem by purposefully staying in the background or discreetly out of the way.

Reference: Coined by Jake Zukowski, Assistant Creative Director at Frog Design, the term was used to describe the design of a digital automobile screen . The opposite of "sticky ux", slippy ux is intended to be invisible-enough and non-distracting. As a result, the design does not attract unwanted or unsafe attention.

Thoughts/Questions: As UX designers we are taught to make designs sticky and desirable -- how does slippy UX change the way we approach contextual interfaces? Will this change our over-arching thought process and innate goals?

January 4, 2015 - 2 comments

Sticky UX

Word: Sticky UX

Definition: The concept in which experiences engage users and keep them interested, resulting in increased user return rate and user rememberability.

Thought: The internet is a different animal from a brick and mortar store or a physical experience because the physicality is, in and of itself, predisposed to stickiness. Still confused? Stick with me! (See what I did there!) When you're at the pharmacy, you are likely to walk out with a purchase, full stop. However, the stakes are much lower in the digital world. If Amazon does not have what you're looking for, you're most likely not going to buy a comparable but not favorable item just because you're already on the site. Your job is to make the experience more "sticky" which in turn, makes the user, stay! Or at the very least, remember.

Question: Is it fair to compare online experiences to physical experiences? What are the benefits of digital stickiness?

January 3, 2015 - Comments Off on Signifier

Signifier

Word: Signifier

Definition: A signal that communicates appropriate behavior to a person and where an action should take place.

Reference: Don Norman explains the subtle difference between signifiers and affordances in his book, "The Design of Everyday Things." He amended the book in later editions because while the design community took fondly to the term affordance, Norman believed it was being improperly used (based on his definition).

Thoughts/Questions: Touch screens afford touching... but as to where and how to touch, this is a signifier.

How do you use "affordance" and "signifier"? Should the terms be defined by Norman himself, or should it take the meaning that the larger community as a whole has assigned?

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