See if any of these tensions sound familiar:

• Should we do more Learning or start Building?
• Should we focus on Innovation or Efficiency?
• Should we prioritize Deadlines or Quality?
• Growth vs. Consolidation?
• Short-term Gains vs. Long-term Organic Growth?
• Centralization vs. Decentralization
• New Features vs. a Stable Codebase?
• Generalist or Specialist?

We could go on, listing more of these tensions. And if we’re like most organizations, we’d rush to analysis to determine the best or right answer. I’d argue we should first stop and ask a more fundamental question: Is this A Problem… Or a Polarity?

Too often, we treat conflicts — like those listed above — as problems to be solved, when in reality they’re “polarities”.

Problems vs. Polarities

A problem is something that can have a right — or best — answer. A solution exists. If we’re deciding between two incompatible tech stacks, this is a problem to be solved. We do our analysis. Weigh the pros and cons, determine which is the best choice, all things considered, then commit. Problem, solved.

This is approach is fine, if there truly is a decision to be made.

• Which tech stack do we commit to?
• Which department should I move to?
• Where should we shift our funding?

But, when we level this same problem-solving mindset at things that needn’t or can’t really be solved, frustration follows. “Should we focus on delivery or quality?” Yes. Yes we should focus on these things. That is the honest answer. But this doesn’t sit right; it doesn’t feel resolved. That’s because these aren’t resolvable. These are polarities,  “dilemmas that are ongoing, unsolvable and contains seemingly opposing ideas“.

Problems give us two ideas that are directly opposed and in conflict.
Polarities give us  two ideas that are complementary and interdependent.

Problems push an either/or mindset.
Polarities push a both/and mindset.

Problems need decisions, and resolution.
Polarities do not.

Here’s the rub: Polarities are not a problem to be solved, but rather a paradox to be balanced. Here’s an elegant analogy:

“Think of it like breathing. Breathing isn’t a choice between inhaling or exhaling. If you inhale to the exclusion of exhaling, the negative results show up quickly. And the reverse is also true. The polarity approach says, we must both inhale and exhale.”

Here’s where the polarity map enters the picture.

On the surface, it looks like a simple “pros/cons” matrix. But, as with most things, the devil is in the details.

First, this little loop is vital. It says we are constantly moving between these four quadrants.

Second, the language: You have two poles, yes. But you’re not evaluating the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’. Rather, it’s the Benefits and Unintended Consequences. Language matters.

The Tool in Action:

When we treat a polarity like a problem, looping back and forth is what inevitably happens over time (often over a very long, agonizing, period of time!). For our explanation, let’s use the tension of “planning” vs “building” a new software app.

Suppose we decide to double down on “learning”. We have good reasons for this:

• We’ll be able to make faster decisions, when we do move into building
• We’ll generate deep context / insights that are more useful to ops.

This is all well and good until months later, our zealous focus on “learning” has led to some unintended consequences:

• Teams are stuck in analysis paralysis
• And hey, competitors beat you to market. Bummer.

So what do we do? We swing to the other extreme! We double down on jumping into building. Insert some lean-slash-agile-slash-design sprint Kool-aid here.

At first, things go great.

• We’ve got something built and released into the market that we can iterate upon.
• We’re delivering real customer value

But then…

• That new feature you want, it’ll take a ridiculous amount of time, because we didn’t plan for anything like that.
• Oh, and we were so busy building things that we forget to do any real customer research. Turns out no one wants this thing we built.
• And who knows what better ideas we missed out on, as we sped along with our first idea.

We didn’t intend for any of these things to happen. And so the pendulum swings back to the other extreme. Most of the folks that would remember the previous extreme have moved on, so few people recall the follies of the other extreme.

And on it goes.

Polarity Mapping let’s us explore all these issues and concerns in an afternoon, setting teams up to work together, with a shared sensitivity to all these issues.  You get the benefit of discussing all of these tensions upfront, before living through them. The goal isn’t a decision, but rather recognition of all these simultaneous Benefits and Unintended Consequences — on both sides. And reconciliation, as a team. And the valuing of competing perspectives. And… we could go on listing the goals. The conversations I’ve seen as a result of this activity have been quite remarkable. Aside from bringing Product Managers and Designers together,  it’s also broken down stereotypes about what ‘“the other side” values.

“Are there any actionable outcomes from this?”

While I’ve focused on the core of Polarity Mapping, mapping the Benefits and Unintended Consequences of two polarities, there is more to this tool. Once you’ve identified this core information, you can move out into the margins to address:

1. What are the Action Steps to gain or maintain these Benefits?
2. What are the Early Warnings of unintended consequences?

Done as a group, and pinned to a wall, this should set up teams to successfully navigate many difficult conversations. Hopefully, you’ll find this tool as useful as I have.

The Polarity Map in action!

Downloadable Files:

• Poster of the Polarity Map, for workshops (PDF)
• Complete Polarity Map (PDF)

Further information:

• “Are You Facing a Problem? Or a Polarity?“ — Center for Creative Leadership — a great introductory article
• The Polarity Map  — there are lots of versions of the polarity map; I prefer the clarity of this version, as you may have noticed! (PDF)
• Polarity Thinking, Polarity Mapping  — a longer overview with more examples (PDF)
• [BOOK] Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems Yes, there’s a book on this topic, authored by the creator of this tool, Barry Johnson

You can also get more detailed information and consulting services directly from Polarity Partnerships, co-founded by Barry Johnson Ph.D., the creator of The Polarity Map^® and Principles

The post The Joys of Polarity Mapping appeared first on UX Mastery.

Body language experts Barbara and Allan Pease have been researching this domain for over thirty years. In their book, The Definitive Book of Body Language, they reveal what many of us fail to recognise and understand when others try to communicate with us.

The Mirror Neuron

Research has identified a Mirror Neuron which attributes this behaviour to a physiological phenomenon. We are wired to mimic the reactions of those we interact with on a daily basis.

Unsurprisingly, scientists call this effect mirroring. It also works the other way around—a frown may yield a frown from the other party. Researcher Ulf Dimberg conducted experiments on 120 volunteers, measuring their facial muscle activity while viewing pictures of both happy and angry faces. When told to do the opposite of the pictures (e.g. smile while looking at a picture of an angry person) their facial twitching suggested that they were unconsciously trying to mirror the same reaction as the picture they were viewing, even though they were told to do the opposite.

While smiles are infectious, so are frowns and angry faces. After a long gruelling day of research it’s important for us as researchers to put on a happy face as best we can, even if it pains us to do so. Any hint of discontent might rub the participant the wrong way, making them feel bad or, even worse, neglected.

Strategic Gestures

Strategically smiling—knowing that the participant will likely smile back—sounds like you might be leading them, the way you are told not to when running a research session. But the tendency for humans to mirror one another’s gestures is so powerful that whether you remain neutral-faced or smiling, you’ll be leading them regardless.

The last thing you want a participant to do is to tell you what you want to hear. As a moderator, one of your primary goals is to make your participant feel comfortable enough to speak their mind about “the good, the bad, the ugly.” Gesturing positively builds the rapport required to get them feeling more at ease. Ultimately this will enable them to provide more truthful (and useful) information than they would if they were not relaxed.

Smiles reveal deeper aspects of human emotions. Not all smiles are created equal. Body language experts Barbara and Allan Pease describe 5 different types of smiles. Each of these has a different MO. Two of these smiles in particular may be useful to identify to help redirect UX research sessions.

The tight-lipped smile

The tight-lipped smile is when a person’s lips are stretched tight across their face in a straight line concealing their teeth. When you see this smile, there is a good chance that the person has a secret that they are unwilling to share with you.

During a UX research session, when you encounter this gesture, you might want to ask gently: “is there anything else you would like to share with me that you haven’t already mentioned?” This last part is important. It implies that as a keen observer you suspect there is something else that they are reluctant to share with you. Always reassure them whatever they share with you will not go beyond the research project.

Consider meeting them at their level by mirroring their facial gestures. This will demonstrate empathy for their situation. They will feel like they are being heard and understood. Making gestures that oppose their own could run the risk of coming across as antagonistic and apathetic. If they are smiling, you smile. If they are frowning, then frown with slight concern demonstrating your empathy and willingness to listen. Worst case scenario, they reject your request. Best case, they feel more comfortable sharing.

Always be mindful of them trying to please you as you empathise with their cause. Revert to a neutral stance whenever you feel like you are losing the candour from mirroring them.

The drop-jaw smile

Another common type of smile you may come across is the drop-jaw smile. This smile involves the person deliberately dropping their jaw to give the impression to others that they are laughing or are happy. It is commonly used by politicians to get votes, or actors to get a laugh from their audience. The drop-jaw smile is intended to get a positive reaction from its recipient.

One of the things I insert into my research protocols before beginning the main parts of my interview guide is requesting the participant tells me what they see, think and feel, not what they think I want to hear. Participants who deliver a drop-jaw smile might be trying to tell you what you want to hear. When you see this gesture during a session, do a sanity check with your participant. Make sure what they are telling you is their opinion and not someone else’s. They might say something like: well, I think people in my field would love to have a feature like this! Redirect and make the conversation about them: while it’s interesting to know that others would use this. How about you? How would you use a feature like this in your daily work?

Micro-gestures can tell us how a person really feels

According to body language experts it is very difficult to fake body language for long periods of time. Eventually the truth reveals itself in the form of micro-gestures. These are the body’s unconscious actions revealing themselves as a person’s conscious effort to conceal their authentic self weakens. It might be pupil dilation, facial muscle twitching, accelerated blinking, sweating, blushing, a momentary sneer. Research has shown that these micro-gestures occur within a split second and are very difficult to catch. As elusive as they are, the may provide some flag to a researcher that further investigation might be warranted.

During UX research sessions, look for changes in facial expressions.

Those brief flashes of concern or stress that sail across their face disappearing (as fast as they showed up) might suggest they may have more to share. It might be a pain point that could provide insight for your research effort,or an interesting anecdote that reveals an insight for your final report. Tread carefully though. Don’t acknowledge that you’ve picked up on the cue. Use it as a speed-bump to slow down. Wait for them to come forward with more info if they feel like it. Embrace any awkward silences that come your way. Those deliberate pauses give their micro-gestures a chance to breathe.

Understanding your participant’s body language ultimately allows you to build a better rapport and achieve a deeper level of empathy. View the signals offered up by gestures as opportunities to broaden your view of their reality and gain insights for your research.

References;

Dimberg, U., Thunberg, M., Elmehed, K., “Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expressions,” Psychological Science 11 (2000).

Pease, A., & Pease, B. (2006). The Definitive Book of Body Language. New York: Bantam Dell Pub Group.

The post Understanding Body Language In UX Research Part II appeared first on UX Mastery.

This will give you an enhanced awareness of what to look for so that a potentially wasteful session could make for a more productive one…

A participant that you’ve been moderating a session with is sitting upright with his ankles locked next to you. His fingers are interlocked and his lips pursed. He answers your question with a head nod reassuringly, but succinctly, “Yeah sure. I’d use this tool if it were available to me.”

As soon as he finishes speaking he begins to scratch the back of his neck. He touches his nose.

In this example, should we believe what the participant is saying? Is he being forthright? He nodded his head, didn’t he? But what did he mean by scratching his neck? Maybe he was just anxious. Maybe he wasn’t. It’s very difficult to tell based on all of his gestures. You will soon find out there is more to reading body language than looking at a couple of gestures.

According to body language experts Allan and Barbara Pease, authors of The Definitive Book of Body Language, gestures must be viewed in combinations called clusters in order to be accurately interpreted; the context of these gestures also need to be considered.

The everyday gestures that we use are windows into how we are truly feeling. They give us suggestions as to whether or not someone is lying or telling the truth, interested or bored, stressed or relaxed, feeling intimidated or wanting to intimidate.

Most of the time when doing in-person UX research sessions, we ignore body language in favour of the spoken word.

As a UX researcher I admittedly spend much more time listening to the words of participants rather than reading their body language. When we listen to their opinions we try to assess whether they are truthful. Observing their actions also helps us evaluate their credibility. Reading the words on a page gets easier as we age, interpreting body language doesn’t; we get stuck in the learning stage of what psychologist Martin Broadwell calls unconscious incompetence.

It tends to get nestled into our unconscious mind, making itself inaccessible and upstaged by what we hear. We simply don’t know what to do with the information. We might visually recognise that a person is reacting to something we say but we don’t necessarily invest enough time interpreting whether these gestures actually mean anything.

Should we? Some would argue that we shouldn’t. But several studies have shown that we can reliably improve our understanding. Can we use what we learn from reading someone’s cluster of gestures to our advantage when it comes to moderating UX research sessions?

Two research-based insights that have important implications for moderating UX research sessions are:

• A persons gestures and emotions bidirectionally influence one another
• A key place to look when someone is not being forthright is the face

According to body language experts, a person’s’ gestures and emotions bidirectionally influence one another.

Research on priming proves this. Professor Daniel Kahnemann, in his modern classic book about heuristics and biases, Thinking, Fast and Slow indicates that actions and emotions can be primed by events people aren’t even aware of. To prove that actions and emotions can bidirectionally affect one another, an experiment with college students was conducted where students were asked to hold a pencil between their teeth for a few seconds forcing their mouth either into a smile or a frown while reading The Far Side cartoon and rating its humour. The students who found the cartoons funnier were the ones whose face was forced into a smile.

If changing a person’s facial expression primes them into changing their sentiment while reading a comic strip, could we not do the same in UX research sessions?

How can we prime a participant in such a way that they would be inclined to disclose more information

We would need to identify when they might be holding back information from the moderator. What stance might they take when unwilling to be as open about themselves during a session? According to body language experts, people may cross their arms or legs to form a defensive barrier between themselves and others. They may keep their palms closed and facing down.

By recognising the clusters; in this case the defensive poses. The context; in this case their unwillingness to provide more information during a session. The moderator can then find a way to prime them into a more open position.

If there is a stimulus or artefact as a part of the research protocol, use this as an opportunity to get them to hold it in their hands. If it’s on a computer, then have them move closer to the computer. They may be forced to unfold their arms or change their posture so that they can see the screen. Their palms may be opened suggesting a willingness to engage more openly. Once they change their posture participants are more likely to provide more feedback to the moderator making for more fruitful research insights.   

Body language experts suggest a key place to look at when a person is not being forthright is the face.

According to their research, we are likely to cover our eyes, ears or mouth with our hands when we hear or speak lies. A study of nurses in a role-playing situation were told to lie to their patients. The nurses who lied showed more hand-to-face gestures than those who didn’t. Those common lying gestures include: covering of the mouth, touching of the nose, rubbing of the eye, grabbing of the ear, scratching of the neck, pulling of their collar, or putting finger(s) in their mouth. Recognising these signs along with incompatible dialogue will help you weigh whether or not to consider excluding participant data.

Consider double-downing on your inquiry by rephrasing questions differently and see if the same answer is achieved. Seek clarification when body language tells you otherwise. Read back to the participant their earlier response and follow up with questions like “can you tell me more about that?” or “what did you mean when you said…?” If they respond differently than what they said earlier then there is a good chance that their gestures were revealing the truth about their lies.

In part II we will examine other gestures that hint at a person not being honest. Stay tuned!

References
Pease, A., & Pease, B. (2006). The Definitive Book of Body Language. New York: Bantam Dell Pub Group.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Navarro, J., & Karlins, M. (2008). What Every Body Is Saying. New York: HarperCollins.

Strack, F., Martin, L., and Stepper, S., (1988). “Inhibiting and facial conditions of the human smile: a non-obtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54.

Valentine, J., Best Practices for Equity Research Analysts (2011). New York: McGraw Hill.
“Conscious Competence Learning Model.” (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.businessballs.com/self-awareness/conscious-competence-learning-model-63/#toc-9

The post Understanding Body Language In UX Research Part I appeared first on UX Mastery.

Great literature works for a reason. 

Whenever the idea of storytelling comes up in the context of web design, there is a low-level snickering in the room. “Goodnight, Moon is not serious business,” designers and stakeholders think. “We’re talking about websites and apps that drive our business, not distract people.”

Whether we’re aware of it, we are surrounded by stories. We recount events to our friends and read about them on our phones. Everything from the news to personal conversations all flow from a beginning, middle, to the end. The subjects involve people, what they experienced, and how they dealt with it.

So, if this format is so engaging, I wanted to break down how it works and apply it as an approach to web design. As business leaders know, an engaged customer is more likely to be a loyal customer. We’re in a better position to secure loyalty if we engage in an efficient and meaningful way.

Enter: The Storytelling Canvas

The Storytelling Canvas is an approach I’ve created to help bring a team together to create purposeful design decisions for content websites. This approach will work for apps as well, but there is usually more narrative in a content site, so we’ll stick in that arena for this article. I’ll use the term customer when referring to the user, and business when referring to the organisation.

Even though artefacts like personas, information architectures, sitemaps, and card sorting, are helpful, they don’t necessarily result in content that answers the audience’s questions. It’s also easy to get lost in the act of creating these deliverable’s instead of addressing the critical needs. Unnecessary documentation for a project wastes time and offers no value.  

This canvas helps you keep your team focused on the real problems to solve throughout the project and allows them to be innovative within those bounds.

Great stories have five common elements

When you break down a story, you have these common elements: Theme, Setting, Character, Plot, and Conflict. How those elements play out results in the experience.

When we’re discussing a digital application, these five elements translate to core fundamentals of customer and business

Theme = Brand

This is the unique value that sets this business, product, or service apart from competitors. This includes the brand pillars as well as the visual identity.

Setting = Technology & Location

This defines where your customers are both physically and with which devices.

Character = Personas

These are the people interacting with your site. 

Plot = Journeys

These are the individual tasks or journeys a customer undertakes with your site.

Conflict = Moments that Matter

In every journey, there is a critical moment which will drive a customer away or toward deeper loyalty.

Set up & basic usage

I am an advocate for using a wall for creative work. Bringing thinking out in the open is a critical step with a team. Everyone has access to the canvas as it develops and matures. It’s also invaluable for stakeholders to see your work and thought process. If you are solo, you can ease conversations and approvals by setting up a miniature version of this on your own wall.

Whenever you have an idea, put it on the canvas in the appropriate section. If there are multiple people on the team, you can give them ownership of part of the canvas. In the early stages, these sections can be created simultaneously.

A note on research: it’s a common practice to understand your customer through many different forms of research. Surveys, interviews, call-centre records, and direct observation are just a few of the techniques available to you. I’m assuming that you gain a good, realistic view of your customers as you begin to flesh out the canvas.

Identify the Theme

If you have company brand guidelines, that’s a great place to start. If not, some of the basic tenants of the brand and visual direction of the site can go here.

Guiding principles, colours, typography, voice, and anything else you want to be considered appropriate for your site should go here. This doesn’t limit you to adding new things later, or even making refining cuts down the road. It enables you to declare what the theme is or is not, and by doing so gives you a healthy creative constraint. 

Identify the Setting

Mobile: check. Desktop: check. Riding in a cab at night: hmmmm. 

Identifying the technology is easy, and it’s likely to be similar choices for most projects. However, identifying the physical situation your customers are in is an informative guiding principle. Here are a few prompts to consider:

• Is a person sitting or moving?
• Will they be glancing for a moment or focusing for a long period of time?
• Are they outside in the weather or inside at their desk?
• What type of device is it?

It’s important to be specific yet not comprehensive. While in a perfect world the final site would satisfy every device in every condition, choose the most critical ones.

Identify the Characters

If you’re familiar with creating personas as biographical sketches, let me encourage you to break out of that approach. Ironically, when we invent a backstory around a persona we can think too narrowly about what they need. We are tempted to solve for the very specific cases, yet in reality people are much more nuanced. We also spend a lot of time creating this detail instead of ensuring we’re looking at the broader, more common needs.

Instead, create behavioural personas. These are sketches of the state of a person’s behaviour. For example, a 20-year old and a 60-year old person both can be a “New Customer.” Their tastes may be different because of their stage in life, but they will all have similar needs when it comes to interacting with your content such as signing up for an account or checking out for the first time.

By segmenting the characters this way you identify both a maturity path over time. This has an added benefit of creating specific gateways for people to engage with your site directly. Every “New Customer” has the potential to become a “Loyal Customer” and no longer has the need to be on-boarded.

We like to give these Characters names that stick in our minds. So, we might call the two above “New Nancy,” and “Loyal Leon.”

Identify the Plots

These are the journeys customers take within your site. There is always the greater customer journey of how they arrived on your site, but the canvas only looks at tasks within your site.

These should be phrased around an activity with an outcome-oriented feel. We want these to read from the customer’s perspective instead of as business goals. So, well-written plots would be “Learn more about product X,” or “Order a sample,” instead of, “Increase leads through the contact form.” 

Think of these journeys as the intent a customer has in mind when coming to the site as well as what the business would want them to accomplish. You may generate dozens of plots; however it is good reduce them to the most critical to focus on . You can do this through customer research as well as prioritising them with your stakeholder.

We aren’t interested in the details of how they accomplish the journey yet.

Identify the Conflicts

Lights, camera, action!

Conflicts are the highest moment of tension for customers, and for the success of your site.

Now we move to our working area of the canvas.

For every plot, put a character under it. Now ask the question the character would ask when confronted with this plot. A “New Customer” placed in the plot of “Learn more about product X” will ask a number of things, including, “How much does it cost?” “Where is it on the site?”

Immediately, you will notice the questions the characters are asking for a single plot are different. If they aren’t different, then either your personas are not unique enough, or you only need to solve for the one conflict and you will get both resolved.

You may have these conflicts as part of earlier customer research. That’s great. The more direct feedback you can get, the stronger your solution. But don’t discount the value in thinking ahead of the need as well. Identifying conflicts from internal people who deal with customers is also a great way to quickly ground yourself in the customer’s needs.

Designing an experience by resolving conflicts

Now we get to start exploring possibilities for our new experience.

For every character-plot-conflict pair, create ways to resolve that conflict. For example, if New Nancy is in a plot of “Learn about product X” and one of her critical conflicts is “How reliable is product X?” you might come up with these resolutions:

• Show photos of the product after 5-years of use
• Show customer testimonials
• Demonstrate the quality of the product materials
•  Give a 1-year guarantee
• And so on…

You may come up with several viable ideas but may need to pick only one to move forward with. You might see there are ways to combine a couple of individual ideas into one elegant idea (such as showing customer testimonials which include photos of their product).

As you solve for each character-plot-conflict, you may find that the resolution of one set applies equally as well to another set (or more). These become strong candidates to move forward since they may solve even more universal needs you can’t anticipate at this time.

Tying it all together

One output of the Storytelling Canvas is a site architecture, or experience map. Or you might jump right in with designing the visual experience with content and layout. Whatever you might call it, you want to bring together the common conflict resolutions into a logical and approachable navigation scheme.

You may find that beyond a site structure, some of your resolutions speak to one specific portion of a screen. This informs the Content Strategy which in turn can provide a distinct purpose for every page or snippet of content.

In the end we can only hope that Shakespeare might endorse our approach, “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.”

Stories are the fabric of our lives. It’s about time we leverage their power as a business tool and make a meaningful connection with our customers.

The post Crafting Content That Connects appeared first on UX Mastery.

It’s no surprise then that Smashing Magazine chose one of the city’s most beautiful and noted locales, the Palace of Fine Arts, to hold one of its conferences this year. 

Smashing Conference San Francisco 2017 was full of amazing speakers and concepts that could benefit all UX designers. Here are five of the key trends from the conference.

Accessibility is key

It’s easy to think about web accessibility in terms of the blind, deaf, or quadriplegic, and to write them off as representing a small minority of web users. After all, the industry as a whole has done so for years, arguing that designing to their needs was not a reasonable use of valuable development time.

But what about those who are recovering from eye surgery? Or the construction workers who can’t hear audio over the noise of the job site? What about the new mother using an app with one hand and holding a baby in the other?

The reality is that virtually all web users have experienced some sort of accessibility issue, regardless of whether or not their impairment was temporary or permanent.

The conference covered a wide range of topics, and accessibility was a topic of discussion for all. It’s clear that many of the industry’s top professionals have a renewed focus on developing sites, apps, and experiences that meet the needs and capabilities of all individuals, regardless of their limitations.  

For many UX professionals, learning to design with an eye for accessibility will be a new skill that can no longer be ignored.

Design systems and pattern libraries are getting easier and more common

Even in the world of user experience, not everyone has had the chance to work on a true design system or pattern library. The reason? They require a significant amount of effort, maintenance and documentation to setup. As many UX designers have experienced, it’s often hard to quantify the value of a design project based on the project’s expected return on investment. The nature of setting up a design system only makes the task of quantifying its value more difficult.   

But where there is differentiation based on using design systems, there’s often a big gap between the haves and the have-nots. Larger companies such as Google and AirBnB (to name a few of the front-runners) now use them as a matter of course, and see them as a strategic advantage over competitors.  

The rest of the web is catching on. Tools like Fractal and Astrum have sprouted up to allow even the smallest projects to adopt and efficiently use a pattern library or design system. UX professionals will be tasked with deciding both if a design system would be useful for a particular project, and then implementing that system if the benefits are there.

CSS Grid will make executing layouts easier

I’m convinced that some of the more experienced web designers still wake up some nights in a cold sweat, desperately gasping for breath as the old demons of their first table-based or float-based layouts mock them from dreamland.

Fortunately, Flexbox changed the game when it came to designing a more grid-based layout, and now CSS Grid looks to change things once again. CSS Grid allows designers to create layouts in rows in columns without having a content structure, which means that designs that once brought tears to developers’ eyes won’t be nearly as difficult to implement.  

CSS Grid has gained support from all modern browsers except for Microsoft Edge, though Edge has announced that they will be supporting it soon. With widespread support, look for CSS Grid-based designs to quickly become the norm.

Part of being a great UX designer is understanding the relative difficulty of implementing our designs. CSS Grid means a greater ease in implementation for developers, greater freedom for designers, and less time the two groups spend negotiating layouts.

That’s a win for everyone.

Optimistic Design is on the rise

In everyday life, we expect most of the tools we use to interact with our world will be successful the vast majority of the time. When we flip a light switch, we expect it will turn on. When we turn the knob to the sink, we expect water will start running. We only need to know about the very rare failures when they occur; we don’t need to expect the possibility of failure every time.

So why should the web be any different?

Optimistic Design is the concept that we can plan for our site to be successful in its “everyday” tasks. Errors are handled on the server rather than on the page, allowing us to move the user through the UI faster. Errors only return if they present themselves. The perceived upgrade in speed and responsiveness is a huge win for both users looking for speedy services and businesses looking to increase conversions.

Learning to implement Optimistic Design and defining best practices is a discipline that more designers will begin to tinker with over the course of the coming year.

There’s no excuse to stop learning

The one thing that Smashing 2017 San Francisco was absolutely full of was amazing speakers who had dedicated their lives to mastering a craft. Speakers focused on data visualisations, interactive emails, typography design, and so much more, all with the aim of making the web a better place for everyone.

All of these brilliant designers and developers clearly have one thing in common: they never stop learning.

The web is full of opportunities to make a name for ourselves in our own niche. The very nature of the internet is progressive and fluid. We’re all learning as we go, and nobody ever knows everything.  

Keep learning, keep improving, and keep making the web a better place.

For more insights from Smashing Conference, head to the forums to see Doug’s live coverage.

The post 5 UX Design Trends from Smashing Conference San Francisco appeared first on UX Mastery.

We came across this recently at work, when our general manager Damian unboxed a new 12” Macbook. We quickly noticed a problem: the new Macbook only had one port, with no adapter in sight. How was he going to charge his phone, or charge his new Magic Mouse, or connect his keyboard or monitor?

He was faced with a choice to either buy the $129 Apple adapter to use his screen and keyboard, or change the way he works. Resigned, Damian ordered the adapter.

This is just one example of the far-reaching impact that small design decisions can have on a user, whether intended or not.

I’m not sure about the intent behind the decision for just one port. Was it made with good intent – perhaps to progress an ‘all wireless’ ecosystem that Apple is planning?

Or was it made with consciously bad intent – to push for an upswing in accessory sales?

Without inside knowledge, we can’t know if this particular example from Apple example is intentional trickery. But there are plenty of examples where designs have indeed been created intentionally to deceive, known as dark patterns.

In this article, I’ll explain dark patterns, the psychology behind them, and how you can use smart (but not deceptive) techniques instead.

What are dark patterns?

In the online world, designs that are intentionally created to trick and deceive users are called dark patterns. Designers have crafted these ingenious, yet ethically questionable patterns to trick users into doing something they don’t want to do.

To create dark patterns, designers rely heavily on a good understanding of cognitive science and human behaviours. These are used to benefit the company behind them, to achieve goals like increasing sales and improving numbers of sign-ups.

It’s worth mentioning that I’m not talking about Anti-patterns here. They are just design mistakes that might have a negative impact on the user experience, or break conventions. Here’s an example.

I’ve become interested in dark patterns of late, and more specifically, the convergence of human psychology and cognitive science.

At a high-level, you can think of dark patterns akin to the tricks of a dodgy car salesman. These tricks are even easier to pull off in the digital space – you can’t look under a website to see a tell-tale puddle of oil on the ground to identify a dark pattern.

Dark patterns in action

All across the web, you’ll find dark patterns being used through practices like friend spamming, disguised ads, hidden costs, and more. Luckily, the UX industry is fighting back against dodgy practices through websites like darkpatterns.org, which is dedicated to educating designers and calling out questionable digital practices. It currently lists 14 ‘types’ of dark pattern to watch for.

Here are a couple of examples to be wary of.

Trick questions

Here’s a recent example that was featured in The Age a couple of months ago. 

The article refers to “Simon”, who is extremely careful with his personal information, and is happy with his one bank. Simon was surprised when a rival bank, ANZ, sent a personalised letter to his home, inviting him to become a “platinum member”.

After digging and hassling on the phone, an ANZ representative finally revealed that they had received his details from Veda, who are Australia’s largest credit reporting agency.

It turns out that a few weeks earlier, Simon had been to the Veda website to fill out a form to obtain a personal credit report.

At the end of the form, Veda provides a pre-ticked checkbox that gives consent to Veda and its “corporate partners” to use his personal data for marketing purposes.

It’s a cheap trick, but it’s not an accident. The designers are playing to the fact that people tend to scan pages and don’t really read things properly. Especially when it comes to terms and conditions at the end of a long form.

The inclusion of a big, red button helps to distract the user away from the offending text even more.

Bait and switch

Candy Crush fans have probably fallen victim to the bait and switch, another common dark pattern.

As you start playing, the game conditions you to hit the big button in the centre of the screen for all key actions. You hit play to start a game, and play – in the same position – to start a new level. You hit the retry button – still in the same position – to start a level again if you lose.

And if you’re out of moves and not looking closely, you could easily hit this button.

The difference is, it now has a different function. The UI baits you into thinking you know what the action will be, then sneakily switches this in to make you spend virtual currency, taking you one step closer to an in-app purchase.

The designer has taken advantage of human neuroscience here. By conditioning users to continually hit the call-to-action in the centre of the screen, the user’s mind recognises the pattern and over time diverts conscious attention away from reading the label.

Turning to persuasion over dark patterns

Why do people resort to dark patterns and underhanded trickery? It’s often when business needs are placed too far above user needs and design expertise. Perhaps when people are asked to do something unethical to please their boss, or to meet a particular KPI. It can be difficult for designers to push back on these priorities, forcing a moral and ethical dilemma.

This got me thinking. Is there another, more ethical way to achieve the same kinds of results? How can we, as designers persuade people to do stuff without trickery?

It turns out that we can use the same principles of psychology that dark patterns employ to persuade users instead, and to invoke positive behaviour changes.

It’s important to note that we’re talking about ethical use of persuasive techniques here – and not leveraging cognitive science against users to achieve business goals. Persuasive design, when used responsibly, can leverage a good understanding of cognitive science to add value to a user’s experience, and increase user engagement.

Above all else, it is our responsibility to ensure users retain their right of choice.

The Fogg Behaviour Model by Stanford University’s BJ Fogg, says that for a behaviour to occur, there needs to be a sufficient level of both motivation and ability.

So if you want to persuade someone to do something with your product, you need to first make them want to do it, then second, make it easy for them. Let’s take a look at how we can use motivation and ability in design.

Ability

As a designer, it’s typical for us to focus on ability first. That’s the part we usually have more control of. There are 6 basic elements of ability:

• Time
• Money
• Effort
• Cognitive load
• Social acceptance
• Routine

If you can influence these aspects, your user is far more likely to do the intended behaviour.

This might sound complex, but it isn’t always hard to make something easier, and it doesn’t even have to be a huge change to achieve a significant result. In fact, you’re probably already doing these sorts of things as a matter of best practice in making designs usable.

A great example is the $300 Million button story. In this well-known case study told by Jared Spool, he explains how simply changing the label on a single button increased an online retailer’s profit by $300 million in a single year.

There’s a little more to this story. The change removed the barrier of having to create an account before making a purchase. It’s a great example of how making a simple change to improve a user’s ability can have an enormous positive impact.

Persuasive techniques can be used for bad, too. Cash back on purchases are one way the ethical line gets blurred. When you have to jump through hoops to get your refund (filling in a long form, photocopying the receipt and mailing it), then the ‘ability’ to complete the cash-back is low. In this case, it’s likely that some buyers won’t bother to complete the action – which is exactly what the retailer wants. It hardly seems worth it for a $200 refund for a $1700 purchase, for example.

This isn’t a mistake – it’s designed to maximise purchases and minimise rebates through cognitive science.

Motivation

In the cash back example, you start to see how motivation part comes into play. It might be easier for a designer to control the ‘ability’, but we can also influence motivation with a good understanding of human psychology.

People’s key motivators include:

• Desire for completion and order
• Delight and emotional connection
• Variable rewards

Understanding what motivates people is the powerful bit, and if you think back to those dark pattern examples now, you’ll realise that although they’re outrageously dodgy practices, it’s not just about the interfaces, but the way those interfaces are put together in response to a good understanding of human behaviour.

Fitbit, for example, is very effective in tapping into people’s desire for completion and order. Staying focussed on being active and keeping fit is a hard behaviour to crack. It’s very easy to put off heading out for a run and just sit on the couch instead.

Fitbit knows this. By adding little achievements that need to be completed, like measuring 10,000 steps, they appeal to our natural tendency as humans to want to ‘complete’ the step goal.

These are powerful techniques. And the great thing about persuasive design is that its influence has the potential to do more than simply help us get people to use our product.

Design is more than aesthetics and usability

Us designers wield enormous power, but it’s easy to forget that when we’re deep at the coal face, buried in research findings and wireframes. Take a moment now and again to remember that it’s not just about aesthetics and usability. We help shape the lives of people everywhere, and our decisions can have significant impacts on the way we as a society behave.

Design is an evolutionary discipline. We don’t invent, we learn from the past. Designers practising the craft now are setting the example for the future generations.

Don’t always take the cheap, easy, dark patterns option. Understand that we do have great power and can use cognitive science to influence and persuade, but respect that power and use it for good, not evil. Think responsibly.

And as for Damian, he bought the expensive adapter for his new laptop. And it doesn’t even accommodate all the cables he needs!

The post Under the influence: Dark patterns and the power of persuasive design appeared first on UX Mastery.

To celebrate, the lovely folks at Optimal Workshop have pulled together the ultimate UX and Marketing Toolkit to give away to one lucky person.

Note: we don’t use the word “ultimate” lightly here—upworthy this aint. This is a prize pool consisting of nearly $30,000 worth of tools, services, and training material that are immediately useful for UXers.

All you have to do to enter is take a photo of “something that engaged you today” and explain why you found it engaging. User experience is all about engagement, after all, and it’s the theme for this year’s global event.

An annual subscription to the Optimal Workshop product suite is just one of many prizes up for grabs. Matt and myself will be part of the judging panel. While our professional ethics prevent us from allowing any bias to influence our decision, of course we’d love to see this amazing prize go to one of our readers.

So listen up—here’s how to win:

1. Take a photo of something that engaged you today.
2. Upload it and explain why it’s engaging.
3. Share it with the world!

You can also vote for your favourite entries, even if you haven’t entered. The ten entries with the highest number of votes will go to the grand final to be judged by the panel, which includes Matt, myself, and Andrew the CEO of Optimal Workshop.

Here’s what’s included in the prize pack:

• Annual subscription to Treejack, OptimalSort, and Chalkmark, worth $1,990
• Annual subscription to Moz, worth over $1,150
• 25 UserTesting.com credits, worth $1,225
• Lifetime access to Crazy Egg, worth over $7,000
• 6 month subscription to Intercom, worth over $1,200
• Annual subscription to Visual Website Optimizer A/B testing, worth over $720
• Annual license to Loop 11, worth $9,900
• UXPin Annual Pro Plan, worth $480
• ProdPad Annual Plus Plan, worth $708
• 21 UX ebooks from Rosenfeld Media, worth $319
• Axure RP license, worth $589
• Trello Gold plan, worth $45
• Contactually small business annual plan, worth $432
• Wistia small business annual plan, worth $240

The internet has always risen to the challenge when it comes to coming up with creative imagery, so I look forward to seeing what comes out of this!

You have until December 4 to enter, so get snapping and good luck!

P.S. Check out what’s happening around the world for World Usability Day.

The post Win the Ultimate UX Toolkit (We’re Talking $30,000 Worth of Stuff) appeared first on UX Mastery.

I say need, not want—a content audit isn’t something you’re necessarily going to want to tackle. It’s one of those un-sexy, tedious jobs that hardly anyone talks about. But you can’t undertake a redesign of a content-heavy site without it.

What is a Content Audit?

A content audit is the activity of checking all of the content on a website, and compiling it into a big list. There are three main types of audits you can perform:

• Full content inventory: A complete listing of every content item on the site. This may include all pages as well as all assets (such as downloadable files and videos).
• Partial content inventory: A listing of a subset of the site’s content. A partial inventory may include, for example, the top few levels of a hierarchical site or the past six months of articles. All sections of the site will be covered.
• Content sample: A less detailed collection of example content from the site.

What is a Content Audit Used For?

The main purpose of a content audit is to produce a listing of the site’s content, usually in a big spreadsheet.

This list of content will come in handy at various stages of the project. If you’re re-doing the information architecture, you’ll return to it again and again to remind yourself of the details of each page; you can also use it to talk to authors about managing and rewriting their content; and if you’re going to be moving to a new content management system, you’ll use it to keep note of what you started with, and where you’re up to.

That said, having a comprehensive list of content isn’t the only benefit of this process. Just by taking the audit you’ll get a much better understanding of the content. You may find things you didn’t know existed, spot duplication and identify all kinds of relationships in the content. It can also serve as a precursor to a more comprehensive content analysis, but that’s a topic for another post!

What Does a Content Audit Include?

I always record a content audit in a spreadsheet, mainly because spreadsheets are so flexible. They are also great at holding a large amount of information in a fairly manageable way. Plus they’re easy to share with other people.

I recommend collecting the following information for every page:

• Navigation title: The name of the main navigation link to the content (e.g. the link title in the main navigation)
• Page name: The displayed page title
• URL: You may want to display the URL or just link from the page name
• Comments: Notes and things for you to remember
• Content hierarchy: Some way of showing the basic relationship of the content items

You may also like to add information about:

• Content Type: Is this a basic page, publication, news story, article, technique, FAQ, or something else?
• Basic content description: A brief reminder about what’s on the page
• Topic, tags or category: Meta data for products, articles, news, blog posts
• Author: Who wrote this content?
• Owner: Who is responsible for the content?
• Date last updated: When was the content last updated?
• Attached files: How many files are attached, and what type of files are they?
• Related: What information is linked from sidebars or Related Links boxes on this page?
• Availability: Is the content available to desktop, mobile and/or app users? Is the content syndicated to other sites?
• A numbering system: An index to help you when referring to each content item.

You may need to collect different information for each type of content. For example, you may want to list topics or categories for news content; and only list downloadable files in a publications area.

The most important thing to know about a content audit is there really is no right or wrong way to do it—it’s a tool for you to use throughout your project, so create your content audit in a way that will help you. And don’t be afraid to adapt it after you start—each client and project is different, so  each audit will be different.

Where to Begin

Getting started is easy! Here’s how I go about it.

1. List the main pages or sections of the site in the first column of your spreadsheet (right alongside your index). Here’s an example of content audit spreadsheet for a site that may look familiar:

   

2. Choose one page to start with and dive into it, capturing the information you’ve decided upon for that page.
3. If that page has sub-pages, make a list of each of them, and repeat the process for each of these in turn.

   

4. Then just keep going, until you’ve explored and written down everything you need to. That’s really all there is to it.

   

Auditing your content it this way—writing down details of the current page, then listing the sub-pages, then exploring a page—builds out your list in a way that allows you to come back and explore each section one-by-one.

If you’re auditing a big site, it can be very easy to get lost—it’s important to take this process step-by-step, and to finish one section before starting another.

Tips

• If your site is run from a CMS, you should be able to get access to a list of all the pages from the site. If it’s a good CMS, and the content is already fairly well structured, you may even be able to have the CMS generate a good quality starter audit for you. If the CMS can’t do it, a tool like the Content Analysis Tool may help.
• Don’t capture information you are unlikely to need or use. If you’re unsure whether you need information for a specific page, write it down for a handful of pages, to get a feel for whether it will be useful. You can always come back and fill it in for other pages at a later stage.
• It can sometimes be difficult to determine how a site is structured. In fact, often the process of figuring out what the main sections of a site are can be a challenge. Don’t worry too much about getting the relationships right and showing how pages are connected at the beginning. Just focus on getting pages written down into the spreadsheet—as you get through the audit, you may find a better way of organising the information.
• Don’t expect the content audit to be fast. Big sites can take days and days to audit. I use this fact as an excuse to buy new music, then sit down and plough through it!
• Don’t try to take shortcuts, skip sections or skim through without really looking. It’s important that you understand all of the content before you try to work with it later.
• If you’re working on a brand new site, a content audit can still be useful. Instead of starting with the current site, make a list of all of the resources you’ll be using—printed procedure manuals, fact sheets, videos, paper forms and other documents that will influence the site.

It All Starts with Content

Whether you decide to create a comprehensive list of every item, or just a sample selection, a content audit is a crucial first step in the path to understanding any content-heavy website. While the process may sound tedious (and, granted, often is!), undertaking this process will provide you with the insight and context you need to make informed design decisions.

Creating a content audit doesn’t require years of experience, but it does require patience, persistence, curiosity, and attention to detail—all good traits of a UX Designer!

Download the content inventory spreadsheet used in this example.

The post How to Conduct A Content Audit appeared first on UX Mastery.

Read some of our other reviews or see our full list of online UX courses.

Course Information

• Course Name: How to Develop an Information Architecture using Card Sorting
• Author: Joji Mori
• Hosted by: udemy
• Length: 10 lectures (approx 1.5 hours of video content and additional downloadable resources)
• Intended Audience: Beginners to the field of practical UX, or anyone interested in learning manual or online card sorting techniques.
• What You’ll Learn: The entire card sorting process from beginning to end, including determining and labelling the cards, recruiting participants, moderating the process and analysing the results. Both manual and online techniques are covered.
• Assumed Knowledge: A very basic understanding of web structure, information architecture and UX jargon.
• Price at time of review: US $99

Review

As a relative newcomer to the field of UX, I wasn’t sure how equipped I was to take this course, but I needn’t have worried. From the moment I hit play I felt well looked after. The presenter has a likeable, direct nature and an informal, easy to understand way of explaining new terms and concepts. The opening lecture introduces the subject, explains the basic premise of a card sort and outlines what is included in the course.

I have reviewed a number of courses over the past months and one of the most common complaints that I have is the monotonous nature of the slides. I have no such complaint this time. The slides in this course are a varied and interesting compilation of explanatory points and diagrams, software demonstrations and face to face lectures. The course is not quite as slickly presented as some that I’ve taken, and occasional background noises like banging doors were sometimes distracting, but I didn’t find my mind wandering at any point, which is so often the case while undertaking self directed learning.

The course is broken up into short, easily digestable chunks, and includes a number of downloadable resources – a moderation guide, a recruitment template and a reporting template, to name a few – which are accompanied by clear demonstrations of how they can be utilised.

The introductory lecture promises that by the end of the course participants will be able to conduct either a manual or online card sort, analyse the data that is collected, and report the results back to the business, and it definitely delivers on that promise.

The Presenter

Joji Mori is a teacher, consultant, and specialist in information architecture, user experience & usability. Part of U1 Group, a dedicated team of UX professionals from Sydney and Melbourne, Joji has spent the last decade designing interactive technologies for desktop, web and mobile platforms, both commercially and as part academic research. He is passionate about good user experience and imparting his knowledge to others. You can find more information about Joji at jojimo.com.

The Udemy Experience

I have spoken at length about my appreciation of the udemy web interface in previous reviews. I have mentioned in the past that I find it intuitive and well suited to my learning style, however after taking this course I need to add a caveat to that – it depends on how well the interface is utilised by the presenter. In this case, rather than listing resources in the downloads section of the appropriate lecture, they have been set up as separate lectures, which I found very confusing. If the course is set to auto-play it doesn’t cope well when it gets to a lecture which isn’t actually a lecture! I also found many of the slides in this course to be very blurry* (see Fig 2.), which at times was frustrating.

* Note: It has since been pointed out to me that turning on the HD setting goes a long way to clearing up the blurriness of the slides!

Pros

• Clearly presented, well explained concepts;
• Delivers on all of the promises made;
• Good variation of slides, holding my attention at all times; and
• Excellent templates and resources are provided for download.

Cons

• Some slides are very blurry*;
• Downloads and lectures are not very well organised into the Udemy framework; and
• Occasional distracting noises can be heard.**

*    It has since been pointed out to me that turning on the HD setting goes a long way to clearing up the blurriness of the slides!

**  To their credit, U1 have been through and re-recorded the offending videos, which I think is commendable.

Summary

Overall, How to Develop an Information Architecture using Card Sorting is a great course. It promises that by the end, students will be able to organise, carry out and present both a manual and an online card sort with no prior experience, and I feel confident that I could do that after taking it. Joji Mori is an articulate teacher and the concepts and related terminology are clearly and simply explained. The slides aren’t as professional as those I have seen in other courses, but the material is comprehensive and easy to digest.

• Content (how useful, up to date, practical, and comprehensive): 9/10
• Delivery (presentation style, pace, clarity, authority): 8/10
• Production (video quality, audio quality, editing): 8/10
• User Interface (reliable infrastructure, usable interface, convenient): 7/10
• Overall rating: 8.5/10

Take this course.

How to Develop an Information Architecture using Card Sorting is hosted at udemy. Note: This post contains affiliate links, so if you do decide to enrol in the course, we’ll receive a percentage of the sale, to help pay the hosting bills.

The post Review: <em>How to Develop an Information Architecture using Card Sorting</em> appeared first on UX Mastery.

Everett is Principal of UX Design Edge and author of UI Is Communication: How to design intuitive, user-centered interfaces by focusing on effective communication and this morning he was sharing his knowledge on the subject of UI for Non-designers.

The premise behind Ask the UXperts is one expert, one hour, all your questions answered. It was a busy session and lots of great questions were asked and answered.

If you didn’t make the session because you didn’t know about it, make sure you join our community to get updates of upcoming sessions. If you’re interesting in seeing just what we discussed, or you want to revisit your own questions, here is a full transcript of today’s chat.

The post Transcript: <em>Ask the UXperts</em> — UI for Non-designers with Everett McKay appeared first on UX Mastery.