Usable Designs

Advocating User Experience one step at a time

Cat Dodge on LinkedIn: "Brooke Dunagan, CXA, PMI-ACP, CSM reminded us that, like most things in life, getting business and client buy in is all about relationships. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to learn from her years of experience, and... February 28, 2019: Cat Dodge posted images on LinkedIn

Supporting a small business supports multiple families. This year, look around and see all the talent and uniqueness around you. Think big, buy small.

Support local business. Period. Keep the $ circulating in house.

False Positive: that UX moment when a user says they love the product, it’s easy to use and then slowly fail every task. Or when they tell you a feature would be great and then promptly remind you that they’d never use it but it would be cool.

The English language has so many inconsistencies it’s surprising we remember all the rules.

Social media can be a tool or it can be a time suck. Its power is tremendous but with all powerful things, harnessing it to your benefit isn’t straightforward. Friday I’ll be sharing tips with members at CFG.World to help them use social media to influence the world. www.CFG.World

User experience isn’t just about pointing out the problem, it’s also about creating a solution. It’s a scientific process with a hypothesis and testing for validation. Most importantly it’s trying, even if that means failing before succeeding.

I recently had a conversation with a marketing manager for a high-end fast food chain about a feature that they had on their mobile app that didn't function in a way that makes sense. The app didn't allow for an easy change from the user about the method in which they pick up their food. Carryout versus the Drive Thru. From the user's perspective, the food comes from the same store. The method by which the users takes the food is moot, it's their food.

As with most things, the problem is a back-end issue. One method of getting the food is in one system, while the other method is in another system. If the user finds the method they originally chose has a line that wraps around the building the only way in which to change it is to pull a manager to the side and have them manually edit their order in the system.

The user doesn't care about your back end. They don't care if there are 20 systems in the back that are all ad-hocked together with duct tape, as long as its seamless for them on the front end. Honestly, they shouldn't care. It's not the user's responsibility to make up for the lack of foresight from technology or stumble through the experience because the infrastructure doesn't support it.

In the end, instead of having a nice feature that users will enjoy, a situation is being created that causes more frustration for user. This could have all been avoided by a reasonable budget and usability testing on the app feature prior to development. Unfortunately once an app is rolled out, the desire and willingness to make a change diminishes exponentially. Partly due to human nature and the apathy of the development team. To admit the features needs to be changed is to admit that something is wrong. Not an easy task for many people.

Until the process of usability testing is implemented before massive amounts of money are spent on a project, we'll continue to see products that don't work as intended and team members unwilling to admit they need to change. Most importantly, we'll see some really unhappy users who may abandon a tool that is beneficial to the company.

Imagine if the team of every project considered this concept. The success would be astounding.