This list comes from my distant past as a UX designer but I just happened across it and think it bears a bounce. Here it is, largely as it appeared nine years ago. I think these fails still hold up…unfortunately.
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Every interface has an energy budget –there is no way around that. Some interfaces cheap out on the creation side and save all the work for the user, others get the effort out up front by investing in making the interface easy for the user. But here’s the thing: Making something complex seem simple requires a heavy pair of usability goggles -and usability goggles don’t come off easily. There are examples of user experience pitfalls everywhere, and if you look around with the right kind of eyes, you’ll see them all over. Here are my* Top 5…
Unsafe Exposure
Features that are poorly prioritized, or when appropriate, not tucked away, can result in frustrating mistakes. An infamous example of this, detailed by Donald Norman, is the swapped position of the ejector seat and throttle controls in fighter jets used to train pilots. Really.
Unprioritized or poorly grouped tools that vary greatly in function and importance provide no guiding visual hierarchy and they lose meaning (inviting accidental use at the cost of functionality and user confidence).
Unsafe exposure goes hand in hand with there being too many tools in the first place. This leads us to the big fuzzy monster of…
Feature Creep
This application has to do…everything. The law of diminishing returns tells us that every new feature or doodad that is added dilutes the overall value of the others. What’s more, there is an all too easy line to cross whereby each new doodad actually reduces the overall value.
You get something that lets you do everything but really doesn’t let you do anything. But at least you aren’t tricked into doing the wrong thing…
The Red Herring
Ever see a design element that looks like it’s the thing that does the stuff but it’s not? They don’t look pretty, they look like a frustrated user.
Red herrings tend to invite funny hurried fixes, which is the 4th type of User Experience pitfall…
The Bolt-On
Thinking through the entire workflow of a design, considering carefully the audience, and testing thoroughly will, I assure you, lead to cost savings and reduced headaches down the road. Bolt-ons are expensive, and they usually fail. In many cases they serve only to hilariously highlight what the original problem was.
Bolt-ons are symptoms of a failure to plan and, usually, the dangerous assumption that the folks you are helping are defuses. Which leads us to the 5th and most sinister User Experience pitfall…
User Contempt
Sometimes in an effort to make something so fail-safe that everyone can (or must) make sense of it, a User Experience becomes so verbose, regimented, and tedious that nobody can. The blanket projection of dimwittedness, or an overdose of design hand-wringing, is easy to slip into and lead to a burdensome UX. These design environments are generally borne of anxiety and a lack of confidence. Users are smart.
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Happy Designing! *John (circa 2010)
Great stroll down memory lane. John, you are great at what you do! Thank you!
Hey Scott! Yes, you’ve busted me mining some old IDV ore. Oldie but goodie.