You are the dumbest user...UX/User Experience

Story time;

Context; (The year is 2021. I'm 23, and working for a FemTech as a PM & Co-Founder)

My best friend often came to visit me at our offices at the end of work days.

On one particular visit, I remember feeling extremely exhausted.

What was troubling, was that I had been trying to read and comprehend a simple email for almost an hour.

I just didn't seem to understand what the email was saying.

"Please read this for me and tell me what it is saying," I asked her as I lay my head on my desk.

She read and explained it. Yet even then, it felt like what she said flew right past me.

"Babez, let's go home, you look beat, you'll respond tomorrow."

We shut my laptop and called it a day.

The Problem

Looking back, I now understand what was happening. Something that happens to us almost every day.

My?pre-frontal cortex?- the part of my brain responsible for?cognitive ability and attention, was 'shutting down.'

The pre-frontal cortex diminishes in ability when we are?exposed to a flood of neurotransmitters and stress hormones.

This is why, when under long periods of stress, we are more prone to error, poor decision-making, and diminished creativity.

Stress - a common script in the world of adulting.

We are all dealing with multiple facets of life all at once; multitasking and overthinking as the order of the day.

Meaning a?huge chunk of the human population is operating under elevated levels of stress, with a flood of neurotransmitters doing multiple jobs at once.

This results in the diminished use of our pre-frontal cortex. (what makes us smart)

Therefore in layman's language,?half the time, we are moving 'dumb'.

Where am I going with this?

So what if we are moving dumb?

What does that have to do with tech?

Well, this piece of information is especially vital in product building.

Product Building

In product building, the rule of thumb is to?'build for the dumbest user"

When we think of the 'dumbest user', we imagine that kid from class who sucked at math or our friend who takes too long to get a joke.

When in reality, we are the dumbest user.

This is why the simplest products built with the dumbest users in mind always win.

This brings forth the necessity of?UX Principles.

UX -?User experience of the product.

As the dumbest user, is this product easy and seamless for me to use?

Example;

A common feature set on this principle is;

• The remember me feature - prompts your browser/ application to remember your authentication details based on a saved cookie.

This, centered on the assumption that our users may not always have the cognitive ability to remember their password.

This simple tactic contributes greatly to the seamless experience of a product.

It is therefore paramount to shape the design of a product on UX principles that target the dumbest user; me & you.

So as you re-wire, recheck and re-iterate your design, eliminate the familiarity bias and ask yourself;

Would the dumbest user easily use this?

Don't worry if the answer is bending towards a 'no'.

That is part of the building process.

Build, test, iterate, rebuild, test, and improve until we have a product that is usable and satisfies the customer's need.

Stay tuned for our next article as I share more on UX principles and UX designers.

Tata techiez??