STOP wasting time on these problems RIGHT NOW!

This is not a life-hack, designing good products is still hard work. Just don't waste time on unnecessary things.

Are you on the internet?

Being “online” as a business is quite obvious for a while now. A few years ago mobile users started becoming the majority, so being “online” and being “responsive” in the design became another trend. This is now completely normal and obvious. Web sites, e-commerce, portals and apps are now more available than ever. I am assuming you’re not “considering” to have RWD (Responsive Web Design) added in 2019 ;) 

So assuming our business is online and can be accessed on a variety of devices, here comes the …

Problem

Most of the digital products (be it an app or a website) are NOT the Apple or Uber in their category. They have chaotic, overcomplicated UI’s and clarity and readability is severly lacking. 

That in turn leads directly to decrease in sales / prestige / happy users. This problem often comes from large teams designing by committee. The oversight gets lost and the entire vision is blurred.

Let’s try and solve it!

When our product is NOT converting we decide to give a shot at the good ol’ UX. There must be something we can do to fix this, right? And UX seems to cure bad design, the flu and lack of soy milk at our local Starbucks. So we gather our teams, create personas (which in most cases is just a waste of resources), ideate, wireframe, then talk some more. 

This takes TIME.

Then we redesign and the effect is … only a tiny bit better. Some problems we have managed to fix, other problems morphed into different categories and are still there.

Heuristics

The world is running forward fast. When we sort our little cards and create personas, someone already did an A/B test and is working on the use of AI to better understand the users. Or making a full, expandable Design System. We haven’t designed anything but we have created Joe, Anna and Markus and are thinking how those imaginary friends will use our product. All that AI and design systems seem to be a lot of work anyway. 

Method

Let me ask you a question - do you try to solve every problem / question you encounter on your own? Or do you go online and search in Google or Wikipedia to find the answer? We are aware that there’s that huge sea of collective knowledge out there yet we refuse to let it work for our product. 

We seriously know A LOT about good, converting and friendly mobile apps, websites and portals. We know what works. We know what doesn’t work. We know how much “content” can our users read without a distraction (hint: not a lot!) and what colors, fonts, icons are truly helpful instead of adding to the distraction. 

Here comes the doubt!

Ok Mike - so you’re saying that every UX problem can be solved using a simple google search?

Of course NOT. Let me explain.

THE Solution.

A lot of the problems are quite easy to fix. Those problems come from over-complicating, lack of readability and chaos. 

So before we jump into research, surveys and testing it’s best to solve these first. 

That way when we do ask our users about what problems they have they won’t say

“I couldn’t find the login button”

or

“I didn’t know that I could even click that!”.

That in turn will only give us true feedback without our users stating the obvious.

Fix the OBVIOUS problems first (or hire someone like us to help you;) and THEN go on the UX process spree and refinements. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and frustration that way.