6 random design research extractions from my experience

1. Younger vs older users

— Psychology

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Younger people are less responsible and tend to skip/spend less time when screening questions more often than elders. Which means that your quantitative research can display biased results without filtering by the age of the testers.

Also, younger people tend to skip onboarding processes relying on their experience and erudition. On the other hand, elders thoughtfully go through the education process, consciously reading the prompts.

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Learnings

• Captain obvious suggests you to make sure your interface is intuitive enough as there’re users who skip every onboarding.
• Filter your research results by the age of the testers
• Make sure you know your audience as the user behaviour may vary due to the age difference

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2. User and their character

— Psychology

Users are followed by their character more than they think. Even when trying not to be biased they still very dependant on their background. It means that when people are asked to be abstract when participating on qualitative research would still act the same way.

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Learnings

• You can ask users to be unbiased but don’t expect them to become 100% trustworthy
• Testers can follow different archetypes while testing and while actually using products

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3. UI transitions dose

Actually, broken is a wrong word. In this case it’s so much better to show rather than tell. Have a look at the image below.

Jest turn your head 30 degrees or more and perform the interaction. The transition must subtle enough not be noticeable with these conditions.

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Learnings

• Transitions can guide and misguide users
• Divide interactions by primary and secondary groups and never let the 2nd group to be too loud

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4. Misjudging product assets

—   Psychology

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Displaying top notch device (iPhone) on a product landing page can be misunderstood. People tend to apply the visuals to themselves. If they see the device they don’t have they’d rather treat the product as something that is not for them. People with the most recent devices though feel fine seeing older models, assuming the product will look/function even better on their device.

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5. Website navbar role

—  User behaviour

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Most users go to navigation bar when their questions are not answered or when they know exactly what to look for. It means that they really scroll before using the navbar and ready to spent time scanning through your website before they get tired. Also, simplifying the UI increases the time the user is ready to spend on the web page.

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Learnings

• Make sure the web page answers most of the user questions and design a way to learn more that is explicit enough so it put confidence in user actions
• Navigation bar itself can also confuse users if it has too much in it
• Be especially thoughtful on mobile

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Misjudging client logotypes

—  Psychology

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Logotypes of clients on landing pages really work but famous brands such as Google and Apple are understood as visual noise and are not considered as a piece of valuable information. Great option would be displaying local brands and their logotypes depending on the user location.

I guess users just want to feel safe seeing something that is so familiar to them as and at the same time now so widely spread

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Learnings

• Suggest users visuals that resonate with them and something that is not all over the internet so it’s not considered as just a visual noise

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