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Sticking to UI/UX trends is a losing strategy

Published on <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/reiterations-will-set-you-free-8f537200d2ad?source=rss----eb297ea1161a---4">| Prototyping: From UX to Front End &mdash; Medium</a> Alex Gurgulescu <img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/650/1*rb99bv3AL_wDBAlTi6nYKA.png">Break through from your mold — Zenos Frudakis, Philadelphia, USA
<h4>tl;dr version: 7 learnings about user experience design.</h4>
<h4>“User experience” un-defined</h4>
In the last years I’ve observed and participated in quite a few debates revolving the definition of “user experience”. Bottom line: there are many ways to look at it. Some people call what they do “Product Design”. Others focus on the reasons and patterns that trigger certain behaviours. They define &amp; refine “UX Research”. One can even go in a very holistic direction and enter the realm of “UX Architecture” or “Information Architecture”. And the list could go on. Nowadays any UX practitioner has probably made up his mind and has some strong arguments that would favour his/her definition and point of view. My wish is to share seven learnings that relate to UX design from my perspective, in a good-old cheesy motivational style.
<h4>1. UX can be triggered in unexpected places</h4>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*tKwzbFTrylgfXqX1COs_nQ.png">Sculpture — Hotel Diafan, Author unknown (to me), Baia Mare, Romania
Give the user more than one way to get something done. Indeed you have conceived an UX flow. But never underestimate the user; he will turn your flow upside down and WILL find a way to do things differently than you imagined it. Think of the UX of an Operating System or the UX of a social sharing flow on a mobile platform for example. Quickly run through your head the shear diversity of ways in which you are empowered to do stuff in these two. Even more so — in a business-critical project, what may be a hidden gem for one user is the bread and butter of a daily routine for another. So go that extra mile and think of multiple ways* to get [ it ] done.
*Further points will contradict this one. They will consistently contradict it!
<h4>2. User centric = organise data visually</h4>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/680/1*7VtvG1Zio2OEKYzLfLKhrg.png">Shadow art — Kumi Yamashita
So I keep hearing “I am not a UI Designer, I only focus on UX”. Oh, bollocks! — pardon my french. You make a spacial arrangement of some type of content at some degree — high-level or detailed. Even when you draft the most abstract of all wireframes, even when you tackle high-level information architecture topics — you’d better think about the implications. Remember that you’re creating for a fellow human being.
Think about how you display hierarchy of information, how font size, icons, colour, animation, transitions interact — all these things will help you tell the story. And if you also cover the UI role — all the better. Do you have to list 500 items that contain 32-character ID Numbers for a warehouse app / medical database? And it needs to look sharp on mobile? Well, ask yourself: Can it be shortened? Can it be labeled / grouped somehow? Can you replace certain long abstract strings with simple icons? Always loop with the client / your team and try get the best out of structuring the data. Visually and logically. Remember — you are creating for a fellow human.
In the end, as you will discover — there is such a serenity in making visual sense of that data. That same data that maybe looked so abstract when you first received it in a horrid xls from the client. Remember — you…you got the picture.
<h4>3. From simple building blocks to a work of art</h4>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/700/1*A0piJSRagmA-0swbACNVzA.png">Toothpics — Tom Friedman
Well, maybe not art but certainly a product that delights. And by “delights” I mean an experience that requires the shortest learning curve to produce an expected result. How can you achieve that? Mobile UX design, web UX design, UX design for special-purpose / industrial / medical apps.. what do they all have in common, although each does it differently? Patterns. Learn to make use of the UX patters of the platform you’re designing for. Understand the components and use them extensively; they exist for a reason. Don’t go custom when you can go straight to the point with device-specific or OS-specific UX patterns. And once you have that MVP up and running, you can start polishing, refining and adding to it, as described in point 1. But don’t go and reinvent the wheel for nothing. The developers will hate you for it and the client will be outraged why the extra-costs and why so many sprints to implement an… apparently simple calendar, for example. Instead of reinventing the wheel, you might.. read on, point 4.
<h4>4. Change your strategy: don’t reinvent the wheel. Style it differently, instead.</h4>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*Z6qc1jfadZA85SkAHBlaGg.png">Chess set — Max Ernst
So — you mastered using platform-specific patterns? And you’ve come to the conclusion that your work looks boring, just like the app next door? No worries, many things can be radically improved in the development of the high fidelity UI, with a few tweaks here and there, without messing with core UX patterns and components. Sometimes you might want to add subtle elements of interaction to your concept, in order to highlight that particular [ it ] you want to emphasise. And yet, sometimes you will feel the urge to shorten or simplify. Thus:
<h4>5. Don’t be afraid to remove content</h4>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/500/1*_eYVnPSaiP3Xaq94OJwJqQ.png">Delete key installation, Leung Mee Ping, Zhangjiang High Tech Park, Shanghai, China
Yes, that beautiful situation where you get to be the Spanish inquisition — of content. Butcher left and right, have no remorse in stripping down that heavy desktop platform to a light-weight mobile experience. In some situations you just have to think about the essential and have an argument-driven, bold position towards the client and his wish to also integrate 99 other functionalities, next to the core one. But if you’re true to yourself, admit it: Stripping down content is your genocide of choice.
<h4>6. Help the user focus his UX journey</h4>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*-I9VMWo5cX4ZCwSF3L0UEg.png">Land Art, Andy Goldsworthy
We humans are so keen on flows, we do them everyday in pretty much all operations we perform. In the physical and digital realm. Speaking of the digital realm — don’t you just get a total kick out of seeing that selfie uploaded and posted, so all your friends can flood you with likes? Well, luckily enough there was that little loading bar there, to keep you patient while you were waiting for the upload. It’s such little details that can add to a good experience. Or perhaps you manage a team of 26 people and your HR app on your iPad simply highlights the vital information about your team’s vacation scheduling, overlapping timeframes and employee requests, feedback, statistics. All these functionalities within maximum 2 swipes from the main dashboard screen. But you don’t even need to burden with those swipes.. you get the relevant notifications when something’s up. And you only need to be focused there and then on the task, otherwise you don’t really care about the HR app, do you now? Well you shouldn’t — and a seamless user experience will ensure you won’t.
<h4>7. Good UX is a team effort</h4>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/666/1*ysSi8REcRMlnPlOm1q80Lw.png">The Carrier — Patricia Piccinini
IT architects, developers, business analysts, researchers, designers — unite! Your relevance throughout the stages of a project will always rotate, depending on the moment you’re in. But one thing is certain: good UX is made by people that support each other and that wish to help each other. Yes — you might sometimes feel that the other guy is an entirely different species altogether, with a different mindset, different opinions than yours and different taste and values. And yes — sometimes tensions arise, opinions collide. But in the end remember that you share a common objective.
Check the image above again. At one point in a project the designer will be the giant holding the old lady (the client?!), while the developers lurk in the background in an embryo state. During the project’s development, the roles will change, the architect will be the giant, the developer the old lady and the designer and/or business analyst will be faint spots in the background. The idea is to accept each other’s role, to listen, to share and build together. Maybe the architect is right when he tries to explain to you that several steps in the flow should be grouped in one decisive call-to-action, in order to reduce server requests. And maybe the font end developer can find a solution to turn your button into an input field and your question mark into a checkmark, if you care to properly explain what you want.
Bottom line — you should support each other, you don’t want to knock-out each other. The sum of your efforts as a team will always outshine the differences you pose as individuals.
~
<img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/650/1*ULCkU_vmGFTBsowSuvEF7g.png">Don’t you just love this image? This sculpture? What it stands for? Of course you do.
Perhaps the biggest strength, that I’ve learned UX designers should posses, is the absolute willingness to reiterate. There are so many things you will discover upon reiterating on a project’s UX/UI, where consistency can be improved and things can be tweaked for the better. Indeed, most of the times you are on a tight schedule and budget — and there’s not much time to create the ultimate perfection of an app. #thestruggleisreal
But your aim shouldn’t be to find perfection, but a clever visual and logical approach to a given problem. So keep calm and reiterate on your UX solution.
It’s not as if you’re working on a sculpture.
Article originally published on linkedIn almost one year ago. But I reiterated on the content a bit and thought it’s worth reminding this stuff. Hit that clap button compulsively if you liked it and show some love by sharing it with people that absolutely disagree to the above-said.
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<a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/reiterations-will-set-you-free-8f537200d2ad">Reiterations will set you free</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.prototypr.io">prototypr</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Reiterations will set you free

Reiterations will set you free

tl;dr version: 7 learnings about user exp…

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