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Dec 04 2017
Love0

The State of UX for 2018

By Design

When 2017 is almost over it’s time to look ahead and predict how the digital experience will evolve over the next 12 months.

In this article, I’ll overview the most significant changes in the digital world which we saw during 2017 and the trends we should be aware of to stay ahead of the curve in design and development in 2018.

1. Simpler Navigation

Navigation experience was a hot topic among many designers during 2017. Designers strive to create an effortless experience and navigation plays a key role in that.

Linear Navigation

In the attempt to simplify navigation experience many apps and website focus on creating linear (or step-by-step) navigation experience. Apps and services which utilize this type of navigation put users in linear user flow when each next step looks like a logical continuation of the previous one. This type of navigation is especially good for goal-driven apps (such as Uber) and e-commerce websites (e.g., Amazon, Best Buy) where users have a goal they want to accomplish.

Voice User Interfaces

Voice user interfaces (VUIs) become a good alternative to graphical users interfaces. Significant improvement of natural language process made it possible to use voice commands for different purposes.

A significant percentage of young generation use voice commands to interact with interfaces

In coming year voice interfaces will be used not only in mobile devices but as a way of interaction with IoT and Smart Home systems. Soon we’ll have even more advanced speech recognition patterns that will improve our interactions with systems.

2. Decluttering and Improving Comprehension

Removing visual clutter and improving comprehension is a popular goal among many UX designers today. Designers remove irrelevant information (noise) and prioritize relevant information (signal) by putting content first and elaborating clear visual language.

Content First

Content first design approach is directly related to minimalism in design. In the attempt to create more with fewer designers remove all unnecessary elements of the interface and focus on what’s really important — content and functionality. Interfaces have more whitespace between different elements and limited numbers of decorative items. The downside of this approach is that interfaces sometimes look too neutral.

Instagram for iOS (2015 vs. 2017)

Clear Visual Language

We all know that strong visual hierarchy makes it easier for users to interact with a product. In the context of websites and mobile apps, strong visual hierarchy means clear viewing order for the visual elements on a screen. Strong visual signifiers (such as contrasting colors for call-to-action buttons) combined with minimalist layouts can create a really easy-to-use experience.

Submit button has a contrasting color. Image credits: Airbnb

Large Headlines

Large headlines is a lot more whitespace and large typography for headers. Large headlines provide two major benefits for users: they make text both easier to notice and easier to read.

Apple uses bold headlines in iOS 11.

3. Using Animation For Different Purposes

Animation is quickly becoming a natural part of user interfaces. There are two particular types of animation that play a significant role in UX design — functional and delightful animations.

Functional Animation

Functional animation is a type of animation that brings clarity to the user interface. This type of animation is used to simplify the process of interaction with products. With the release of iPhone X and it’s gesture-driven interactions animation will be used to describe complex transitions and spatial relationships.

Functional animation can make complex transitions easy to follow for users. Image credits: Jae-seong, Jeong

Delightful Animation

In the attempt to create a more human experience, many app creators incorporated delightful details into user flow. Such elements don’t have any functional purpose; they are used to create an emotional connection with users.

Using animation to rate the experience. Image credits: Andy Orsow

4. The Dominance Of Videos

2017 saw a surge in the popularity of video as a content marketing format. According to Hubspot, 78% of people watch videos online every week, and 55% watch videos online every day.

Video Content For Short Attention Span

The average human attention span had fallen from 12 seconds in 2000, or around the time the mobile revolution began, to eight seconds. Marketers are adapting all content (including videos) for short attention span — formats like 360-degree videos and Facebook Live were created as a result of such adaptation.

Video As Welcome Message On Homepage

Video has an opportunity to engage users right from the start. That’s why so many websites using video as a welcome message. Companies like Tesla not just introduce the visitors to a product, they tell a story about the product with the use of video. This will help to create a more memorable experience.

5. Emotionally Intelligent Design

The human-machine relationship was always more emotional than rational. We are happy when technology helps us achieve our goal and quickly become angry with our computers when something goes wrong.

In 2017 we saw a turn towards emotionally intelligent design. Emotional design is focussed on cultivating positive emotion by understanding how users interact with technology and what feelings they have.

Failure Mapping

For a long time, designers create experience only for the ideal user journey. In 2017 many designers realized that creating an experience for the non-ideal user journey is equally important.

Failure mapping is about finding situations when users might interact with the product in a way that causes a negative outcome. Designers try to build a better understanding of situations where a user may try to use something ‘wrong.’ By building an understanding of scenarios that can cause failure, designers attempt to design for ‘graceful failure.’ This allows to deliver a humanized response to an otherwise awkward moment for any user.

One great example of failure mapping can be found in Slack. If you’ve half-written a message in a channel and leave, you’ll get a little pencil icon telling you that you’re not quite finished.

Pencil icon means you started typing a message but left the channel before sending it.

More Microinteractions In Mobile Apps

Microinteractions on mobile devices are quickly becoming a lot more device-specific. They are used to increase simplicity in digital experiences. Paired with simple gestures and subtle, visual feedback they become part of the natural way we interact with our products and services.

Visual feedback in Instagram Stories

Conversational interfaces

Chatbots and conversational user interfaces (CUI) became trendy in 2016. The rise of chatbots and smart assistants will continue to grow. One important difference between CUI and traditional GUIs is the way users feel about interacting with product — conversational interfaces make interaction feel more human. That’s why conversational bots such as Zo and Xiaoice are so popular among users.

Image credits: EJ Hassenfratz

6. Content Is Even More Important Than Ever

Content is king. Content is the reason why people use our apps and visit our sites. During 2017 we saw two major trends that are directly related to the way we interact with content.

Facebook Become a Destination For Content

In 2017, Facebook became one of the most important services for the consumption of content. It’s no longer just a jump-off point; it’s a powerful hub for the news and information.

Big Companies Will Help Us With Content Credibility

Content credibility is a serious problem today. Millions of pieces of content are created every minute and it usually hard to tell the difference between facts and fiction. According to a study by Stanford University, a high percentage of users cannot distinguish truth from lie on their newsfeeds. The problem of content credibility was especially noticeable during the 2016 presidential election campaign in the US, which proved that lies spread faster than the truth.

Fortunately, big companies like Google and Facebook realize this problem and have already begun testing fact-checking features that help users discern fact from fiction.

7. Wearables As Replacement For Mobile Phones

With the release of Apple Watch Series 3 with Cellular, a lot of people see the beginning of the new era for connected devices. Finally, it’s possible to use smartwatch as a replacement for a mobile phone. Why would you need to carry a heavy brick in your pocket if you can have a powerful computer on your wrist? It’s clear that we see a new segment of devices that after a while will have its own target audience.

Image credits: Engaged

8. Simpler Authentication

The combination of login and password (also known as “credentials”) is de-facto standard information required by apps and devices for a sign-in procedure. We all know how outdated it is. Hopefully, we see significant progress in this field during previous years. In the coming year, we’ll have a few notable changes.

Using Smart Ways Of Authentication

When people forget passwords in most cases, they try to reset them. While reset option is a mandatory requirement for good sign in form, it still has one significant problem — users will need to do a lot of extra actions in order to log in into account (e.g. click “Reset password” link, check inbox for a message with reset link, click the link and create a new password). In the attempt to simplify the process, many apps and websites incorporated creative ways of login — such as temporary passwords ( the one-time password that will be sent to you):

Ebay texting one-time password on the phone number assigned to your account.

Or even replace the login/password combination altogether:

Medium and it’s “magic link”

Biometric Authentication

A lot of devices today use different ways of biometric authentication as a replacement for passwords. In 2018 we’ll see a more exciting way of login to our devices and apps. We’ll use one most the most protected and at the same time easy to use object — our faces. Face ID which became available for iPhone X users has the opportunity to become the most natural way of authentication in the coming year.

Craig Federighi demonstrates Face ID during WWDC 2017

Two-Factor Authentication

The rise of cyber attacks that are focussed on collecting user data force companies to think about security in their apps. 2-factor authentication (or 2FA) is quickly becoming the default way authentication for many services. It adds an extra layer of protection that can significantly reduce the probability of the data theft from user devices.

Image credit: MIT

9. More Personalization

More and more companies incorporate techniques and technologies that allow them to deliver personalized content for their uses. According to Gartner, smart personalization engines used to recognize customer intent will enable digital businesses to increase their profits by up to 15%.

Machine Learning

Significant progress in the field of machine learning made it possible for many companies to utilize the algorithms in their apps and services to deliver content tailored to the needs and wants of their users. The best examples of personalization can be found on Amazon, Spotify and Netflix services.

Netflix analyses the user’s interest to recommend the series that might be interesting for them

Netflix shares the details of machine learning technologies that it uses to provide personalized content.

Location Awareness For Mobile Apps

Since mobile devices are travel with users, the apps installed on the devices can use location data to provide a content which is relevant to user’s location. This make services more responsive to the environments around them. Some apps like Uber have already utilized this property to reduce the number of actions required from the user’s side. In 2018 we’ll see more apps use those capabilities to make the experience better.

UberEat service

10. The Rise Of Cashless Payments

Cashless payments become a trend, and the number of people who use this method of payment almost doubled in 2017. According to a report by Juniper Research, the number of Apple Pay and Android Pay users will be 86 and 24 million by the end of the year, respectively.

In comparison with credit cards, both Android Pay and Apple Pay are the much safer payment option for payment proceeding. No wonder why people prefer to use them.

Image credits: Daily Express

What does it mean for designers and developers? This means that in 2018 we’ll have to provide Apple Pay/Android Pay as a default option for our products (both offline and online).

Using Android Pay for online payment

11. Augmented Reality Is a New Big Thing

2018 will be a year of augmented reality. A lot of people will use their mobile phone or tablet as a lens into a virtual world.

Google Lens

Google Lens is an AR app that available in Google Assistant on both Pixel and Pixel 2 phones which allows users to point a camera at the world and get answers. The good news is that you no longer have to fire up Google Photos if you want to use Lens to glean information from the world around you. You can tap a camera button while using the AI helper and it’ll perform a search when you take a photo.

Google Lens is designed to bringing up relevant information using visual analysis. Image credits: Engadget

More AR Apps Which Solves Real-Life Problems

Unlike VR which still is a prerogative of enthusiast and early adopters, AR is fastly becoming a technology that delivers real value for people who use it. This year we saw a few great apps such as Ikea AR app that helps you redesign your living room:

By being able to place virtual objects next to physical objects, you open up a world of possibilities to their customers

Or AR Measure which makes it possible to measure the real-world objects without a traditional physical measurement tape:

Create Apps Will Be Easier With AR Kits from Apple and Google

2017 was a Both Apple and Google released their mobile AR platforms – AR Kit and AR Core. These platforms are high-level APIs which provide a simple interface to a robust set of features. And the great thing is that platforms are supported by millions of existing devices.

Mobile AR platforms allow seamlessly integrate virtual objects in physical reality.

12. VR Is Still a Fad

A lot of people say that VR is going to be the next big thing. Unfortunately, 2018 won’t be a year when we’ll have VR in every house. The platform should fight a lot of challenges before it is widely available for people. Despite that, in 2018 we’ll see a few significant change that will bring VR a bit closer.

VR Devices Will Be More Affordable

Making the VR devices more affordable for people is the #1 goal for many hardware developers. Just a few months ago, both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive significantly reduced the price of VR devices. The rise of low-budget devices such as Google Daydream will introduce the technology for a mass segment of users.

VR and Unity 3D

In coming year VR is still will be used primarily for entertainment. This means that creators will utilize the Unity’s 3D game development platform when crafting stimulating experience for intense gamers. We can expect the significant progress of this platform for VR developers – we can expect more tools like Unity’s VR Editor in 2018.

VR in a Browser

Mozilla’s WebVR has the opportunity to become the next big thing in the field of VR. There are some reasons for that. First, it’s the most affordable technology (uses with Google Cardboard and GearVR can use it). Second, developers can use the same programming languages to create the apps for WebVR (no need to learn a new language, you can create VR apps using JavaScript). Last but not least, WebVR to use the apps and services without installation, you simply open the link and you’re in VR.

A-Painter allows you to paint in VR in your browser

Bonus: Changes In The Way We Design Products In 2018

Today designers and developers use modern methodologies such as Agile and Lean UX design which allow them to iterate fast and create products that satisfy the needs and wants of their users. In 2018 we’ll see a few significant changes in product design.

From MVP to MLP

Today a lot of companies are focussed on creating MVP (or Minimum Viable Product) to prove the concept they work on. It’s clear that MVP won’t be enough for 2018. Tomorrow’s designs will embrace an MLP — Minimum Loveable Product — experience the combines both great usability and perfect user experience needed to convert visitors into customers. MLP allows much easier to convey stakeholders and first-time users to accept the product.

Image credits: Laurence McCahill

Merging of UX and service design

There’s a huge probability that UX Design and Service Design will finally come together in 2018. Since more and more services are delivered digitally, these two fields will start to merge.

Image credits: Satu Kyröläinen

Conclusion

As with any trends, some trends mentioned above will go, while some will stay. But to create the great user experience, it’s important to remember the global goal of designer — make people’s lives better.

Sep 25 2017
Love1

Removing The Mystery of UX Design

By Design

This article is an entry level of UX design, written for UX designers.

UX design is about developing products that are both usable and user-centric. The “design” aspect focuses on how the ease of use and efficiency for a user’s interaction with a product can be improved. The question you probably often ask yourself, though, is how it all works in practice? What do real-life UX design processes actually look like?

In this article, I want to show you how to start a UX design project. The article will give you a taste of the techniques used by UX designers when working on designing or redesigning a product, as well as show you the order in which specific UX steps should be taken. We’ll touch on subjects such as User Research, Design, and Testing.

Before Project Starts

To craft good user experience both the business context and project objectives must be clearly understood. Before starting any design project it’s important to create a strategy. A strategy will shape the goals of the project—what the business is hoping to achieve with the project and how its success should be measured.

Value Proposition

Value proposition is a process of mapping out the key aspects of the product: what it is, who it is for and when/where it will be used. Value proposition helps the team narrow down and create consensus around what the product will be.

UX designers create a document to communicate a value proposition which contains the following information:

  • Key business objectives
  • UX attributes that will influence the success (both directly and indirectly) of the key objectives and desired outcomes
  • Desired state of these UX attributes
  • A list of activities and design work that can be done to improve the state of the UX
Value proposition of UX should be directly associated with key business objectives. Image credits: uxmag

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

KPIs help inform design decisions along the way and measure results of the UX efforts.
Usually, UX designers conduct a series of interviews with stakeholders to define KPIs.

Same as for value proposition, the key is to connect your KPIs to your business objectives. A few common examples of KPIs:

  • Conversion (sales / visits)
  • Bounce rate (e.g. basket abandonment for e-commerce site)
  • Average order value
  • Total number of sales

UX Design Process Explained

Once UX designer has a clear idea of a product definition and how it might fit into the current market, s/he moves into user-centric modelling. Although there are no hard and fast rules to this process, UX design generally occurs in the following five stages:

Value proposition of UX should be directly associated with key business objectives. Image credits: Usability Geek

Step 1: User Research

Dieter Rams once said, “You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people”. A great product experience starts with a good understanding of your users. That’s why user research is every UX designer’s starting point for a UX design project. User research has to come first in the UX design process because without it, designer’s work can only be based on their own experiences and assumptions.

“Good user research is key to designing a great user experience. Designing without good user research is like building a house without solid foundations – your design will soon start to crumble and will eventually fall apart.” – Neil Turner (Uxforthemasses)

Research phase is probably the most variable between projects. What is involved In user research:

Interviews

Interview is an in-depth one-on-one discussion between an interviewer and a user from the target audience. Interview should be designed to discover the underlying needs and requirements of the user when using your product. This technique is especially useful when the target audience is new or unknown to the team.

When starting a new project, you actually need to talk to people from your target group.

Online surveys

An online survey is a questionnaire consisting of a set of very precise questions sent to a sample of your target audience over the internet. The length and format of an online survey can vary from project to project.

Interviews and online survey can work together. Before you start writing questions for your online survey, take the time to conduct a few interviews to fully understand the user’s problem space. This will help inform your survey questions.

Surveys are used to validate the assumptions that designers make about a product. Image credits: Usability Geek

There are many tools available for running surveys, ranging from lightweight and inexpensive tools right through to specialist market research tools. For most UX applications simple surveys tools such as Google Forms, SurveyMonkey or Wufoo should offer adequate functionality to create surveys.

Competitive analysis

Evaluating the competition is one way to determine where a designed product stands, and what potential markets it can break into. When conducting a competitive analysis, UX designer evaluates a competing product’s usability, interaction design, and unique features, to see how their own product stacks up. Competitive analysis is especially important when designers are building an entirely new product that hasn’t entered the market yet. A competitive analysis gives insight into what competitors are doing right, and what difficulties they face, leaving opportunities available.

Research the competitors, get information about features, advantages and disadvantages Image credits: xtensio

Step 2: Analyze & Define

The aim of the Analyze & Define phase is to draw insights from data collected during the User Research phase. This step is clearly the ideation part of the process.

Persona

When a designer has finished a user research and know what users need and what they expect, s/he can summarize those findings into user personas. Personas are fictional characters which are used as a representation of a real audience and their behaviours. The purpose of personas is to create reliable representations of target audience segments for reference (UX designers build a product based on personas). Personas make it easier for designers to create empathy with users throughout the design process.

Persona’s template by romanpichler

User Stories

Once UX designer has a clear idea of who might use a product, it’s time to map out how they might use it. Every user has a goal to achieve, UX designer needs to define each step that the user will go through to get to the final goal. These steps will shape a user story. Good user story must clarify the specific type of user, describe the task with comparable detail, and clarify on the context in which work must be done.

Each individual action needs a corresponding user story. Image credits: UXPin

Step 3: Design

The premise of the Design is to create a product which will be tested with real users. This product may be represented by paper or interactive prototypes, interactive wireframes, or semi-functioning prototypes. The Design phase of a UX project should be collaborative (involving input and ideas from all team members) and iterative.

Information Architecture

Navigation is a make or break aspect of the user experience of a site/app. Each person who’ll get lost navigating through a site is going to have a bad experience of that product. To avoid these scenarios, UX designers perform a process called Information Architecture (IA). The purpose of IA is to organize the content on a site so that users can find exactly what they need to perform the task they want and to reach their goal.

The outcome of IA process varies based on the type of a project. If UX designer is creating a website, s/he’ll create a sitemap during this step. Sitemap is one of the most iconic IA deliverables, consists of a diagram of the website’s pages organized hierarchically.

Sitemaps are a hierarchical diagram showing the structure of a website or application. It makes it easy to visualize the basic structure and navigation of a website.Image credits: kristenjoybaker

Card sorting is one of the most popular UX techniques used for creating IA. During card sorting session, users organize topics from content within an app/website into groups that make sense to them.

Organizing the hierarchy of the content using card sorting technique. Image credits: Zurb

Brainstorming and sketching

Brainstorming is the most frequently practiced form of ideation. Brainstorming helps to generate constraint-free ideas that respond to a given creative brief. The intention of brainstorming is to leverage the collective thinking of the group, by engaging with each other, listening, and building on other ideas.

Brainstorming relies on a group of people coming together with their prior knowledge and research in order to gather ideas for solving the stated problem. Image credits: Tubik Studio

Brainstorming work in tandem with sketching. Sketching is the easiest way of visualizing ideas.All you need is just pen and paper. Sketching allows designers to visualize a broad range of design solutions before deciding which one to stick with. I haven’t met a single designer who doesn’t use quick sketching or some other paper prototyping form at the early stage of a design process.

Whiteboard sketches. Image credits: Dribbble
Sketches bring ideas to life. Image credits:webdesignerdepot

Wireframing

Wireframes are the “blueprint for design.” A wireframe represents the page structure, as well as its hierarchy and key elements. Wireframes tie together the underlying conceptual structure (information architecture) with the visible part of design (visual design). The process of wireframing helps designers uncover different methods for representing content and information as well as prioritizing that content in according to the user’s goals.

Wireframes aren’t supposed to represent the visual design or contact graphic elements. They should be quick, cheap, and simple to create.

Wireframe can be a quick sketch on scratch paper. Image credits: UXPin

User Flow

User Flow is the path a user follows through an application. The flow doesn’t have to be linear, it can branch out in a non-linear path. User flows are helpful in hashing out complex flows before prototyping a product. Creating users flows will help the designer think about what happens to the user before & after they visit a particular page.

37 Signals created a helpful shorthand for User Flows which you might consider during crafting your own flow.

Shorthand for User flows

Prototyping

A prototype is a simulation of the final product. Basically, it’s a version of a product that takes designer as close as possible to a good representation of an app/website and its user interface before any coding has begun. Prototype makes it possible to test the product — see how the overall design works and fix any inconsistencies.

Prototypes can be either low-fidelity or high-fidelity. Lo-fi prototypes help you focus on creating the smoothest flows for users to accomplish their goals.

Low-fidelity prototyping a quick way to validate a product before fully developing it. Image credit: Smartlogic
The user flows are the heart of your prototype. Image credits: Flickr

While high-fidelity prototype can be a fully-interactive version of a product.

High-fidelity interactive prototype. Image credits: prototypr

An interactive prototype has functional animations and microinteractions which are used to build meaning behind about the spatial relationships, functionality, and intention of the system.

Animated feedback in high-fidelity interactive prototype. Image credit: Dribbble

Animation can contribute heavily to the user experience if used correctly. Both functional and delightful animations can be used to deliver a feedback:

Animated microinteraction (notification trigger). Image credits: Dribbble
Animated microinteraction (floating labels). Image credits: Matt D. Smith

Step 4: Testing

The premise of the Testing phase is to put ideas in front of users, get their feedback, and refine the design. It’s important to understand that the earlier you test, the easier it is to make changes and thus the greater impact the testing has on the eventual quality of the product.

Usability Testing

Usability testing is usually a one-to-one, moderated in-person usability session. The purpose of in-person usability testing is to identify problems or issues the user has while interacting with a product. Test participant performs tasks using a product while the UX designer observes and taking notes. When conducting usability testing it’s crucial you observe the actions the user takes without intruding on their actions or decisions.

Testing doesn’t need not be either time consuming or expensive. Jakob Nielsen’s research has found that testing with 5 users generally unveils 85% of usability problems.

A/B Testing

A/B Testing (also known as split testing) is a form of quantitative analysis comparing two different versions of a product (e.g. two different types of landing pages). A/B testing makes it easier for UX designer to test hypotheses about design. A/B testing helps if you already have a product/service and need to improve it.

A/B testing is comparing two versions of a web page to see which one performs better. Image credits: vwo

Accessibility Analysis

Accessibility enables people with disabilities to perceive and interact with a product. A well-designed product is accessible to users of all abilities, including those with low vision, blindness, hearing impairments or motor impairments.

Accessibility analysis checks that a product can be used by everyone, including users with special needs. W3C guidelines define a basic set of accessibility rules. By following these rules UX design increases changes that all users are satisfied. It’s possible to use an automated tool to regularly test your service’s accessibility. One of the popular automated tools is WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool)

Step 5: Measuring

Unlike any other discipline, UX designer’s work doesn’t stop with releasing a product. UX is an ongoing process that continues for as long as a product will be used by people. UX designers should continually measure product performance to see if it meets user satisfaction and if any improvements can be made.

Metrics Analysis

Numbers provided by an analytics tool tell designers about how the user interacts with a product: clicks, session time, search queries etc. Metrics analysis and usability testing work great together because metrics can “uncover the unexpected”, surfacing behaviours that are not explicit in user tests.

Analytics tools such as Google Analytics can offer quantitative results about what is happening on your site.

User Feedback

Metrics analysis helps UX designer to understand what is happening on a site/in an app. But when it comes to uncovering why, the true value lies in collecting qualitative data.

User feedback allows UX designer to discover the reasons behind the actions that analytics tools show. With an option to leave feedback, users can effortlessly report anything that’s causing the friction. This feedback item can then be labelled and filtered directly to UX designer’s mailbox.

With an option to leave feedback, users can effortlessly report anything that’s causing the friction.

Conclusion

While we’ve described the most common UX design methods and deliverables that can help the design process, it’s important to understand that each project is different and it’s often important to adapt the techniques to your own needs (in other words, you don’t need to follow them like textbook examples).

Jul 16 2017
Love0

What You Should Know About Internet of Things

By Design, IoT, User Experience

The “Internet of Things” (IoT) is the addition of internet connectivity and other sensors to physical objects. Broadband Internet becomes more widely available, the cost of connecting is decreasing, and more devices are being created with built-in network adapters. This movement creates a “perfect storm” for the IoT. That’s why IoT begins to move from ‘next big thing’ to something more and more of us are living with and it’s going to grow even more in coming years and eventually, most of us will use IoT technologies.

Gartner forecasts 21 billion connected things by 2020. That’s approximately four devices for every human being on the planet.

By 2020, more than half of major new business processes and systems will incorporate some element of the IoT. And we, as designers, should be ready for this moment. In this article, you’ll find everything you need to know about the increasingly connected world.

Where Can We Find IoT?

IoT isn’t just one group of devices, the term is used for a big range of connected tools, devices, and services. Technologies are infiltrating the everyday life and things around us are becoming smarter. Common categories of IoT today include:

  • Connected home technology (these are products and services that make home life easier or more pleasant, such as smart thermostats, lighting, and energy monitoring)
    • Nest smart thermostat
    Nest smart thermostat
  • Wearables (such as activity/fitness trackers and smartwatches)
    • Apple watch
    Apple Watch
  • Connected cars
    • Tesla Model S embedded system
    Tesla embedded system
  • Urban systems (such as city rental bikes and parking meters/sensors)
    • Citibike in New York
    Citibike in New York

On a broader scale, the IoT can be used to create “smart cities” which can help us reduce waste and improve efficiency for our environments (e.g. energy use). Take a look at the visual below to see what something like that can look like.
Smart cities

5 Principles To Remember When Designing for IoT

Design is the critical component that bridges IoT technology’s potential with meeting real human needs. And it’s not surprise that IoT is a hot topic for designers today – it opens the door to a lot of opportunities but also to many challenges. While there are a huge array of things to consider while developing a IoT product, you’ll be more likely to gain traction if you keep following 5 principles in mind:

1. Design IoT Only If It Enhance User Experience

Just because something can be connected to the internet doesn’t mean it should be. IoT design requires a sharp focus on user needs because IOT products succeed only when they solve real problems and make users’ lives easier. Thus, if you want to connect something to the internet, you should have a clear answer on the question “Why do I want to do it?” User research should be a critical early step in any solid IoT UX project. Using insights gained from your research can help you explore the interaction contexts well before your team is burning hours designing or developing.

Making the ‘thing’ an IoT make sense only if it solves a real problem for the user. If connecting a product to the internet doesn’t enhance the experience, then don’t do it.

2. Create Good Onboarding

In the world of IoT getting your users up and running isn’t as simple as in a world of web or mobile apps. In addition to account creation, IoT devices usually require a proper configuration. Without a good onboarding experience, the setup phase might be really hard for the first-time users and there is a great possibility of user frustration or failure. That’s successful IoT product (like Nest) have set a relatively high bar for onboarding.

3. Prevent Glitching

Everyone experience occasional glitches in digital products. One common example is slow loading time on websites. Of course, it’s definitely frustrating when loading takes ages, but we are used to this. By contrast, we won’t expect real-world objects respond to us with glitches. When we turn off the lights in our room, we expect an immediate response. However, when we interact with a physical device over the internet (e.g. smart lighting system), that interaction might have the same latency issues as the website. So there’s the potential for delays in response. This could make the real world start to feel broken. Just imagine if you turned your lights off and they took two minutes to respond or failed to come on at all. As a designer, you should prevent all possible situations that can lead to glitch.

4. Make Sure It Works Locally

When designing for IoT, don’t assume always-on internet connectivity. In real life, IoT devices are often intermittently connected. Thus, it’s good to design for no internet connectivity at first, and see how much functionality can be done locally. Also, UX designers have to ensure that important functions (e.g. home security alarms for IoT Smart home system) continue to work properly when some devices go offline.

5. Design For Security and Data Privacy From the Outset

Security is a big issue. Recent high-profile hacks have raised the spectre of IoT-related security risks. More and more users are examining IoT devices for information about security. These consumers may be increasingly cautious about exposing personal information, especially when it is connected to physical spaces (such a local Wifi network) in their homes. Users might have questions like “Will someone be able to hack into my fridge and thereby get access to my entire network?” It’s your job, as a designer, to alleviate such fears. Always help users understand the security of your service by providing this information upfront.

Conclusion

A new generation of IoT is going to enhance our lives dramatically. We will spend less time on monotonous, boring tasks and will have more time to do what’s really important – like spending more time with our family or friends. I really hope the principles mentioned above help get your IoT effort aimed in the right direction.

Jul 07 2017
Love0

What You Should Know About VR

By User Experience, User Interface

In the last few years, we’ve witnessed an explosion in virtual reality (VR) devices and apps for them. VR is emerging as a new medium with the potential of having as strong an impact as radio or television did in the past century. According to the Heather Bellini of Goldman Sachs:
“We expect virtual and augmented reality to become an $80 billion market by 2025, roughly the size of the desktop PC market today”

Oculus Rift
Oculus Rift is the first high-end virtual reality headset sold on the retail market.

With the increasing popularity of VR, a design is evolving to incorporate its requirements and new capabilities.

Where Can We Use VR

VR is giving birth to an entirely new arena for entertainment, education, collaboration, communication and marketing. The following are some general categories that will merge with VR:

Gaming

All types of entertainment activities can be amplified with the integration of VR. VR makes it possible to put your users into a 100% designed space with predetermined tasks while giving the user total control of moving, exploring and learning within this space.
VR for gaming

Learning

VR can have tremendous implications for education — education can be both more engaging and effective. VR can be used for educational classes, labs and demonstrations. To make education experience truly immersive, designers should consider how users may interact with objects.

VR for learning
Microsoft Hololens for medical education

Training

Using VR, training simulations for professionals like drivers, pilots, doctors and police officers can become more accurate, complex and cost-effective.

VR for training
Image credit: Wareable

Big companies like Toyota see the educational potential of VR. The latest training simulator from Toyota – TeenDrive365 system – is focussed on teaching new drivers about the risks associated with distracted driving.

VR for training
Toyota driving simulator.The driver is in a fully immersive virtual environment – and that includes passengers, traffic, buildings and roadway obstacles.

Prototyping

VR can greatly enhance prototyping and testing phases for engineers, with all types of projects from a handstick design to new car designs.

VR for training
The hologram and the object on the screen are synchronized and this makes spatial application part of the production pipeline, not just an isolated island. Image credit: Solidsmack

Communication

Communicating will drastically change with the help of VR. VR makes it possible to create a brand new experience for video conferencing services, such as Skype.

VR for communication
Remote collaboration using avatars.

Shopping

VR makes it possible to blend the online and offline shopping together. Instead of looking at a 2D image of an object online, shoppers in VR will have the ability to pick up an object and look at it in detail. Alibaba Group, Asia’s biggest e-commerce company, divided into virtual reality later last year.

VR for training
Alibaba’s VR shopping. Buy+ technology allows customers to browse 3D images of products and make real-time payment in a virtual mall as if they were shopping in the real store.

Creating VR Experience

Creating a VR experience is much more complex than traditional 2D experiences, which presents designers with a whole new set of challenges. There are currently 4 core considerations for the design of virtual reality experiences:

1. Make Sure Users Don’t Get Motion Sickness

The most important quality to creating any successful UX design is ensuring that users are comfortable throughout the experience. This is especially true in the context of VR experience. Motion sickness (when physical and visual motion cues give a user adverse information) is one of the most common problems of VR experiences. Humans evolved to be very sensitive to vestibular ocular disparities (disparity between the movement and what we’re seeing). So reducing motion sickness is very important for VR systems. The keys to preventing users from getting motion sick while using VR are

  • Always maintain head tracking. VR software should constantly track the user’s head and eye movements, allowing the images to change with every new perspective.
  • Prevent performance degradation. If the system freezes even for a split second that’s going to trigger a lot of motion sickness.

2. Develop Easy-To-Use Controls And Menus

Same as for traditional UI interfaces navigational menus and other controls should be easily accessible and user-friendly. Unfortunately, there’s no universally accepted way to designing menus for VR interfaces. This is a challenge that designers are still working on. However, this doesn’t mean that we can’t transfer existing (2D) practices to 3D. It’s absolutely possible to place the menus on the user’s VR hands. One of such menu interfaces is Hovercast. All menu actions – including navigation between levels – are controlled by simple hand movements and reliable gestures.

VR navigation menu
Hovercast is 2D menu interface for VR environment. Hovercast radiates from the palm of your hand and you can interact with menu items using the index finger of your opposite hand.

3. Ensure Text Is Readable

All text elements should be clear and easily legible, preventing eye strain. The resolution of the VR headset is pretty bad. Because of the display’s resolution, all UI elements in VR will look pixelated. This means that text will be difficult to read. But you can avoid this by using big text blocks.

VR text
Consider the readability for different text section in this VR game. Instructions are almost unreadable. Image credit: Mozilla

4. Use Sound To Create Immersive Experience

As designers, we often don’t think about sound and audio. When we do that we miss an opportunity to communicate more information through a different set of senses. When we have audio sources attached to the objects we create much more realistic environment — if you’re telling a brain that it can see the object and it can hear the object then the object must be real. Try to build a mental image of the environment via sound:

  • Introducing the user to the environment via soundscapes. The audio can be used to give the user the illusion of being in the middle of a particular environment.
  • Guiding the user with sound. By applying positional audio and 3D audio effects to VR, the user will know the direction in which certain sounds originated in relation to where they are.
VR sound
Music and high-quality sound effects are a pivotal feature to encourage experience immersion. Image credit: Google

Conclusion

The possibilities for VR are endless. Soon, all types of companies will be seeking to extend their brand presences into this space. I hope I’ve made the VR space a bit less scary with this article and inspired you to start designing for VR your project.

Nov 02 2016
Love1

Agile and Lean UX

By Agile, User Experience

The User Experience Design field is filled with an exciting amalgamation of key terms, buzz words, and terminologies – UX, IA, CX, UCD, IxD, agile UX, lean UX, strategic UX, guerrilla research, emotional design etc.

In fact, there are so many of these curious acronyms and phrases that it can be easy to get confused.

The reality is that some of these terms distinguish essential processes, so they are important to know. Then, on the other hand, some are just industry buzz words or phrases designed to say something about the people who invented them.

Agile UX vs. Lean UX

Agile UX

The appearance of ‘agile UX’ occurred shortly after the emergence of ‘lean UX’ and plenty of designers (even the experts) got the two mixed up for a while. The difficulty is that both phrases indicate a robust relationship of design within the overarching process of product development. Both agile and lean UX are concerned with speeding up designs. They both match the diverse perspective of contemporary UX design resources. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish the two as well. Within common or garden tech discussions, most experts use the terms interchangeably, but are they the same thing?

The Emergence of Lean UX

Lean UX

Unlike agile UX methods, the lean counterpart is derived from start-up industries.

The lean UX definition states that the primary emphasis is on helping companies deliver products as fast as possible – sales have to mount up fast if a very young venture is to grow and prosper.

To achieve this, data has to be collected and function as the foundation for a series of iterations of the product.

The objective is to create a minimum ‘workable’ product and get it out to customers as fast as possible.

The steps involved ordinarily include pushing the earliest iteration out very quickly indeed, in order to determine whether there is a demand for it. Following this, actions are taken to move the product towards a much more rounded and comprehensive iteration.

The standard learn development framework assesses projects during the entire development operation. It emphasizes perpetual measurements and consistent learning cycles (create-measure-observe).

Following Lean Operations

Software development process

The first stage of the lean operation is always a theory – in other words, you have to state what you expect will happen.

Then, the minimum viable product is built as a way to assess the legitimacy of the theory. Thirdly, a test is carried out on this product and the theory is either confirmed or rejected.

The fourth stage is gathering feedback from users via UX research methods. After this, the stages are either carried out again or, if necessary, a new theory is generated and the stages are restarted.

Agile Development Techniques

agile

The value of user experience is broadly realized by pretty much all development sectors. However, the industry based acceptance of agile UX standards has been a little more sluggish.

It is consistently increasing though, despite the fact that the quick fire and loose perspective of agile development poses problems for development experts within large scale companies.

This is because it commonly exists in opposition to the conventional techniques already in use; including those inherent within UX design rotations.

Nevertheless, the growing acceptance of agile development is based in the very creation of software.

Historically, design has not always been as highly regarded as it is now and software suffered the most at the hands of this disregard.

In fact, very little focus was ever afforded to the end user – software creation was only concerned with providing outcomes, even if they turned out to be unattractive or impractical.

Agile methodology

The typical agile development expert believes that up front scheduling can be out to one side and, probably, just handled as the work goes on.

Yet, even for agile UX methods, it is essential to have a clear insight into the objectives and needs of a project, both in terms of imminent launch and future ambitions (though these may fluctuate over time).

Plus, UX should also be made an important aspect of functional planning. The expert has to be aware of its relationship to the market, be able to generate high level usage prospects, and fully understand the inherent corporate entity forms. If possible, they should also carry out research among prospective users.

 

Agile followers and standards:

– Individuals and communications before operations and resources

– Viable software before detailed documentation

– Client interactions before contract discussions

– Reacting to alterations before adhering to schedules

 

Ultimately, lean UX needs to be an adaptable operation. My recommendation is close in nature to the one I would offer when building a minimum workable product; implement the smallest number of resources needed to secure the pivot or persevere point.

 

The following are resources are useful:

– Conditional personas (correct dimensions)

– Persona map

– Presumptions (with the most hazardous marked)

– Design studio

– Written prototypes (initial phases)

– Digital prototypes (HTML is ideal)

– Guerrilla design analysis (usability tests)

– Colocation where possible

Making the Right Choice for You

Lean and Agile UX standards

Essentially, agile and lean UX are two different perspectives on the modified design process, tailored to match the way in which customers and users want their products and services to be provided. The lean agile UX process offers two sides of the same design coin, so to speak.

Whilst the words are, commonly, used interchangeably, they end in slightly different ways. For instance, agile UX creates a more refined result, but lean UX creates a series of product iterations which gradually reach a refined result.

Ultimately, agile and lean UX have the same end result, but they reach it via different processes.

To pick the right option for your internet projects, you need to work out which is the most suited to the desired final outcome.

If you have the time and resources to run through multiple iterations (for example, the project is only a side or ‘add on’ venture), opt for lean UX. If you feel like the project requires an ‘instantly’ refined outcome, opt for agile UX methods.

Jul 27 2016
Love1

Designing a Great Onboarding Experience

By Onboarding, User Experience

If you’re running a new (or not so successful) business, you probably know that attracting new customers is your biggest challenge. In order to deal with it, you need to follow emerging trends; and to employ modern tools and methods which empower your users to use content in an efficient manner.

Onboarding is a process of transforming newly registered users into loyal customers. This process consists of your brand’s values, product’s features; and the guidelines you provide to your users. It is not rare for the overall success of your app to depend solemnly on great onboarding design.

 

UX

 

Well-executed onboarding can help you provide better experience; lower your maintenance costs; and increase your profit. Furthermore, onboarding is a process which helps users to familiarize with your product; and to navigate the app in an intuitive manner. It is essential to provide them clear directions and to inspire them to engage as much as possible.

 

Onboarding’s Ultimate Objective

 

AB Testing

 

The main purpose of the onboarding procedure is to create a wonderful first impression, providing all essential information in almost no time. Such efficiency will convince users to spend more time on the app; and to explore whatever is offered to their attention.

 

Best onboarding experience has the purpose of making people feel comfortable on your app. You also need to present your product in an easily acceptable way, which will use almost no time to create necessity and urgency for them to buy it.

 

ui

 

Why is this so important? Because it assures you that even if users leave without a purchase, they will eventually come back! The decision of signing up or making a purchase is a difficult decision even on the simplest apps. Trust is the most expensive gift users could give to you, so make sure to convince them you deserve it.

Many designers fail to comply with this requirement, as they consider onboarding to be just a breakthrough step for accessing the rest of the content. Sometimes, it means they are destroying the connection with the users; and they send them away even before explaining the benefits of that app.

 

Onboarding – Definition and Importance

 

4

 

Even if most of the brands appreciate the importance of attracting users, they make the mistake of thinking their work is done once users are on board. If you ask us, that’s just the beginning-you have to help users navigate your site; and you have to make it easy to use. At the beginning, it is essential to support users and to give them the attention they deserve.

Take a second and think about yourself as a user-wouldn’t you feel absolutely lost and confused on an app which doesn’t instruct you what to do?

 

5

 

Remember that there will be users who heard about your app; or found a link which redirected them to it, and they are arriving with faith and expectations. As a welcoming host, you have the duty of ‘shaking their hand’ and ‘walking’ them through your website/app. Consider onboarding as the first encounter with your user-you need to do your best to appear charming and interesting. Remember you’ll have nothing more than a couple of seconds to send a powerful message which can make users like you.

 

Why is the onboarding process even necessary?

 

6

 

Let us clarify your doubts on whether you need an onboarding process or not: Imagine you’re launching a website/app which has different performance that the ones your users experienced before. It is not an uncommon situation-you may be introducing a completely new product and you’ll need ‘hidden items’ to make it more interesting.

 

 

The Process Itself

 

7

 

Have in mind there will be no second chance to design a perfect onboard experience-the process happens only once, right after users decide to engage and to explore the content of the app. Therefore, onboarding is a designer’s unique opportunity to orchestrate an introduction which can inform users, and entertain them at the same time. With a good onboarding process, even the most complicated products can seem attractive.

Another important benefit is the temporary ‘hiding’ of the product’s real value-price comes only after a user is truly engaged, and he believes your product is absolutely necessary to satisfy his needs.

 

ui pattern

 

He will most probably look at different forums or social networks to examine quality and to compare price, but what will count is the urgency and necessity you’ve created from the very first moment. As simple as it sounds, your success will depend only upon the easiness and speed of your onboarding process.

Welcome your users into a secure environment, totally consistent with common perceptions and expectations. Failing to do that would disappoint them and you would probably never restore their confidence.

 

UI

 

In addition, make sure you replicate the success of your onboard design on all other pages and elements-you need to preserve the same trust levels until the very end of your users’ session. Examine users’ behavior in every phase of their visit and show them you’re ready to respond to all of their requests. However, don’t exaggerate because you would seem pushy or heavy-handed. Your directions could be welcomed in certain cases, but there will also be occasions where users want to explore independently, without your interference.

Decided to create a great onboarding process? Focus on the following goals:

 

  • Remember that you have only one chance to produce excellent onboarding experience, so make it as easy and entertaining as you can.
  • Make your product necessary and desired. It is an asset to count on in future, rather than closing every communication once the order is done.
  • Restrict the usage of text; and use actions and indications to show users how to use your products.

 

During onboarding, you’re enabling users to make the most of their experience on your app. We collected a list of recommendable practices you could apply, depending on the type of product/s you’re offering.

 

  1. Avoid tricky concepts

What may work perfectly for most apps could have detrimental effects for you. Keep things simple and apply only such concepts that match your style and your needs. If something appears complicated, or causes unnecessary delays, feel absolutely free to remove it.

 

  1. Stay opportunistic

Onboarding is your chance to involve users, and to make the most of your users’ first impression. Use it, and make sure you won’t miss any opportunity in future.

 

  1. The more entertaining, the better

What does a great first encounter mean? It means that users will be ‘in’ for a second one whenever you call them. It also means they’ll share the positive experience with their friends; and they will drive new users to your website or app. How do you achieve that? Make it as entertaining as possible!

 

  1. Inspire action

Even the best-executed among onboarding experiences will be incomplete if it doesn’t inspire action. Challenge your users, but make sure you’ve shown them that exploring your content and reacting to your demands is not a waste of their time.

 

  1. Keep it simple

The clearer, the better. Your onboarding process deserves to be cleared from any clutter and mess; so that users will not be distracted from the product and the benefits you’re trying to explain them.

Try and be creative when you require users to sign up: avoid the classic set of elements (names, last name, address or passwords) and if possible, reduce their number. Sign-up simplicity is something users appreciate, and you have to use it in order to increase your conversion rates.

 

Final Thoughts

 

10

 

There is no standardized rule for designing the perfect onboard process-you need to be creative, easily adaptive to all changes and modifications, and focused on the needs of your business. Looking at outstanding examples is a good idea, but replicating somebody else’s idea will never generate the same results.

The main reason why onboard processes are so important is that they take place at a very critical moment of your users’ experience-it is the very beginning, when you’re supposed to grab their attention and to expose the most important facts and benefits from your brand and your product. Therefore, forget about your own preferences and think about what users are expecting from you.

Don’t lose focus from your users-analyze their behavior and try to predict their reactions to each product/service. The more data you gather, the smoother your onboard flow will become.

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