Category: Product Design

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Product Design User Experience User Interface

Y2K design

This is part two of a three-post series on graphic aesthetics phenomena of the last decades in computer and interface design. You can find the first post here discussing skeuomorphism and its affect across software and devices.

Y2K design is that set of visual elements that slowly in the first half the 90s condensed into a vision of end-of-century aesthetics. Its main theme is characterized by 3D graphics, saturated colors, geometries, transparencies, artificial elements, and futuristic themes.

In this context the main theme is “Global” as the markets across continents opened to the world-trading influencing each other. Global Village is the buzzword explaining how distances are slowly reduced by the ability to connect people via telecommunications. This is where design becomes not just a pretty element, but a business statement without being limited by economical restrains.

The graphic design

Poster featuring 3d elements were key to revolutionize 90s graphic design.

In previous decades we witnessed flat design styles in logo making and in illustrations, contrast to how the 90s were all about 3D with computer graphics becoming the norm in business, entertainment, and home use. People could create on their very own computer simple but stunning 3D elements with software like 3D Studio Max, using this design and implement them with other apps like Corel Draw or Photoshop to make cool prints and digital content.

Cold geometries, waves, chromatic scales, metal shapes, transparent plastics, were part of the essence of the design Y2K expression, it was a synonym of the ever increasing relationship society had with technology and how beyond the year 2000 we would eventually become. Transparent materials are often seen in products and interior design to show the mechanical complexity behind the surface, natural elements are abandoned moving towards the artificial.

Objects and abstract elements blended into a 3D soup of experimentation.

Web design is in this period a hot industry with internet available to the world having the opportunity for companies to interface to the public via aesthetically pleasing websites. The UX here is limited to the basic navigation layout and the technical constraints of the Web 1.0, while UI is king here becoming a way to communicate through a strong presence of color contrasts and abstract geometries.

90s/00s home pages were so cool [Source: web design museum].

Products for the masses

As we moved onto the mid of the 90s with the commercial availability of internet, people at home began to surf the web opening a whole new dimension of content consumption, later turned into content making as the main essence of the Web 2.0.

Tech consumer products in this period have begun shrinking in size and become widely available across countries with electronic stores expanding their presence promoting stereos, computers, cameras, CD players, VHS players, and other amenities that once were a niche market.

Japan was a driving force in consumer products.

Designers working at large brands focused on developing goods with a specific futuristic aesthetic often represented by the silver and gray colors. Japanese companies like Fuji were major players in promoting Y2K design goods being well ahead of countries in the West.

I was a teenager when I started to get more and more interested into the design and the technology behind this new wave of consumer products. From 1995 to 2000 I regularly attended tech fairs and exhibitions venue in Milan, and there I started to notice a constant progression of quality and quantity across several gadgets, where the user could choose from the best brands such as Panasonic, Phillips, LG, Sony, Olivetti, Apple, IBM.

The Minidisc was apex coolness of portable devices.

It was between 1996 and 1997 the Minidisc entered my orbit and it was love at first sight. This piece of marvel was the sequel of the Sony Walkman, developed to smash the audio cassette and the CD from the markets; its purpose was to represent the latest music portability and high-fidelity. Unlike the affordable magnetic technology of portable tape players, the MD electronic wasn’t cheap to produce and to market, it required a sophisticated understanding of hi-fidelity products the majority of consumers in the West weren’t yet ready for.

Despite being an overwhelming success in Japan, the Minidisc suffered from essential flaws outside of its native markets. Because Japan always strove to stay ahead of the competition in the electronic industry, the other western markets lagged behind and were still distributing and selling old music and storage format through CD, CD-rom, floppy disks. There wasn’t enough hardware request across Europe and North America to be able to host a major switch in favor of the Minidisc. This translated into high price tags at retail stores selling MD players for hundreds of dollars, making it an expensive purchase outside the reach of many consumers and being replaced at the beginning of the 2000s by the MP3 player at lower costs.

Mr. Anderson stored all his white rabbit’s adventures inside Minidiscs. And you?

Tech companies of the 90s developed the idea how the consumer should be at the center of everything, having the possibility to listen music, talk, recording images and videos, in order to be their own producers. This is where the ‘age of self’ begins placing on a global map the user with its experience.

With the return of Steve Jobs at Apple the company bounced onto Y2K to rebrand itself. A whole new line of products took place in the consumer market by officially putting Cupertino back on the radar.

Apple took Y2K and made it their own flagship design beyond the 90s.

Take for instance the Macintosh with its transparent components as a driving force for Apple with such peculiar design, it was a statement of aesthetic to set themselves apart from the rest of the consumer product markets that were virtually indistinguishable from one another. Apple in the second half of the 90s became a wide available niche entity despite lagging behind Microsoft.

Remember to clean the poo.

Products also came in a new variety to entertain the masses, one of the strangest one was in the shape of an egg where you are responsible for a virtual pet’s life by feeding it and making sure of its happiness. Tamagotchi was weird but awesome at the same time because it provided a new user experience that would last weeks or months, not just a quick escape but a play-behavior unseen until then.

The leap forward:
video games

In the videogame industry the Y2K design was a major driving force. Sony launched the Playstation in 1994 rocking the markets. The console was a big catalyst for game developers in crafting new titles that often were influenced by the Y2K effect, further amplifying this phenomena into the mainstream.

The Y2K level for this title is over 9000.

Games like Wipeout 2097 for Playstation represented the apex of Y2K style fully embracing its aesthetic and philosophy with their cool graphic elements and gameplay. Published in October 1996, this title was well received scoring high across gaming magazines and users.

Playstation was the golden goose for Sony.

Nintendo played its cards quite well with the N64 and its Y2K variants successfully publishing a series of Super Mario 64 titles as well with the iconic 007:Golden Eye. Console developers were aggressively pushing for their complementary hardware sales in the form of cool controllers or other gadgets.

Transparent meant an added value to consumer products as a limited edition.

Console memory cards were essential for the household mental health…

The music and the Winamp era

This is the period where computers are becoming staple appliances in household across the globe, and with an internet connection users started to have access to new digital products and learn about the latest trends. Here computers started to become the serious alternative to television, not just machines to use once in a while, but an entertainment system too where all the family can benefit from it.

Sweet memories of sweeter times.

Y2K also means Winamp, a very popular music software that worked as a virtual digital stereo on your computer, there you could organize in various playlist all your Mp3 files and customize your layout selecting different skins. Back then, constantly changing skins was the wow factor that helped this software to become legend.

Winamp is one of the most successful digital products to have empowered user to manage their files and software customization. Even if Windows Media Players was a standard app in each Win98, 2000, XP, users would ditch it and immediately download and install Winamp for its flexibility, ease of use, cool factor.

The many skins of Winamp [Source: y2kaestheticinstitute.tumblr.com]

This product was a clear example of the change of times while approaching Y2K with all the commotion that was taking place. Winamp, developed by the defunct Nullsoft, showed the web how great products had the ability to be crafted by a dedicated user base rather than coming from AAA companies. An important step of the democratization process of the web beginning in that period.

The ability to have an entire folder in your computer with hundreds of songs scared radios and record producers, but we didn’t care and carried on empowering ourselves s through our desktops. We wanted to connect with the rest of the world and the web was the right instrument to influence society. It was a great time of digital discoveries.

Aphex Twin’s distinguishable logo.

Various artists contributed to the Y2K aesthetic between the 90s and early 2000 with truly amazing art pieces featured on their album covers. Aphex Twin, Radiohead, Prodigy, and Massive Attack. This is the age of experimental music and wide distribution across TV networks, but also the development of underground music scenes becoming popular like electronic music.

POP by U2 was an iconic and visually interesting album.

U2’s album POP was a condenser of those years fueled by intensive consumerism and ego perfectly narrated through the each track. The term ‘Pop’ was a recurrent trend in the West taken from the 50s/60s period of iconic creativity made famous by Pop Art with names like Andy Warhol turning painting into advertising and viceversa.

Ok computer.

Radiohead are flying high thanks to their 1997 album Ok Computer confirming the electronic sound as the main component for this period of time, becoming the official vibe of the Y2K period jading an entire generation of Millennials.

Interior design

Transparency, transparency everywhere.

Y2K interior design was achievable thanks to new materials and their applications. This period ot time wanted to encompass the use of both artificial and natural elements melding metals, plastics, and wood.

The cool vibes of the 80s neon lights were slowly fading away to be replaced with surface reflections and natural lights. This is the time frame where designers and architects come together to reshape public spaces and the workspace. Materials and their characteristics are protagonist creating the desired indoor effects.

Indoor industrialism as the cool factor.

Another essential characteristic of this design is the popular choice of minimalist geometries often influenced by cyberpunk elements. Back then the consensus was how society and cities were going to resemble utopia movie sets as we departed humanism, leaving it behind to the past and embracing a cybernetic tomorrow.

Oxford St. London’s McDonald’s [Source: y2kaestheticinstitute on Tumblr]

This particular McDonald’s in London was a spearhead in interior design proposal and execution, it worked really well in commercial spaces offering a sleek and spacious volume for customers to navigate. Y2K interior design predicates practical efficiency as a reminiscence of the Bauhaus style removing decorative elements. Although cool and practical it’s a challenge to the human brain as it seeks complex patterns and natural shapes to be stimulated.

Fashion

Aesthetic plays a major role in the Y2K fashion. [Source: Snug Industries].

Y2K fashion was about departing from the traditional makings of the past. Here we move away from the materials that have been with us for centuries: cotton, wool, linen, being replaced with acrylics, nylons, plastics, metals. Fashion made by synthetic components wasn’t just an artistic statement, it was an industry strategy to produce entire new lines of clothing for a cheaper production but with a high profit yield.

As tech products became smaller and smaller, fashion designers started to incorporate them into our daily life often believing clothing and gadgets would eventually become one entity; wearing technology was the expected and wild trend at the same time, but an accurate prediction nonetheless.

Nokia was a very important brand and influence in this period, their cellphone quality and reliability were a high standard on the market. Their products followed the Y2K design principles featuring silver colors promoting them as a fashion statement.

Other colors such as blue, gray, black, white, were used to highlight the feeling of coldness and industrialism. Patterns were removed and sleek shapes and surfaces are the norm across the Y2K design spectrum. I can’t deny how these fashion elements are inspired by the wild imagination of TV and movie productions, especially if we take into consideration examples like Blade Runner with its costumes and props.

Movies

The iconic representation of symbiosis between man and machine.

Great expectations are always placed upon movie productions to craft great narratives to inspire the viewers. It’s the case of the 1999 movie The Matrix with its spectacular vision of a modern society overwhelmed by the use of technology, with its destiny forged by machines in an attempt to fight them and survive searching for their lost humanity.

The Matrix accentuates the conflict of relying for far too long on machines by using them not as a tool but as a mean. In this context the approach of the new millennium is opening a new century of technological marvels, often forgetting how humans are still socially and psychologically evolving, and where an impact of sudden changes might bring more questions than solutions.

The Y2K vibe is also fueled by the extensive influence of computers and the power of the web. Hackers and hacking started to become two words often misused to produce entertainment, but movies can’t resist trends and buzzwords so they would jump ship and pay John Travolta to star in Swordfish.

Do not confuse it with the swordfish, the fish.

Hackers was a daring but entertaining project aiming to connect with young crowds by exploiting the current phenomena of computer hacking, something the press started finding amusing by publish more and more but without grasping its true concept.

I thought about Johnny Mnemonic but the movie is a full plunging into cyberpunk with its dystopian twists and deserves a post of its own despite possessing several Y2K elements; Strange Days uses the same concept of hacking the brain as the ultimate tool to go beyond reality and the human limits. In this creative work frame projections and dreams are encapsulated into their technological capability to be reproduced, much like a painting or a play can be recorder and viewed through out electronic capabilities.

Last stop

Y2K has multiple elements ad genre that go well beyond what we described here. It was a period of time where technology and its lure pulled us into this synergy of extended futurism and consumerism. Y2K design was characterized by the vision of tomorrow that brands and creators envisioned over 25 years ago.

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed Japan’s vision of Y2K for its capability to propose on multiple levels a whole new foresight of creativity and innovation. Consumer products, entertainment, fashion, wanted to distinguish themselves from the past decades by promoting the ‘synthetic’ as a pivoting platform for new proposals.

Y2K design will forever be remembered as the essential aesthetic and functional phenomena that condensed multiple characteristic. It wasn’t just a visual experience but a way of entering the future we are living today.

Happy wireframing!

Categories
Brands Product Design Psychology User Experience User Interface

A look back at skeuomorphism

Skeuomorphism is a term used in technology to describe digital elements that replicate real life objects to enhance their purpose and visual characteristics generating a specific aesthetic. There have been plenty of applications in the past thirty years that opted to replicate something we see on a daily basis, and despite being visually pleasing it’s not the best choice for interfaces.

This design applies to software that pioneered its UX and UI essence to stand out from bland element shapes and colors, gaining popularity through 1990s as software developers believed digital interfaces should imitate real life environments to facilitate the user. Some used skeuomorphism to build interfaces with the intent of standing out from the rest of the competitors, others just went along the trend and often created unpleasant design experiences.

Microsoft’s BOB in 1995 wanted to be the main interface for Windows.

Skeuomorphism and 3D

The purpose of skeuomorphism is to facilitate the user by creating 3D or realistic user interface elements with the purpose to stand out, reproducing a familiar environment, and to be clearly visible by different experience. However, the abundance of elements in the UI doesn’t help understanding how we can clearly accomplish our tasks.

Backed by Y2K design influences, skeuomorphism peaked with Apple’s products between 2010 and 2015, but was also a major driving force for Microsoft’s OS such as Vista, 8, and earlier for Windows XP. Designers and developers toned down the use of skeuomorphism by only using 3D elements for program icons, leaving the background to a much clearer operational state and adopting a much neat desktop.

Through time icons became cooler with more details upgrading the visual style both for Microsoft and Apples products, and everyone at that time thought this design style would be the next big thing in terms of UI; however, it turned out to be a massive load of information for the user to digest and understanding which features can be interactive and which not. Spatial and element disorientation made it difficult for users understanding the interface layout.

Even the trash bin got cooler through the years.

But does it fly?

Skeuomorphism is aesthetically pleasing but places an excessive cognitive load upon the user, and some styles tend to be more detailed than others increasing the hardware and software requirements for the app to run, thus more energy translates in less battery life for the device and lower user expectations. Apple has always been a great fan of skeuomorphism and IOS 6 was peak design representation of realism for this style. It worked very well by impressing the audience when the iPhone was launched as users would interact way more often with these elements compared to their laptop or Macintosh.

Good looking but it’s distracting.

Because we’ve been using our smartphones more often than previously thought, Apple understood they were visually punishing their users with an excessive amount of details for each app. Notes app, Newsstand app, Voice Memo app, they all featured high elements of realism to stand out from their competitor and wow the user. Skeuomorphism is detailed with elements to enhance the high fidelity of real life objects, but here comes how the aesthetic portion will affect the usability of the product confusing the user over what it’s possible to use and what’s not.

Yes, skeuomorphism is nice in small doses and might work well within specific apps that require a certain degree of realism in their UI. Music software is a great example because the depiction of physical equipment connects right well with users: an amplifier, a guitar pedal, a mixer. They’re all technologies that are still used today existing in parallel with their digital version, and they also tend to change very little through time compared to other mediums.

Which features can you interact with and which one are just aesthetic?

Do we really need this type of realism between the analogical and the digital world?

I don’t think we do as much as we needed in the past as today’s users are more trained and prepared to understand software elements. Yesterday’s skeuomorphism wasn’t just a pretty aesthetic feature but rather a teaching element helping users recognize their tools in a faster way. A yellow paper with rows of lines immediately pushes the user to think about a notepad, a shiny metallic gear represents the setup icon to make changes to the device, and so forth.

Replicating the plastic keys of a computer keyboards to be tapped on a touchscreen was Apple’s idea to reduce the onboarding process from those who used physical pads, for example Blackberry users, making a statement about their products by pushing for a full digital experience.

IOS toned down the realism to provide more clarity.

However, skeuomorphism with its elements has the power to saturate the eyes faster than a simpler UI approach, and that’s why over the last ten years a rise in popularity of minimalist design was protagonist in the markets. Simpler is better because it plays easy on the cognitive load, especially since we use our smartphone as a tool for multiple purposes for hours at the time on a daily basis.

Can skeuomorphism exist outside its environment?

Realism and 3D elements are characteristics of skeuomorphism and are visually recognizable from the start. The high details levels and sense of aesthetic is a peculiar leverage standing out from the rest, this will set this style apart from the rest, meaning skeuomorphism is bound to its essence and will clash if paired with other interface models.

Skeuomorphism comes in other flavors and is a strong ingredient in videogames because it represents the optimal intersecting point between realism and 3D. The user perceives a direct connection with this design as different elements bridge the two sides, and this choice of style enhances the experience of the player not just in the dynamic game play session but also with static ones.

Note the map details with the seal stamp on the bottom-left and the name of the printer on the bottom-right of the map. [Dishonored 2– 2016 Arkane Studios]

A new trend has seen a soft return of skeuomorphism under the name of neumorphism where there’s a mix of 3D elements in a clear environment of distinct design style. Personally, I think it’s a good modern option to consider if flat design is fading out, but not all software can benefit from an aesthetic change as the UX behind is the main mechanism for the purpose and functionality of the product.

Neumorphism is perhaps what skeuomorphism was intended in the first place.

Skeuomorphism and logos

With the late changes in design trends, many brands opted to abandon skeuomorphism to adopt a minimalist approach to refresh their status quo. It’s the case of web browser Firefox by Mozilla that evolved from higher details and an aim to realism to a logo representing a fox wrapping a globe, where for every reiteration the details have been removed.

A Firefox is actually a red panda, but it would be difficult not to think of a fox.

As time goes by the skeuomorphism phenomena lost its appeal with designer seeking more essential shapes and contrasts rather than an overabundance of visual stimuli. The race for simple and cleaner logo began across multiple industries, affecting a domino effect from other companies.

British Telecom went drastic in their logo change to a simple purple/white duo.

Skeuomorphism placed a great emphasis over the last thirty years in UI and graphic design, so much that it prompted the industry in opting to flat design choices. As we live in a minimalist design era where we abandoned textures, details, complex patterns, to decor our homes and cities, and with the fact sleek and smooth design seems to be the latest trending choice. I wouldn’t be surprised if skeuomorphism comes back to provide a physical connection with products and services, maybe as an antidote to the abstract gesture and interactions our devices are being developed with.

In essence, skeuomorphism is a cool highly packed and detailed design that wants to mimic real life elements with the intent to provide a unique experience for the user, but that at the same time loses practicality making it a poor UX choice especially for today’s technology where everything it condensed on smaller and portable screen devices.

Happy prototyping!

Categories
Foresight Product Design User Experience

Little steps, big leap

The process of product development comprises a variety of steps that each have their importance to understand and produce for the user. Every product is different with its purpose and output so the evolution stage will present with different challenges that might influence your approach. Designers shouldn’t be afraid when starting something new, it’s normal to doubt how some aspects of the process will turn into cheap shots making the work harder. This is normal and there isn’t a solution to this common issue, but rather a set of experiences that can build your confidence into reducing stress and help you along the way. Should you find a moment of weakness or doubt, pause and reflect to address your location on the map, this will help you strengthen aspects that are often discarded within the design community.

Consider the following when the need to create something new arises:

  • The research phase will be long and require more resources than you think: new products require you to explore new areas that you never had the chance to visit. You are going to spend more time looking for your topics than analyzing them to extract what you’re looking for. This requires you to balance resources so you don’t  spend too much time in your earlier stages.
  • Data redundancy will be constant: while collecting elements you will find similar data among your team that creates the tendency to expand conversation and time dedicated discussing the information. Everyone during the discovery phase feels compelled to provide their experience and findings increasing the data quantity and its repetition; pay attention to what information is essential to the existence of your product and leave the rest for later.
  • Create an early proposal: once you gathered enough data in the discovery phase you should create an early proposal to the stakeholder to understand if you are on the right track. This saves you time and budget because nobody is happy to find out they got it wrong after five months of work.
  • The product you’re developing is just the first step: this important aspect is often overlooked. You are not developing just a product, you’re establishing a practice method to build a longer path for you and your client to develop business opportunities. This encourages you to be open, to foster broader ideas, to plan ahead, and to increase client loyalty benefiting both parties. Foresight is a vital part of product development because within more complex environments, you will have to interface with System Designers, Compliance, Legal department, to make sure everything is safe and sound.
  • Team brainstorming is vital: it doesn’t matter if you are working in a small or large team, or if you are the only designer working on the project. The important thing is to brainstorm with other colleagues such as developers, product owners, tech department, to understand their point of view and how their input can enrich and assist your development process.
  • Increased focus on lo-fi testing is better: designers have the tendency to show the pretty interfaces so they can convey a richer sense to stakeholders by having hi-fi models. Take a step back and make the lo-fi or skeleton system work first like clockwork, it’s easier this way because your focus is on the basic working mechanics: before you can run you need to walk.
  • Stakeholders are your friends: as I mentioned a few lines earlier, sharing information with stakeholders allows to keep them in the loop and welcomed in the process. Empathy is your best friend and you will look like a considerate designer that can take care of people, products, development tasks, acquiring more awareness and important feedback.

Product development required the creation of an experience satisfying the user’s needs and client’s expectations. Remember to stay focused on who is the user and what are the essential key points to make your product viable first and scalable later.

Happy prototyping!

Categories
Product Design User Experience User Interface

Cards, funny and easy tools

UX cards, often disregarded, are actually a fun activity to include during the development process for its powerful visual impact.

Why do I need cards? They are a leverage point in your favor helping a transition from the UX to the UI process, especially when you need inspiration or a preview of your results.

Cards don’t have to be boring, they can be fun and represent an opportunity to experiment providing a glimpse of what the final product might look like.

Play with your cards, we might say, and test your work to find new inspiration when you find yourself stuck.

Happy sorting!

Categories
Brands Companies Product Design User Experience

Developers, developers, developers! How we left a gap in making better products and services.

It was at Microsoft Windows Developer conference of 2000 where former MS CEO Steve Ballmer chanted the magic words “Developers, developers, developers!” soaking in sweat trying to prompt the large crowd of the event. It worked and that moment in history became a meme for the ages to share.

Developers, yes, but what was Microsoft’s angle back then? During that live event, Windows XP was being finalized to be released the next year, the XP as in “experience” for the total renewal of its approach on the PC operating system that would become an immediate success. Users left behind the dear Windows 98 and the forgettable Windows 2000 and Windows ME.

I remember quite well those years and the PC distribution suffered from the customer perspective to the point people didn’t even realize there were two OS between Windows 98 and Windows XP. Really? Yes, the potential wasn’t living up to standards of what the average user actually needed, and here we are talking major OS operations forgetting the user experience.

Has Microsoft ever proposed a UX to grace PC users that grew discontent over the years because the excessive weight was put towards developing useless apps? It took decades to provide the average MS user the ability to use a PC without asking their kids or grandkids how to connect to the internet, how to install software, and how to find specific but essential information like the network name or the network password.

Seems pretty jolly work for today’s standards, yet while MS users suffered in pain across the 90s and the 2000s because of poor software feedback and other UX malpractices, Apple and Linux were taking notice from afar watching every step Microsoft took. While Microsoft followed the typical strategy of overwhelming the user with as many features as developers could come up with, the actual user was just looking to write documents, read email, doodle with MS Paint for fun.

Windows XP was the right approach to a friendly UX, but despite its success, its direction was discarded when new projects were released.

Windows XP had the right pedigree to become a beacon for users in experiencing a better software environment: its colours, shapes, icons, features, were right and users felt comfortable around a new OS development approach. We can say this OS popularized and made it easy for new users to approach the digital world, especially when owning a computer at home back in 2001 when it became popular to do so.

It’s the end of 2001 when Windows XP is released, September 11 just happened and the world is in shambles. People are slowly acknowledging computers as a major and essential furniture in the household, just like the over, the dishwasher, or the washing machine. Soon after these computers will connect to the internet changing the lives of millions of people at the time.

The months flipped fast off the calendars from the wall, it’s years now and we witness the release onto the market of Windows Vista, a total change from the UX and UI of Windows XP trying to on and off take sips from the Apple’s dimension and creativity. Then Windows 7 in 2009 taking us back to familiar and safe waters by providing the user with an experience capable to work well at home and at the office.

Three years later millions of users would be introduced to Windows 8 marking a drastic setback in UX discounting years of progression. This latest OS release was a sneak preview and overzealous move by Microsoft to introduce us to tablet UI systems: programs are now apps, icons are all available upfront without using the Start button (apparently), Microsoft Marketplace wants to disrupt the app distribution system by gatekeeping the PC world.

Paint 3D, a very useful app…

But let’s not forget about developers, developers, developers, since Microsoft placed a hefty value and pressure on the role of developers to enhance the perceived image at their root concept. This because MS perceived product and service creation as a pure work of back-end software programming, excluding the UX process that would get the user comfortable with the latest releases; instead the Gate’s boys insisted on providing solutions from the developer’s perspective only, skipping the fact that whatever Microsoft did was being given to teachers, plumbers, dentists, librarians, shop keepers; basically a whole world apart from the C++ and C# software developers.

What about web developers? Remember when Windows had that cozy program called FrontPage where you could create your basic website? FrontPage existed from 1995 to 2007, retired when Web 2.0 started to grow unleashing its potential as social platforms like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Youtube, rose to the top of society’s digital communication channels. There Microsoft lost its chance to beat Adobe to the punch by not making its own tool to develop web pages, and to integrate such tool in its MS Office package.

But we all know the sad story of Microsoft being ahead of its time and being unable to capitalize on its own creativity and potential, almost like a first-born child that never believed in his true potential and let the younger brothers lead his existence. This has given Apple and other competitors room to grow over the years taking notice of what MS didn’t have the courage to push through. Not many can remember the 2003 Microsoft/HP tablet sporting Windows XP and being ahead of the whole game in terms of portability. It was the Microsoft Window For Pen Computing, a new way to look at portable devices through the aid of a flat computer using a pen instead of a mouse, just like pen and paper with a notepad.

For me Microsoft is like the first car you ever drove: your newest and best experience happens there when young and full of hope, much like the joy of freedom going to pick up your friends Saturday night for a spin and something to eat, or when you go pickup your date and make love folding back the seats. The best memories are there and will be forever with you even if along your path you meet new friends like Apple, Linux, that change your philosophy on how hardware and software should be designed and produced.

This explains itself pretty well

This is not a post against developers, it’s a post against missed opportunities and that daredevil attitude which faded away from companies that once were eager to change things around, and they wanted to do that because they had the ability to create something to improve the user experience of millions of people. If Steve Jobs said “Stay hungry, stay foolish” it was because that mindset allowed Apple to win the fight knowing they had to fill their stomach by putting something on the table; however, when you stuff yourself beyond the primary needs, you loose any incentive to be foolish by not being hungry anymore, and that’s what happened to Microsoft.

Happy new year and happy wireframing!

Categories
Product Design User Experience User Interface

Bad interfaces, companies skipping UX design

As I’m writing this post a lot is happening in the digital realm of tech companies after a constant growth for ten solid years. Recent news have told us major lay-offs have been happening:

  • Meta 11,000
  • Amazon 10,000
  • Twitter 3,700
  • Stripe 1,000
  • Redfin 862
  • Lyft 700
  • Opendoor 550
  • Jull 400
  • Zendesk 350
  • Chime 160
  • Salesforce 110
  • Paypal 59

The tech industry is contracting over years of expansion because of several factors that were acknowledged and ignored. But I’ll write about this on another dedicated post.

Large companies aren’t exempt from losses and failures and often it’s about small details where this happens, much like you would trip and fall over a small pebble stuck in the ground which might as well be the tip of the iceberg leading to many other issues.

What is the value of a product when a brand purposely leaves behind the UX portion of the project? Imagine running a restaurant and inventing a new dish to serve to thousands of customers, now imagine opening the pantry and add ingredients based on your personal liking and nothing else, forget proportions and quantity-measuring. What do you think it might happen? Awful taste, allergy risks, unbalanced seasoning, just to mention a few scenarios or all together happening at the same time. There’s your answer, now make it look pretty and ask people to eat it.

Despite sounding awful, I’m constantly finding out poor product development because of the lack of User Experience. Why this? The quickest answer: UX is ignored because companies believe it’s an aesthetic process of product development, they read ‘design’ and think it’s a superfluous step. Don’t be surprised if you see software companies unaware of the UX design process, they will most likely answer:”We already have our graphic designer doing the interfaces”.

Graphic designers are capable professionals to deliver digital goods for your products, however, they are often lead by company figures that have different skills and have been working on front-end developing, or back-end developers building interfaces without having any user’s input on testing it. This has convinced me there’s a lack of knowledge in UX from those companies that are creating products and services.

I’ve seen big Silicon Valley works delivering poor UX despite hefty budgets, interfaces developed by software engineers that are impossible to use, applications that only work in the mind of the person that created them. All these products that have failed suffered from poor or total absence of UX.

Risking to ruin your clothes on a bad wash, the lack of information of this washing machine lets you guess your fate.

I’ve seen plenty of products that disappoint from the get-go because there’s no connection with the user. Engineers can craft the best goods but at the same time will risk to bankrupt their company, all this because the usability is poorly made/implemented and there’s no advantage for customers. Companies ought to explain their products’ functionality the easy way, so easy you can explain it to your grandma.

Consumer products can be highly reliable until their functionality is compromised by poor or the total lack of UX in their development cycle. If you’re making goods for the average buyer, why are you complicating the usability experience? The eternal enigma that has been with us since the dawn of sales.

My mother raised the million-dollar question each time we got a new dishwasher:“Why aren’t women developing these products?”. She’s been right this whole time because she knew women would interact with more frequency with a dishwasher in the kitchen than men. Thus we would have a product developed by men without experience over dishware and food preparation, where the racks and trays to place forks, knives, plates, would often be designed without practicality with bad space allocation making the washes and cleaning difficult.

There’s a special place in hell for the person who designed this interface.

The other products that suffer from poor UX are microwave ovens, here above the strange interface that probably made sense for the engineer that soldered the circuits behind, but it’s useless to your target audience. If your grandma cannot use it, then how do you expect to sell it to others? I’m using ‘grandma’ as an example of user that is most likely to interact with food-making products, I watched my grandma over the years using analog and then digital goods mostly in the kitchen because that was her realm; she raised three kids by herself making sure they were fed as it was her top priority, also she would prepare my favorite dishes like no other because grandma have a the deepest knowledge in selecting the best ingredients.

However, household items aren’t the only ones suffering from bad UX, automotive designers tend to complicate things when creating a product for drivers, especially when it’s about those tools that provide information or respond to inputs like the center console of the dashboard. My personal experience went from driving my first car without power-steering and with few buttons to press, all the way to digital screens to touch for radio and navigation interfaces.

This Opel Astra dashboard did not help anyone understanding its functions.

A good friend of mine had an Opel Astra with the above pictured dashboard, a very sturdy and reliable car very comfortable both for city and highway use; it had one flaw where understanding how to change radio station, temperature, air flow, was a total letdown because of an over complicated interface of the command console. It was very complicated because it was designed without any UX principle, the first one being to make it easy for the user to interact with a product.

While driving you want the least distractions and this dashboard wasn’t helping, often my friend had to stop the car to interact with the console, not even him could understand how to properly use those buttons and became a distraction to use this tool. The first thing that throws you off from this console is the lack of distinctions from the buttons, they tend to look all alike from one another, so you might confuse the A/C from the radio station presets. This experience would break the Law Of Proximity and the Law Of Similarity.

User Experience and User Interface are complementary because their goal is to provide the user a clear and successful product/service. They can be separated and lead by two different designers, but they are essential to great products and to brands’ happiness; without them your company is investing on marketing strategies to sell what you’re producing trying to cover the fallacies during the development.

Allow me this hyperbole: Apple’s product sell themselves. Everyone on this planet recognizes an iPhone, a MacBook, an iMac, yet there’s no advertising on TV, newspaper, magazines, about their creations. Apple made its priority to invest a lot in the UX/UI process because the company knew how important for their brand was; an expensive product must have an expensive design department.

Because of this I’m convinced great ideas can be successful when they are backed by a solid UX, minimizing the need for marketing investments to justify the presence and sale of a product with ad campaigns. I’m also convinced that popularity through marketing is a big coat of white paint to embellish a façade with many cracks; several recognizable brands place massive advertising budgets to sell average products on the market. They do that because their priority is not quality but quantity as their established business model, so they would often create a narrative about the history and care of their product and pivot on that to sell it (think about that brown whiskey from Tennessee).

When the user is at the center of the experience all is balanced.

But why UX? This discipline places the user at the center of the experience balancing several important aspects, and this means we are creating something for a person to use in order to fulfill the need to buy the very same product. Companies that avoid or forget to consider the user as the main protagonist of their works will have on their hands a faulty product. This translates into resources invested the wrong way, and you probably are using a product/service that wasn’t thought for a person to be used, but rather it was developed for another purpose and you are using it without will or passion.

Think about a diet for weight loss and how they create great discomfort to people, yet are a necessary tool to improve our health. Doctors focus a lot of their work process onto the therapy removing the patient (the user) outside of the system, so when they draft a diet that doesn’t work so well it’s because they ignored the needs of the user. You can cut calories through a deficit and lose weight, but what food are you eating? Is it the right food for your body? Is it the right food for your work schedule? I didn’t know that by switching to a protein-based diet with minimal carbohydrates I would lose weight and not feel hungry, but neither my doctors did and rather suggested a plain approach of meals that didn’t fit my working hours and habits.

Bad microwaves, bad dishwashers, all made by famous brands but when their products don’t sell it’s because the user doesn’t find it easy to use or it doesn’t fulfill the expectations despite the many marketing promises. Skipping on UX is a boomerang that will come back faster at you through time, maybe not soon, but when it does it comes with plenty of speed and force. Placing the user at the center of the experience is paramount, shifting away from that and you’ve gone off the road into the bushes.

If you made it all the way down here to the last lines, well done mate, and remember:

YOU=/=USER

Happy holidays and wireframing!

Categories
Product Design User Experience

Cognitive Load

The mental workload

An integral part of the work of a UX designer is the simplification of information and operations towards the user when using a product or service, both digital and physical.

The Cognitive Load is the load of information that our memory can process at a certain time in order to be able to carry out a task.

Not being able to upgrade our brain as we can for a computer, we work in parallel making data and tasks more streamlined and essential in order to simplify interactions for the user.

In the UX field this is translated by building and testing more linear experiences until a specific goal is reached, which sees the user capable of interacting with the product in a logical, practical, simple way.

How do we accomplish all of this? In building digital applications, I prefer to start with a minimalist approach of the necessary elements that can mainly include three user cases:

  • expert, knows digital tools well using them often and easily;
  • curious, use digital tools discreetly when necessary;
  • junior, use digital tools if you can’t help it by getting help.

From A to B in the shortest and fastest possible movement to meet the user’s requirements; we therefore consider these three categories to calibrate the experience of the digital product by building a path where the mental workload is as low as possible.

What needs to be done? Interviews with users and prototypes allow you to obtain quality feedback during the UX research process, but also during the product testing phase to help developers carry out the software debugging process more serenely and with a direction to follow.

Result? By lowering the Cognitive Load it will be easier for the user to complete its tasks, increasing the product approval rating, helping to develop better brand loyalty, making the customer satisfied and happy.

Happy prototyping!