Heuristics special class - 13th Aug 2022

Introduction

The instructor apologizes for the technical difficulties and explains that he will be discussing heuristic principles in a non-textbook manner. He also explains the importance of understanding these principles as a UX designer.

• The instructor restarts his introduction, emphasizing the importance of being on a recording and mentions that he will be teaching in a non-traditional way.

• The instructor asks students to take screenshots of an app or website to evaluate it later.

• Heuristics are defined as thumb rules.

• Rather than learning each heuristic principle, the instructor will explain their context and how they connect to being a good UX designer.

Why Heuristic Principles are Important

The instructor discusses why businesses want to provide experiences for users and how UX designers build experiences for users.

• Businesses want to provide an experience to the user because that is how they do business.

• As UX designers, we build experiences for users because user experience design is about building experiences for users.

Reducing Business Risk with UX Design

In this section, the speaker explains how UX designers can help reduce the risk of doing business by minimizing assumptions and biases.

Importance of Reducing Business Risk

• UX designers play an important role in reducing the risk of doing business.

• Businesses can take bets and gamble on assumptions about what users want, but this can be costly.

• Assumptions on a personal level are fine, but on a business level, they can be risky.

The Problem with Relying Solely on Data

• If businesses rely solely on data to make decisions, it may take too long to gather enough information to make informed decisions.

• Bets have to be placed and risks have to be taken for businesses to move forward.

How UX Designers Reduce Business Risk

• UX designers do multiple things that ultimately reduce the risk of doing business.

• They solve problems related to ambiguity and uncertainty about what works for users.

• They are closest to users and therefore hold a great responsibility in reducing business risk.

Introduction

The speaker discusses the challenges of understanding whether a product works for users and how it can be costly to talk to users.

Understanding User Behavior

• It is not always easy or cost-effective to go and talk to people to understand if a product works for them.

• A person suggested that while talking to users is important, it is possible to come up with a set of thumb rules or guidelines that allow us to understand general human behavior without wasting time validating individual specific behaviors.

• These guidelines can help in building better experiences by placing better bets and taking better decisions.

Common Human Behaviors

The speaker talks about common human behaviors that are largely true and can help in building better experiences.

Thumb Rules for Building Better Experiences

• A set of thumb rules or observations can help in reducing the risk of the gamble when building experiences.

• Some common human behaviors include wanting guidance on not making mistakes, expecting products to prevent mistakes, and wanting products that are straightforward.

• Understanding these thumb rules allows for placing better bets when designing experiences and helps in closing bets safely without having to do costly things like talking to users or doing primary/secondary research.

Conclusion

The speaker concludes by discussing how these thumb rules provide clarity coming from ambiguity.

Set of Rules for Reducing Risk

• After multiple observations, a set of rules has been developed that will be very handy in reducing the risk of the gamble when building experiences.

• These rules provide clarity coming from ambiguity and will give a lot of insight into what works and what doesn't when designing experiences.

Design Thinking Process

In this section, the speaker explains how design thinking helps to go from ambiguity to clarity and become a design thinker. The process involves understanding users, empathizing with them, defining problems, ideation, prototyping and testing.

Becoming a Design Thinker

• Understanding how all aspects of the design thinking process play together is key to becoming a design thinker.

• Going from ambiguity to clarity is the main goal of the process.

• Talking to users and empathizing with them helps in arriving at more clarity.

• Defining problems using multiple techniques leads to even more clarity.

• Ideation, prototyping and testing also help in getting more clarity.

Fundamental Principles of UX Design

In this section, the speaker talks about fundamental principles or heuristic principles that are largely assumed to be true in UX design. These principles help designers build better experiences by providing a set of rules or thumb rules.

Heuristic Principles

• Fundamental principles or heuristic principles are largely true but not always 100% accurate.

• Examples curated by asking questions can help understand these principles better.

• Understanding these principles helps designers think in a certain manner while building experiences.

Understanding Heuristics and Heuristic Evaluation

In this section, the instructor introduces the concept of heuristics and heuristic evaluation. The goal is to understand how to evaluate an existing experience with respect to fundamental principles.

Introduction to Heuristics and Heuristic Evaluation

• Understanding heuristics involves learning and evaluating an existing experience.

• Evaluating an experience with respect to these fundamental principles is known as heuristic evaluation.

• The principles help make better design decisions but do not replace gathering data.

• These principles are recommendations or guidelines, not restrictive rules like traffic laws.

Clarification on Heuristic Principles

• These principles are not going to give specific insights into why someone would select one option over another.

• They will help ensure that you are on good ground in terms of making design decisions.

• These principles evaluate things like wrong contrast, but they are not absolute rules.

Importance of Understanding Heuristic Principles

• Understanding these principles will improve your experience by providing more guidelines for design decisions.

• They will never be restrictive or limit creativity; instead, they provide a framework for making better design choices.

Heuristics and Design Principles

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of heuristics in design and how they can help designers create better experiences for users.

Understanding Heuristics

• The speaker explains that heuristics are general principles or rules of thumb that designers can use to guide their decision-making process.

• The speaker emphasizes that knowing heuristics will automatically make us better designers and we will be designing experiences keeping those things in mind.

• When asked about when heuristic evaluation is done in organizations, the speaker says it varies but it's not something to worry about right now. It's best to focus on using them appropriately in our projects.

Applying Heuristics

• The speaker suggests that we should use heuristics appropriately in our evaluative and exploratory projects to understand them better.

• There is no specific stage at which heuristic evaluation is done, but we will get close to how it is done in organizations when we do bigger projects.

• By using heuristics regularly, we become more familiar with them and can apply them even outside of design work.

Screen Analysis Exercise

In this section, the speaker leads an exercise where participants analyze a set of screens and answer questions based on design principles.

Analyzing Screens

• The speaker shares their screen with a set of screens for analysis.

• Participants are asked questions about each screen based on design principles such as visibility of system status, user control and freedom, consistency and standards, error prevention, recognition rather than recall, flexibility and efficiency of use, aesthetic and minimalist design, and help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors.

• The exercise helps participants understand how to apply design principles in real-world scenarios.

Importance of Visibility of System Status

In this section, the importance of showing the number of items added to a cart in an online ordering system is discussed. The concept of visibility of system status is introduced as a heuristic principle for designing user experiences.

Showing Number of Items Added to Cart

• When adding an item to a cart, it's important to show the number of items that have been added.

• This provides visibility into the current status of the system and prevents confusion or irritation for users who may forget how many items they've added.

• Without this information, users may accidentally add duplicate items or be unsure if an item has been added at all.

Visibility of System Status

• Visibility of system status is a heuristic principle for designing user experiences.

• It means that the system should always keep users informed about what's going on through appropriate feedback within a reasonable amount of time.

• Providing visibility into what's happening with the system helps prevent frustration and confusion for users.

Introduction

This section introduces the topic and sets up the discussion about online ordering systems.

Classic Yeah

• The speaker greets the audience with "classic yeah."

Anyway

• The speaker transitions to discussing online ordering systems by saying "anyway."

The Importance of Loading Screens

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of loading screens and why they are necessary for user experience.

Why Use Loading Screens?

• Loading screens are used to inform users that the system is processing.

• Without a loading screen, users may become confused about whether or not their action has been processed.

• A loading screen is necessary when the system takes time to give information.

Visibility of System Status

• Showing a loader informs users that some work is being done in the background.

• It's important to find examples where visibility of system status has been shown effectively.

• The toggle switch design should match how regular switches are used in real life.

Match Between System and Real World

• It's important to make sure there is a match between the system and real world as much as possible.

• Giving references to how things work in the real world makes it easier for users to understand an experience.

The Importance of Matching System and Real World

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of matching system and real-world experiences. They provide examples of how this can be achieved in different contexts.

Examples of Matching System and Real World

• The language used in system messages should match real-time communication to avoid confusion.

• Maps are a good example of matching system and real world as they show directions on an existing map, similar to how people communicate about directions.

• Big Basket's "Explore Nav" option allows users to experience the product before signing up, building trust through transparency and user control.

User Control and Freedom

• It is important to give users control and freedom while still providing constraints for a good user experience.

Constraints

• There is an interesting concept called constraints that involves giving users the right amount of control and freedom while still ensuring a good user experience.

User Control and Freedom

In this section, the speaker talks about the importance of giving users control and freedom in a system or product. He uses examples from amusement parks and video games to illustrate his point.

Roller Coaster Ride and Columbus Boat

• The speaker explains that people enjoy roller coaster rides because they give them a sense of control and freedom.

• He also talks about his experience on a Columbus boat ride where he felt stuck in the system with no exit, which was thrilling but not ideal for building experiences.

• The speaker emphasizes the importance of giving users control and freedom so that they don't feel restricted or stop using the product.

Examples from Video Games

• The speaker uses examples from video games like GTA and NFS to explain how too much freedom can be confusing for users.

• He stresses the need for balance between user control and necessary constraints to ensure efficient use of the product.

Milk Subscription App Example

• The speaker gives an example of a milk subscription app where even on the review page, users have the option to add or remove items with plus and minus buttons.

• This feature gives users more control over their decisions and allows them to change their minds quickly if needed.

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