101 UX Principles

Chapter #93. Don't Confound Users' Expectations

This is a kind of meta-principle. When your customers approach your product, they bring with them a lot of baggage. This past experience can be fought against or worked with. It's your job to work with it.

Consider that your users have almost certainly:

• Used a computer or a smartphone before
• Used a web-based product or an app before
• Used a product a bit like yours before
• Used a product "very much" like yours before

So why make things hard for them?

Your users have spent many years using products just like yours, so should your product work just like those other products or radically differently?

The answer is—"just like those other products".

iOS, Android and Tizen. There's a reason that products look similar ...