Universal Principles of UX

97

Don’t grade your own homework.

With my students, I often devise a little experiment to prove a point. I ask them to usability test their own designs, and then I randomly swap their work with another student and ask them to usability test someone else’s design as well. And the outcome is always the same. Students always think their own design performs better than it actually does. Why? Because it’s extremely difficult to be fully objective when it comes to evaluating your own work.

It might sound like this is a young defensive designer’s conundrum, something you grow out of as you become a more experienced designer, but even the most seasoned UX designers have a difficult time avoiding their own confirmation bias. This is why a lot of companies ...