Universal Principles of UX

49

Remove barriers and obstacles.

Let’s dive into some concrete ways of how to remove unnecessary friction, barriers, and obstacles from the user’s path. A good user flow maps out one goal at a time, always has a clear starting point and end goal as its title, and only looks at ways to shorten the path between those two specific points (see Principle 48). (Like, for example, from ordering a car to rating the driver.)

Since we read from left to right, the happy path (what we want users to do) should always read in our natural reading direction, and the alternative paths (what users could also possibly do) should always fork upward or downward. That way it’s easy to see at a glance how fast or slow the happy path already is and how simple or complicated ...