UX for Beginners

Chapter 72. Simple, Easy, Fast, or Minimal

UX designers are always trying to make functions better and nicer for the user. But in different situations, that means different approaches. So let’s compare four different ways of thinking about usability.

A word you might hear in UX is: heuristics. A heuristic is an approach or a strategy for solving a problem. Let’s say you want to get more people to finish a process with many steps. Like a checkout, or a registration, or getting through the body-scanners at the airport.

(i.e., You want to increase conversion.)

Below are four ways you could think about it (heuristics), each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

Simpler: Fewer Steps

It’s only a matter of time, as a UX designer, before someone brings you a seven-page registration flow that needs to be simplified.

You could:

• Remove any questions that aren’t necessary, like confirming your email address.

• Detect information, like the type of credit card, instead of asking for it.

• Automatically format answers properly, like a phone number, instead of asking for it in several chunks (or using errors).

The disadvantage with simplification is that it might collect less information or take more time to build. And if you don’t confirm that email address, a typo can ruin the whole registration.

Easier: More Obvious Steps

It is almost always possible to make a question more obvious. Just pretend you’re designing for one of the guys from Duck Dynasty.

You could:

• Let them choose their country from a list ...