One of the most shocking things any designer ever said to me was that I was really lucky to get so many good A/B test results. I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I started asking questions and soon understood that he thought A/B tests were a way to test your guesses. He thought I was guessing because he was guessing. He had no idea whether a new design would be better or worse and was relying on the A/B test to measure his luck.
Good UX is not a matter of lucky guesses. Guessing is not design. Design gets results intentionally. I hope, after reading this far, you are already starting to agree.
If you understand value in the business model and you have diagnosed all the big problems, there is one general principle that will ensure you get the most out of your designs: luck. Or the technical term for luck: probability. Your designs won’t be better because you are luckier, they will be better because you understand how luck works in UX.
All Things Being Equal, What Will a User Click?
Instead of relying on luck, let’s break down the behavior of one click to understand how it works.
Imagine a menu down the left side of a website, a very ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
