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Deadly biases every designer needs to live with

 3 years ago
source link: https://uxdesign.cc/deadly-biases-every-designer-needs-to-live-with-94a3ac519c99
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Deadly biases every designer needs to live with

There are two types of biases —

Preferential: From liking one option over others.

Dispositional: From one’s inherent qualities of mind and character.

As a designer, I have a preferential bias toward neutral colours and a dispositional bias toward organised and structured design systems. One is a choice and the other is a result of my tendency to use design thinking.

As designers, our dispositional biases are much harder to grasp than our preferential ones. They exist because we’ve become so proficient in design thinking that we start to feel it’s natural for everyone. Which is a tricky problem when you consider how many design decisions we make on behalf of our users.

So what do they look like? Here are a few that may feel familiar to you.

Abstract illustration of a series of website pages, with one page having an inconsistent layout.
Abstract illustration of a series of website pages, with one page having an inconsistent layout.

Consistency bias

The belief that users regularly notice small irregularities and find them significant.

Consistency often leads to a more streamlined experience, but sometimes it should be ditched in order to make something work better in a particular context. For example, just because buttons tend to be right-aligned across a product doesn’t necessarily mean they must be right-aligned in every instance. Having it left-aligned might make more sense within a particular context, in which case forcing it to be consistent to other pages is only serving consistency for consistency’s sake. The button placement needs to make sense for the user, not just the design system. Most of the time the two go hand-in-hand, but not always.

For us designers, making things consistent is more than just good practice, it’s dangerously convenient. Consistency allows us to defer visual hierarchy to a simple structure of repeatable styles and themes. It’s so convenient that sometimes we run the risk of blindly applying it without checking whether it makes sense or not.

Abstract illustration of a stack of shapes forming a tower, with a single shape at the top being highlighted.
Abstract illustration of a stack of shapes forming a tower, with a single shape at the top being highlighted.

Design merit bias

The belief that a design’s sophistication or quality translates to value for the user.

We as designers favour design solutions that are clever in concept and construction. However, we need to remind ourselves that this alone doesn’t bring value to the user’s experience.

We’ve all heard the story of NASA inventing a pen that could be used in space. While such a thing would be an impressive feat of engineering, in the end, the cleverness of the pen’s mechanics has no real significance to the astronauts who use it. Their relationship to a pen is that it can simply put a mark on a piece of paper in zero gravity environments. Something a simple pencil can also provide.

Abstract illustration of a group of website pages, with interconnecting lines linking certain areas.
Abstract illustration of a group of website pages, with interconnecting lines linking certain areas.

Systems-thinking bias

The belief that users seek to understand the relationship between components and how they function together as a system.

As design thinkers, we’re attuned to creating all kinds of systems. Navigation schemes, user flows, page layouts etc. It’s become so natural that we tend to forget this sort of thinking is absent in the minds of many of our users (even if they happen to be designers).

A simple example is the assumption that users become confused or distressed if a control or function exists in multiple locations in a product. This imagines that users routinely think about products holistically and seek to understand the overall system of organisation behind the design. In reality, users tend to be less concerned with knowing exactly how everything works and more concerned with quickly finding the one thing they need. Shoppers just want to find that polo shirt, not rationalise whether it belongs in ‘Tees’, ‘Shirts’ or ‘Tops’. Whichever category they end up choosing comes down to something as simple as which of the three they noticed first.

Abstract illustration of a pair of hands organising blocks into a neat arrangement.
Abstract illustration of a pair of hands organising blocks into a neat arrangement.

Optimising mindset bias

The belief that users actively try to develop better ways of using something.

The habit of finding better ways to do things is inherent to the way designers think. Our minds are wired to analyse, spot problems and devise solutions. The unfortunate reality is, not only are users typically less interested in optimising their use of a product, but they can be highly sensitive to the friction of having to learn new workflows.

It’s therefore dangerous to blindly assume that optimisation information (such as pointing out a different way of doing things) will be well-received and appreciated. Many detailed onboarding processes have been created by designers with good intentions, that end up annoying users who don’t have as much of a desire to receive it.

Abstract illustration of a perfect diamond standing out from a crowd of irregular shapes.
Abstract illustration of a perfect diamond standing out from a crowd of irregular shapes.

Aesthetics bias

The belief that users place a high value on visual aesthetics.

The aesthetic usability effect is when something seems easier to use because care has been taken in the way it looks. It’s the principle we use to conveniently justify making designs visually pleasing. But could we be over-indexing on its impact on our users?

As visual thinkers, one of our strongest tenets is that good aesthetics is a virtue. So strong is this idea that we take our years of experience in what ‘good aesthetics’ looks like for granted. Not only do users typically think less about whether something looks good, but they might not have an opinion on what ‘good’ is. Often users simply find appeal in what they find familiar and easy to understand. What some designers consider ‘safe and boring’.

There are no hard or fast rules around dealing with the aesthetics of a visual design. While it depends on a number of factors, it pays to remember that the rest of the world sees things differently to how we do and notably, in a far less academic way.


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