It’s Easy to Speculate. Likewise, it’s Easy to Build Based Upon Mere Speculation. This is Not What We Do as UX Researchers & Designers.

The costs of uncovering deep flaws in one’s early UX work can be high. Make sure you do not erect your UX structure based on a shaky foundation of invalid, tacit, or unproven assumptions, misinterpreted insights, or hasty research and decisions. These weaknesses may lead to issues down the road and fixing them later in the process can be costly. It’s like someone making economic forecasts based on a flawed model fraught with limitations and forecasting a severe economic downturn down the road or vice versa.

Whether you’re seeking to enlarge your purview some more, build a better, more refined prototype, or bring more substance to your UX research and insights, there is no skipping of steps. The journey is the journey, and you got to walk the journey!

Picture this. You are tasked with the structural design of a high-rise residential building — this is akin to your complex product design project. Upon deep analysis, you’ve determined that your building foundation needs to be of certain specs to absorb the various loads. Next, each floor needs to be designed with the proper selection of columns, beams, and braces to support the floors that sit atop, etc. Or else cracks can appear, and your structure may buckle and fail. The upshot of the analogy is that when the stakes are high, there is no room for cutting corners.

Iterate your Way to Success — This is Core to the UX Design Practice

We all are bound to start our UX development journeys from somewhere. Over time, what matters most is that we’re progressing toward the desired target and not drifting farther away.

Background image by Tembela Bohle on Pexels

I’d like to draw an analogy with an exciting concept from the Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) practices to demonstrate why this is important. On the face of it, these fields look ultra-complex, mind-boggling, and only for the sophisticated minds. It’s almost surreal to fathom how computer algorithms could make accurate predictions about the world, sometimes dwarfing the human mental capacity.

A few years ago, I had the chance to learn about some ML and AI concepts. There was one thing I was so curious to understand and that is what enables a mathematical model to learn and make predictions, and accurate predictions at that?

The clue to this lies in what’s called the cost (or loss) function. This function calculates the costs between what a model predicts and the actual values — i.e., the prediction error. Using a training data set and a barometer for prediction accuracy, the ML model iterates in the direction where the cost/loss of prediction shrinks until it nears or equals zero. With each iteration, the model parameters are updated and thus the model moves closer in the direction of more accurate predictions (reference: IBM).

Powerful stuff, isn’t it? This analogy is quite revealing and relevant to our UX practice. If you’re in this space, then you’re no stranger to the concept of iterative design. As you do so, ensure you’re banking on your critical thinking faculty as your barometer that guides your forward. Ask yourself: am I iterating towards the right direction? Have I gotten hung up in one place, or fixated on one idea, one concept?

Lots of Movement, Little Achievement Can Be a Thing and You Should Be Wary of It.

Be mindful of where and how you spend your time. Make sure you’re not allocating significant chunks of your time looking for answers where they likely don’t exist. You may want to scour and scan the overall space for relevant ideas and inspiration; yes, you may borrow ideas from neighboring fields, etc. However, don’t look for too long in an arid zone devoid of clues; it is easy to get sidetracked, and it’s easy to attribute this to being busy. Be wary of getting caught up or tangled up in protracted, potentially meaningless activities too that may drain your energy, time, and resources. In an earlier article, I talked about this subject in more depth; check it out for more insights.

Underlaying background image by Markus Spiske on Pexels

Here is a curious phenomenon you should be aware of: the Streetlight Effect. It refers to researchers’ tendency to look for answers right where it is most convenient to. This phenomenon was coined following a legend which has it that a policeman once stopped a drunk person who appeared to have lost their key: “Did you lose the keys here?” The drunkard goes: “No, Officer, but there is more light here” (link).

You Don’t Have to Start your UX Project from Zero, Nor Should you Re-invent the Wheel

There are various kinds of activities you can conduct and start your discovery phase with. You may run field studies, interview your users, involve your stakeholders, set up quantifiable UX metrics, or hunt for data sources, etc. (Reference: Nielsen Norman Group). I believe hunting for data sources is a decisive introductory step that you should not defer or save for later in the UX process, and here is why:

When you gather all the information and knowledge out there, you are putting yourself further ahead in the game; you mustn’t spend large portions of your time re-inventing the wheel, mining hard for existing knowledge. Look up prior research on your subject, collect the relevant data, and unearth any existing customer reviews on your product or similar products. Consider neighboring fields and borrow ideas for your enlightenment and inspiration. Look into what experts and domain authorities know about your subject.

Imagine you and your team spending hours team-ideating over a subject and re-inventing the wheel in the process. Why build a ladder if you could borrow one. The point is you don’t have to start from zero. Suppose you are writing a paper for a journal publication. In that case, chances are you will begin by laying out the background for your research. You’ll cite literature, share critical takeaways, and discuss weaknesses and limitations of earlier work on your subject. Thus, you pave the way for your research and the contributions you intend to bring. In this guide by Old Dominion University, you’ll uncover more why background research matters.

Be Cognizant of the Groupthink Phenomenon

The UX practice is a team sport. Working with others to research, design, ideate and more can be fun, but be wary of what’s referred to as groupthink. This can manifest in a team converging prematurely on a specific path or solution. The earlier phases of your project are where you and your partners can be expansive and divergent with your thinking, ideas, research, and discoveries. Once you’ve set yourself on the right track, you’ll be able to zoom in more on the right signals and filter out the noise. Silva, Aviña, and Tsao (2016) bring valuable insight on this subject in their conference publication:

“Teams are subject to group-think, in which groups, because of various social biases, converge prematurely and inaccurately on less-good ideas. Such social biases probably evolved in humanity’s pre-history for a good reason. There are many situations for which quick consensus, conflict avoidance, and social cohesion are more important than accuracy.”

Check out this Forbes article; you’ll learn about “3-ways-to-avoid-groupthink-and-gain-respect”.

To put it all together, the process of acquiring knowledge is cumulative. You can’t rush through the learning steps and claim you have reached knowledge saturation. Likewise, the UX Research and Development process is incremental: with each step, with each iteration, and with each activity you do, make sure you’re aligning yourself closer to the direction you want. And if excellence is what you’re after then make sure you proceed based on informed, sound decisions. Mediocrity in the form of jumping to conclusions or succumbing to groupthink is to be eschewed.

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