Don't make me think (Book notes)

Insights & reading notes

• Users don't read, they scan => look for what might match their interest
• They "satisfice"
• We don't figure out how things work, we muddle through

=> Try to match pre-existing mental models. Use conventions.

A root cause for "fancy" designs:

Designers are often reluctant to take advantage of them (pre-existing mental models & conventions). Faced with the prospect of using a convention, there’s a great temptation for designers to reinvent the wheel instead, largely because they feel (not incorrectly) that they’ve been hired to do something new and different, and not the same old thing. (Not to mention the fact that praise from peers, awards, and high-profile job offers are rarely based on criteria like “best use of conventions.”)

• Remove needless words
• No one reads instructions (not until multiple failed "muddle through" attempts)

Religious debates about what users like are ineficient, people argue with stong opinions that are unlikely to change. The only way to know is to test, and test results are more likely to change these pre-conceptions.

About User testing:

• finding representative users is overrated. It's more important to test early and often, anyone who can use an app/website can do.
• The point of testing is not to prove or disprove something. It's to gain insight, and inform your judgment.
• Nothing beats a live audience reaction: use user's reaction as guidance to iterate & improve.
• 3~4 users are enough to find most usability problems.

Favor clarity: Experts are rarely insulted by something that is clear enough for beginners.

2 types of testing:

• "Get it" testing: show and let them do, see what they understand. => usually provide more insight
• "Key task" testing: ask them to perform an action and watch them try to do it

User test walkthrough:

Usability test introduction pitch:

• Make it clear we test the app, not "you" => don't worry about making mistakes
• We want to hear exactly what you think, don't worry about hurting our feelings, we want to improve so we need to know honestly what you think
• If you have questions feel free but we are more interested in seeing how people behave without help so we might not answer right away
• Ask about them, their app/website usage... where/how do they spend that time. Favorites?.
• How do you spend money there

Driving the test:

• What do you understand?
• What would you press on?
• Think of something you want out of the site/app and give it a try, what would you do

After the test:

Resist the impulse to add things. Take new feature request with a gain of salt.