In his paper; “Conditional Reflexes” the scientist Ivan Pavlov proved that a dog could be conditioned to respond to a stimulus. He presented a dog with food and the dog began to salivate. He also rang a bell every time he presented the food. Eventually he could ring the bell and cause the dog to sal
The path of use is simple and straightforward; it begins with “no use” and ends in “use”. It was first described by Alan Dix, the HCI expert and University Professor, in his 2008 presentation to the University of Technology in Berlin.The purpose of the path of use is not to state the obvious; which
If you’re going to observe your users in your UX research, and you probably should, you need to know that the act of observation can have an impact on individual behaviour. The Hawthorne effect is common in research and by understanding it, you can (to some extent at least) moderate its effect on yo
Laddering questions help you direct your research in order to get the most valuable information from interview subjects. This can help you expand the remit of the research or to focus it to where the roots of problems really lay.Laddering questions are a variant of the “5 Whys” principle. The idea i
Appropriation occurs when a user takes a design and puts it to use in a way that wasn’t anticipated by the designer. This can have real benefits for a product; it enables the product to become more useful and can increase the product’s appeal to different audiences and increase its market life too.
The Endowment Effect is a contradiction of the classical economic idea that people always behave rationally within an economic system. It is the surprising idea that we are prepared to pay more money to retain something that we already own than we would pay for the item if we did not own it. It is o
There’s a cognitive bias that makes us sadder to lose something than it makes us happy to gain it. This causes us to be afraid of loss – even when that fear is illogical. It prevents us from taking small risks to make big gains, for example. Overcoming loss aversion can help you build better product
UX isn’t all about the users. On the other side of the coin lurks the business and the UX pro that makes her users happy but fails to do the same for the business is the UX pro rapidly looking for a new job.A useful way to get the business’s input into your project is a UX Stakeholder interview. A s
Freelance design work is always challenging and exciting but sadly, it can become an onerous task if your clients aren’t working with you. Freelancing, at its best, is a partnership between the freelancer and the customer and if it stops feeling that way… projects can grind to a halt and pay days ca
Feedback is a blessing and a curse. When feedback is delivered that make us feel good, we skip from the meeting with a song in our hearts. When it make us feel bad, we slink away with our tails between our legs and a snarl on our lips. Unfortunately, in most organizations this is what feedback boils
I have a confession to make. I bought a $700 smartphone and have now permanently disconnected it from being online during the day. Why? The notifications are driving me berserk. Ding! You have a Facebook message. Ding! It’s 1 degree colder outside than it was yesterday. Ding! Your phone company has
There are many rules for navigation UX; some of them complex and only used in very specific circumstances. Yet, there are some rules which will apply to nearly every situation. We’ve come up with six simple rules that may help you get your navigation UX closer to perfection: Rule 1: Be ClearAuthor/
This might sound like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs but in our experience a lot of incredibly talented designers don’t spend very much time building their personal brand. Instead they focus all their efforts on proactive marketing when they need new clients. The biggest advantage of buildin
If you’re going to graduate this year or if you’re in your first job; you’ll be wondering what you can do to improve your chances of progressing on to or up the career ladder. So what skills do you need? And is the job all about your design skills?Become a Problem SolverUX designers should know this
Products must have value. It’s a key rule of design. If they don’t have value, people won’t buy them. It’s that simple. Designers have to eat and thus they must create products people will buy. There are many ways to create value; value can be both quantitative (e.g. a product provides $100 of benef
Notice how an earlier lesson item was video-based whereas this lesson item is a mix of text and illustrations? Some people find it easier to learn from video-based content, others prefer text-based learning. If you switch between the two, you’re asking your brain to operate and absorb knowledge in d
I’m busy. You’re busy. Everyone’s busy. It’s not necessarily how things were supposed to be when all the fantastic breakthroughs of the last century were being made; but it is how things are for most of us. We don’t have enough hours in the day and when people waste our time; it makes us mad. One th
Investing in user experience is a good start. Understanding how to make the most from that investment takes time. The good news is that UX, in the majority of cases, is an iterative process. There’s almost always room for improvement in a product, website or service.The approach that your business t
Economists once assumed that every actor in an economic system would be rational. That people would calculate the value of what they had and what they could have in the future accurately and that they would make their decisions based on that calculation. Unfortunately, in practice this was rarely th
We know, almost instinctively, that networks hold value. Human beings are by nature social creatures and our own social networks (not just those online) provide a framework for our behaviors and structure to our lives. Yet, the value of networks in business is often overlooked. Designers looking to
