Debunking the myths around 'UX'
With more and more business conducted online, organisations need to make sure their websites maximise the user experience, says Engage Hub's Andy Clowes
What is best practice when it comes to UX? Unfortunately, a lot of advice out there on 'user experience' (UX) directly contradicts other advice. Some of this bad advice is simply out of date, but some is simply wrong—always was, always will be.
How do these myths take hold? Sometimes what makes for good advice is sector-dependent and not universally applicable, other times it's because of "truthiness": "Don't make users click more than three times" sounds like it should be true, even if it isn't.
Confusion over best practices for UX reign over every sector. This confusion creates myths, and these myths create disjointed experiences that actively work against the frictionless customer experience.
So what are these myths?
The three-click rule
The web offers almost infinite choice and users have very limited patience. Therefore, visitors that need to click more than three times to get to their destination are likely to make their next click somewhere else.
Or maybe not.
While it's true that unnecessarily lengthy customer journeys can decrease conversion rates, customers are more interested in being able to find what they're looking for than the number of clicks it takes them to do so. Research by UIE has found that hardly anybody gives up after three clicks, and there is no more likelihood of a user quitting after three clicks than after 12.
The so-called ‘three-click' rule (or cliché) is a useful heuristic to help designers think about optimising the customer journey, not a firm and fixed rule of online behaviour. The actual issue is whether it's easy to complete a task, or whether it's frustrating.
If, for example, it takes users 15 clicks to find exactly what they need on a site, but every part of the journey is clear and they are never confused about where to click next, they will report the same level of satisfaction as someone who only clicked three times to reach their destination.
Design makes content look good
Design is not the finishing touch, the final element to make an excellent product look good. Design is about much more than just aesthetics - it's often the difference between a good and bad product.
Email, one of the most important tools when communicating with customers, relies on both design and content to be effective. Design needs to be professional, and embody the brand with a call to action in just the right place sto get the customer's attention.
Design isn't a way to gussy up content - content and design need to work in concert to ensure customer engagement.
Everything important must go above the fold
The idea of "above the fold" and "below the fold" never really went away.
In fact, with shorter attention spans and greater demands on time, it's tempting to see it as more important than ever. The temptation is to cram all important information and key points on the screen that will load, especially on smaller screens such as mobile and tablets.
But research shows that users do scroll, if the page is interesting enough. Some 71 per cent of users scroll all the way to the end of the page when reading normal content. However, only 24 per cent of visitors scroll to the bottom of native ad content.
People don't mind spinning their mouse wheel or swiping up on their mobile, but only if the content is capturing their attention and offering real value. Mobile social media apps, in particular, mean that users are more educated to scroll and look for the information they want, whether it's on Instagram, Twitter, or Tinder.
Usability testing is a long, expensive process
Or is it?
Usability testing, as many people understand it, is too expensive, with the results of dozens of users analysed to produce usable feedback.
All you really need are 15 users or fewer. The first round of testing with five users will reveal more than 85 per cent of the design problems in a product. Fixing these issues, running tests with another five users, then repeating the process a final time, will give results almost as good as a far more rigorous and exhaustive process.
Adding more users to usability testing offers diminishing returns, as the same feedback is repeated. So rather than conducting lengthy tests with dozens of users, doing a few short tests will yield pretty much the same results more quickly and provide more value.
Today's users demand choice
As part of his Kitchen Nightmares series, Gordon Ramsay has one complaint he yells at pretty much every failing restauranteur - cut down on the menu options.
The same advice is useful, yelled or not, in UX.
Gordon Ramsay, as pictured in the TV show Hell on Wheels. Image from www.gordonramsay.com
The shift towards an omni-channel approach could mean assuming that keeping customers happy means giving them lots of options and ways to engage. This only works if you can use all channels effectively, otherwise each is just another point of frustration for your customers.
Too many channels, too many features on a web app, or too many buttons on a single page can all have a negative impact on customer satisfaction and conversion. Overwhelmed, a customer is more likely to be paralysed, make a random decision, or wonder whether they missed out.
Just like a good restaurant menu, it's necessary to find the right balance and give customers enough options that they don't feel restricted, but not so many that they feel overwhelmed or which your organisation is incapable of satisfying anyway.
Exploding the myths
Anyone who thinks that there are fixed, unbending axioms that must be obeyed when it comes to UX should take a quick look at any web site in China. Web portals, rather than the clean interface we're used to with Google, are a mess of links and text that looks entirely alien to Western eyes. Other "single serving" sites may do exactly one thing and are divorced from that brand's main site.
We don't recommend that anyone adopts this model, but it does show that UX depends on the user - there isn't one right answer.
But while there are few universal truths in UX, there are also myths that are either plain wrong or years out of date. Ignoring these myths is the first step to achieving a frictionless customer experience. Every business (like every user) is different, so ultimately UX is about what works for your users, not blindly obeying a handful of rules that merely sound good.
Andy Clowes is head of design and UI/UX at EngageHub