Experience Design — Must reads for April 2018
From time to time, I find useful and inspiring articles on the web.
In this episode:
- SMASHING MAGAZINE: Using Ethics In Web Design
- NERDWRITER: How Dark Patterns Trick You Online
- UX PLANET: Doing Your Job For You: Redesigning the Medium Stats Page
- CO.DESIGN: 3 Insights From Reddit’s First Major Redesign
- THE VERGE: Uber redesigned its driver app with input from actual drivers
SMASHING MAGAZINE: Using Ethics In Web Design
Morten Rand-Hendriksen comments on an ethical framework for design decisions, including answering these question:
What world are you building for your visitors? What capabilities are you granting or enabling?
What kind of person do you become by doing this, and is that the kind of person you aspire to be?
Would you want every other person in your position to make the same decision you just made? Are you upholding your duties of care?
Does this improve the lives of everyone affected?
NERDWRITER: How Dark Patterns Trick You Online
From Evan Puschak, a quick video on dark patterns, UI design that tricks users into doing things they might not want to do. For instance, as he shows in the video, the hoops you need to jump through to delete your Amazon account are astounding; it’s buried levels deep in a place no one would ever think to look. This dark pattern is called a roach motel — users check in but they don’t check out. I wonder how much this single pattern has added to Jeff Bezos’ personal net worth? (Source)
UX PLANET: Doing Your Job For You: Redesigning the Medium Stats Page
Jason Clauss redesigned the Medium stats page, and walks us through his thinking process.
Medium’s Stats page is missing all sorts of information that the platform does track, information that could be used by Medium authors to improve their content and grow their audience, both of which would benefit Medium immensely. Aside from better content and reader engagement, Medium needs better stats simply so the most valuable authors don’t get fed up with the lack of data and just start posting to their own website.
CO.DESIGN: 3 Insights From Reddit’s First Major Redesign
- Forget secrets, keep the community updated instead: Reddit cut knee-jerk criticism off at the pass by using Reddit itself to keep their users updated about the redesign from relatively early in the process.
- Remember that users come in many flavors: What Reddit realized pretty early on was that there could be no one-size-fits-all design for its users. So it simply split the design with three modes a user can select – a new “Card” view that surfaces pictures up top, a “Classic” view for those who aren’t big on change), and a “Compact” view for power users.
- Give people the option to revert back: The Classic view allows the longtime Redditor to keep the site largely the same, with upgrades to more legible typographic weights that should help them parse content better without ever really thinking about it.
THE VERGE: Uber redesigned its driver app with input from actual drivers
I know this sounds like non-news, but according to the article,
When redesigning the app, Uber did something it rarely does: it consulted and ran tests with hundreds of drivers in over half a dozen cities before rolling it out globally, and their suggestions and feedback influenced the final product.
Also interesting is how many people are involved with the app:
The current version of the app was designed by 30 engineers, while the redesigned app is the end product of over 300 engineers, says Haider Sabri, director of engineering for Uber’s driver experience team.
