According to Steve Krug in his book ‘Don’t make me think’, there is a trend of actions taken by some products that inadvertently push their users away, and reduce the chance in the future that they’ll return again. Not only does this damage the brand, but many other metrics such as conversions are reduced, as well as the core principles of UX design.

Let’s explore some of the failures that we can end up falling over in our user experience designs.

Failure #1 Hide valuable information

Without clear information, our users have no way of navigating our products, and this very quickly leads to one outcome: finding another product. Sure losing a customer is bad, but having them go to a competitor with better experience? This means that we’ve sorely failed in our endeavour to create for users.

Solution: Ensure visibility, mapping & feedback are a priority.

Failure #2 Punish users for not doing things your way

People make mistakes, that’s a fact of life, but how we respond to mistakes defines us. This is equally as important in the products we create, imagine the response of a user who made a serious error deleting all their hard work to discover that all they have to do is press undo or recover an autosave from a few minutes before. Now compare that to the user who has no way to recover from a simple mistake.

Solution: Make errors hard to achieve and easy to recover from.

Failure #3 Ask for information you don’t really need

In the age of information it’s incredibly tempting to ask the user for details about themselves, maybe push a few surveys, maybe even track a little of what they get up to on the site. These examples can at times have their value, but that is only when advancement of the user’s experience is truly the goal; not some other sneaky or nefarious aim, as is increasingly often the case. Ask yourself whether or not the information that you’re requesting or tracking is truly necessary or valuable, if not, don’t ask for it!

Solution: Be honest and practical; Don’t push users around for selfish gain.

Failure #4 Make things inconsistent

Consistency is key, just as much in product as it is in the real world. Of course consistency has different implications, but when we talk about it in design, we mean solely about keeping elements, interactions and experiences visually similar. For example, if we have a button that we’ve used throughout the experience purely for deleting information, and then we place it in another place acting as a button to create new content, our users will surely be confused. The minute details count here, even slight variations such as stroke weighting and colour are quickly picked up by the users subconscious.

Solution: Build simple design systems to ensure continuity, as well as using informative copy.

Failure #5 Distance yourself from the user

There’s really nothing worse than design without research; it’s how you end up with beautiful designs that are barely usable. Research doesn’t have to be expensive, and there are few cases where even as a pure UI designer, we can’t perform some sort of research into our users, even if it’s something as simple as competitive analysis. When we focus on creating a good relationship with our users, we create the best possible products.

Solution: Consistently engage with target demographics and personas, with research driven design

Failure #6 Forget visual design

Speaking of design, allowing amateurish design in favour of other objectives very quickly signals to users unprofessionalism and distrustfulness. This isn’t theory, it’s behavioural science. Humans are visual creatures and when we like what we see, we engage far more positively! However it’s also important not to hyperfocus on visual design, rather to carefully balance it with the experience in order to build a product that users truly desire.

Solution: Polish the visual experience without losing consideration for the interactive experience

In Summary

It’s important to remember that no matter what level of experience you are in your UX journey, sometimes we unintentionally forget the simple things, which is why it’s so important to frequently reflect on decisions, changes, and every step along the UX process.

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