3 axioms of UX Thinking
How to understand that you are moving in the right direction with UX design.
Everyone wants to create perfect UX for their product.
But not everyone knows exactly what needs to be done to achieve this.
Typically, it all starts with the fact that a person with certain skills articulates the problem that most people around him (in a broad sense) face.
Then, thanks to his skills, this person begins to reflect on the solution of this problem.
As a result, the solution is born, which then takes the form of a product which changes people’s lives for the better.
After that, the creator continues to monitor the behavior of users and tries to make the product UX even more flawless.
But what is that turning point which defines the success of UX?
Today we have a wide choice of good tools for building the right UX; there is also a wide range of UX experts who are ready to accept the challenge.
But, as we know, with freedom come responsibilities, and yet from the large number of available options you need to choose the most perfect one.
To always be sure of your hard choices, you need to work out the right systematic approach once.
In other words, to create successful UX, you need to apply an effective UX Thinking system, that can give you the key to the right solution when you need it.
Let’s try to frame it by way of two examples.
In 1908 in London, by merging eight independent railway lines, a subway appeared. Together with a single underground system, it became necessary to create a map so that people could plan their routes. And they created a geographically perfect map that depicted rivers and parks, but where the central stations were piled up in a heap, and some remote stations, on the contrary, did not fit on the map at all.
Harry Beck worked as a draftsman in the London Underground, and he believed that people really do not care what is above them, while they are traveling underground — everything that interested them is what station they need to sit on and which station they need get up to get where they wanted to get.
In other words, they needed a scheme that was fairly simple and human-transparent for the subway users.
In the scheme that he created, the lines can only be horizontal, vertical, or go at an angle of 45 degrees. All stations are at the same distance from each other and are painted in the colors of the lines on which they are located.
Thus, the geographic map turned into a clear scheme, and a trial print-run of 1000 copies was sold out within an hour.
Harry Beck was not UX designer, he simply set himself the task of changing an already existing product in such a way that he would perform his function as effectively as possible for a certain group of people placed in specific conditions.
So the scheme of the London Underground has become the standard of design for metro maps around the world.
Another good example.
At the very beginning of 1818, Baron Karl Drais from the German city of Karlsruhe patented the first two-wheeled self-propelled vehicle, created a year earlier, which served as a prototype of a modern bicycle. The inventor named his brainchild “Laufmaschine”, which translated means “car for running”.
Only in 1863, the nineteen-year-old Pierre Lalman, who previously earned his living by making baby carriages, built the first “dandy horse” in Paris with rotating pedals.
The next year, the Olivier brothers from Lyon, appreciating the invention of Pierre Lalman, invited him over and began mass production of “dandy horses” equipped with pedals in cooperation with the blacksmith Pierre Michaux, who later was the first to think of replacing the wooden frame of a bicycle with a metal one.
It was a truly revolutionary breakthrough in the history of the bicycle.
Clearly, by analogy with Harry Beck, neither Pierre Lalman nor Pierre Michaux were experts in UX design.
All their improvements were the result of one aspiration — how to make the product UX even more user-friendly, how to improve UX to make the interaction process even more polished.
These examples remind us that if you want to create truly successful UX, you should first ask yourself three fundamental questions:
1. Who is my user and what is really important to him.
2. Can my user perform his task as effectively as possible using the proposed UX.
3. What conditions affect him during the use of the product and how current UX takes this into account.
Apply these questions not only when creating initial UX, but also at later stages of making changes to it, and you will have every chance to make UX a really determining factor for the successful growth of your product.
