A design tale: learning from my own experience as a user
About three weeks ago, a friend shared an article with me. She always suggests good reads so, I hurriedly clicked on the link to read the article almost as soon as I got the notification. The article was well-written and had a fun tone. I loved it.
As soon as I was done with reading the article, I decided to scan through the website and check out other articles by the writer or any other writer on the site as I was a first-time visitor.
I hovered over the writer’s name, but, it wasn’t linked to anywhere. After clicking and re-clicking, on the different links in the navigation bar, I finally found another article, by a different writer. This new article did not meet the sudden expectation I had built from reading the first. Usually, at this point, I’ll readily give-up on this site as my dream of becoming a frequent visitor had just crashed.
However, I took a course titled “Human Computer Interaction(HCI)” last semester and, for every experience(good or bad) I have on an app or site, I take out my time to identify what elements of a good design are present or lacking. So, I put on my HCI lens, tried to examine the site and learn a thing or two.
With my most-recent acquired pair of lens on, I noticed an unplanned User Experience. As a content sharing site, the chances of a reader getting on the site via stumbling on an article is quite high and, the reader should not have to figure out their experience themselves. At first, I was tempted to say user experience was absent but, upon reflection, I realized I had an experience just, not one I liked.
Fast-forward to two weeks later, I stumbled on this Youtube video which talks about the HTML source order and designing for accessibility.
Sidenote: It mentioned some other good stuff as well. Do check it out!
At this point, I remembered my experience on the site I narrated earlier and, I took away two things:
Accessibility: First, each time I think about designing for a user(s), the only thing that comes to my consciousness is the “look and feel”, learnability, whether or not the design is intuitive, contrast, fonts, color-coding, icons, navigability, audience persona, and all there is to optimizing for the best user experience visually. It’s an endless list of requirements.
But, as I watched the video, I was reminded of accessibility especially in the context of the site I had encountered. For a content site, it is pertinent that the design is inclusive of people who have reading disabilities and/or who are trying to boycott Ads. I checked using the reader view in my browser and impressively, the site enabled the use of the reader view. While accessibility isn’t an excuse for poor user experience, visually, I finally found something not to complain about.
Ads Design: Next, a question that came to mind was “can Ads be placed in such a way that fosters a great User experience?”
This article talks about the complex relationship between advertising online and UX and the foreseeable future of the marriage of the two.
Prior to this, I’d never thought of designing for Ads placement as part of the design process. Have you ever downloaded a free App from the Play Store or Apple Store but, the pop-up Ads were a distraction so, you made good use of the delete button?
Well, I guessed right. This experience is not unique to me.
However, there are Apps that contain Ads but, have stood the test of time. An example is Instagram. It’s not just because I go there to gosh over beautiful feeds, Instagram’s Ads flow seamlessly into the feed. You almost forget you just scrolled past an Ad.
Remember that one time you thought an Ad was a post and liked it? Or, maybe more than once.
For a lot of content producing site, content monetization strategy is usually in the form of Ads and/or a paid subscription. If the former is a site’s strategy, it will be very important to consciously think of an improved user experience and how the Ads play in that.
In conclusion, reflecting on my experience as a user has reinforced the need for accessibility in interaction design and caused me to think about catering for Ads in the design process.
I’d love to hear from you. Do let me know what you think of the article as well as your thoughts on accessibility and Ads Design.
