Heuristic analysis is now “Experience Walkthrough”
Chicken Sexing
I kid you not, this is a thing. There is a very valuable skill that allows someone to separate female and male chicks soon after birth. The mystery is that when you look at the back end of a chick, some people just know which are female. It has proven nearly impossible to articulate why, so the Japanese figured out how to teach this inarticulable skill. The student would pick up a chick, examine its rear, and toss it into a bin. The master would then say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ based on his historically, often correct intuition. After a while, the student’s brain was trained to the masters level without quite understanding why.
Sometimes performing a heuristic analysis can seem like chicken sexing. My goal is to take some of the mystery out of practice and discussion and make it more easily articulated.
Remember, these words and phrases are not magical, canonical or holy. In fact take them, and change them, as the immortal Paula Abdul was so fond of saying, “Make them your own!” The point is to evaluate how you talk with your teams and people in your company. Then determine if you can make it more inclusive, co-operative and reduce the barriers for everyone to participate in the design of the experience.
Heuristic Analysis
This is one of my favorites. I always feel like I’m an important scientist when I get to talk about these. Like I have a white coat, wire-rimmed glasses and a clipboard methodically going over a design. Occasionally I noddle silently with disappointed eyes and a disapproving nod. So smug, like how could you have been so unaware? Did you really not know that there isn’t good proximity between that label and the input? I can see the whole telenovela worthy scene playing out in my head, can’t you? Egads, I’ve created a monster!
I think that’s part of the problem though. For years we’ve been getting these little dopamine sparks from sounding important and having “the” answer. The science and experience behind people who can do this effectively is a real skill, but in reality, we’re just walking through the suggested experience to see if it is a good one. Anyone can learn this with an open mindset, it’s not a noble birthright for the elect few. I can see it now, a Harry Potteresqe sorting hat…Slytherin…Hufflepuff…Heuristic Analyst! (The entire crowd erupts in hurrahs.)
We have mental models and best practices that have been shown to be most beneficial. People who have experienced testing things one way or relied on the feedback from the experts like NNg or Beymard can go a long way to calling out problematic designs. I can’t overvalue the great insight they have brought to our industry.This exploration doesn’t have to sound so complicated though. The approach can be much more humble, “you know, I’ve found that if we put the button next to the field where people interact with it they have an easier time using the application.”
We can think of the rules we use around the heuristic analysis and reframe our wording to be more inclusive and approachable.
This practice of heuristic analysis has been described as, “A detailed analysis of a product that highlights good and bad practices, using known interaction design principles as guidelines. Helps you visualize the current state of the product in terms of usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of the experience.”
Walk Me Through It
A good first step may be to use something like NNg’s 10 heuristics. Now there are dozens of others, but this is a good first step when working with new teams. Let’s deconstruct the first heuristic or guideline in a more user-friendly and co-creative way.
#1: Visibility of system status
“The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within a reasonable time.”
A perfect illustration of this can be seen in this video from NNg on the Visibility of System Status. Notice at the front how the complex jargon can be a bit confusing and even difficult to get out and effectively communicate what this is. However, when the focus switches to giving common examples in plain words, you start to understand where you’ve seen examples of this before. An example might be like in elevators, battery indicators or even button clicks.
Another great examples of this is the null state. When you are using an app/site that lets you create things, bookings, events, playlists, emails, etc. there is usually a starting or null state where you have an inbox which lists all your items. It’s good practice to help them along and have interactions where they are lead through creating their first widget.
You could say something like, “If I’m walking through this experience for the first time, I might not know how to create my first widget. What do you think about giving them some hints on how to do that?”
“I know I find it useful when I’m using a site to have clues that help me understand what’s going on and what I need to do.”
Now you might know the best way and even have a component in your design system, but it’s about co-creation too. Who knows when someone will have the next brilliant idea to upgrade or add a new feature to your component. The point is you’re working with your team to gather insight, have them take part in the discovery and do it in a way that uses human terms.
What’s best is that you didn’t have to talk about heuristics and design principles to make yourself sound all-knowing and like no one else knows anything about doing good design. The approach is inquisitive, like you’re all working together to find a good solution to the problem.
You’re Not Alone, Say It One More Time, You’re Not Alone!
What’s even better than going through and doing your “expert analysis” based on “heuristics” is walking through the feature as a team. Sometimes allowing the designer or developer to take a step back and walk through as a user or specific role, you can get enough mental distance to have them say “oh yeah, I forgot x” or “how would I do y”.
Before we take the next step of testing with other users we can practice disassociating ourselves from knowing too much or being too close to the problem/solution. This is why we’re always told, “You are not the user.” You know too much and are too close to the situation. With a little practice though you can become better at putting yourself in the customers shoes. You’ll never be a perfect substitute for actual user testing, don’t fall into that trap, but you can become better at detecting issues before you show your work to the customer.
Something that may be helpful is to put together a set of rules based on your favorite heuristics that you can walk through as a team.
Did we check for the first time use?
Does a user know how to create a new widget?
Does the user have a good example in their real world where they use something like this?
Is there anything about this experience that feels like I lost control or couldn’t do something I wanted to do?
Do all the colors and components match the rest of the site or app? Having this conversation with PO’s and QA’s can be very helpful as they can be great advocates in the search to root out inconsistencies.
Did I get an error during the experience that we could have prevented or helped them through more efficiently?
Did we give our customers a way to figure out how to complete a task without having to remember an important detail?
Is the experience too cluttered or confusing or are there too many steps?
If an error happens how do we think the customer will feel and how can we help them get back on track?
What kinds of information or tools would be useful for our customers when they’re using this feature?
Having a checklist (either mental, paper or digital) with these types of questions that everyone can ask is an approachable way to have everyone do an experience walk-through. Not only are you enlisting others in the effort to fix issues, but you’re maturing the team’s capability by knowing what to look for without expecting them to be a UX mastermind.
Next Up: Competitive Analysis/Audit is now Competition Experience Comparison
Competitive Analysis/Audit is Now Competition Experience Comparison
My first though was something like competition snooping or corporate espionage; but in the end I’ve come back to Competition Experience Comparison.
Competitive makes it sound like you’re signing up for a race or possibly a soccer competition where the moms bring you Capri Sun’s and those little slices of oranges. An analysis feels like you’ve got lab work you’re going to have to wait for and even worse and audit makes it feel like the IRS (tax guys) are hot on your trail. None of those quite capture the fun that can be had during one of these exercises.
The more structured definition talks about, “a comprehensive analysis of competitor products that maps out their existing features in a comparable way. Helps you understand industry standards and identify opportunities to innovate in a given area.”
I have to admit this isn’t filled with a lot of jargon or techie phrases and does a good job at describing what happens during a competitive audit.
Experience Walkthroughs (formerly Competitive Analysis) are one of my favorite things to explore and I’ve provided some insight into doing an enterprise level competitive analysis that you may find useful.
Continue reading…(coming soon)
Articles in this series
This series seeks to reexamine the approach and vocabulary of UX design methodologies and translate them into experience practices (minus the UX and design terms) that help us to be more inclusive, align with our teams better and interact with the full spectrum of humans as we design experiences.
How to discuss experience design and not sound like an arrogant arse
Sometimes we struggle connecting with our teams and it may just be our approach and interaction.
Personas are now called “Experience Roles”
Personas really look at the hats or roles that people play and the things they do that make them different from others.
Taxonomies are now “Experience Organizations”
In life, it’s important to learn how to organize things. Let’s look at how we can do this with our teams.
Is HX simply about doing UX right, or is it more?
Human experience design is a more holistic approach to experience design.
How co-designing can reduce your rejection and stress levels
You’re not a magician, cowboy, ninja or superhero; stop trying to be one.
