RECTR: A universal UX emergency action plan for everyone
A guideline for both UX practitioners and non-designers on how to prioritise usability problems and what to do next.
A usability problems paralysis
When there are millions of existing design process, methods and frameworks in UX design, it’s always a struggle for even UX practitioners, let alone non-designers to know which usability problems they should prioritise to resolve first. As a result, some suffer from choice paralysis and waste precious time and effort before they can start their process.
To counter this problem, there should be a universal action plan that aid not only UX practitioners but also non-designers folks in the way they prioritise and approach usability problems.
Luckily I seem to find one in an unexpected place that one would look into for UX design contents: First aid training.
A life-saving mnemonic devices
In almost any first-aid basic training in Australia, a common action plan with a memorable mnemonic is taught to first-aiders. This acts as an essential guide to the order of steps that they should take when assisting someone in emergencies. This action plan is called DRSABCD (pronounced Drs. ABCD) with
D — Dangers
R — Responses
S — Send for help
A — Airway
B — Breathing
C — CPR
D — Defibrillators
This action plan not only allows trained first-aiders to prioritise which cases to go first when there are multiples casualties on the scene but also to calmly follow a standard action plan with an easy-to-remember acronym. As one of Nielsen usability heuristics go
Recognition is better than recollection
Let’s start exploring each of them in details to see how they can aid not only those in real-life emergency cases but also in professional UX emergencies as well.
DISCLAIMER: As I’m not a qualified first-aid trainer, this article does not substitute a proper certified first aid training. All first-aid attempt must follow your own government’s guidance and experts’ advice.
Dangers = Recognise existing problems
The very first step in the action plan is Dangers in which first-aiders have to assess the surrounding and identify imminent or existing dangers before approaching the victims and, if possible and safe to do so, eliminate them.
Likewise, when solving usability emergency, one can’t start fixing the issues without, first identifying the existing usability problems. For existing designs, the “dangers” could be specific friction points in the products that hinder the user’s overall experience and as a result, creates frustrations and disappointment.
Going through this step would produce a comprehensible list of existing problems that need to be solved
Response = Evaluate the problems
After looking out for dangers, whether or not someone is responsive & conscious is the first thing first-aiders should check. If they don’t respond are unconscious then these people should be prioritised for immediate medical attention. Those that are responsive, while still in need of treatment, could be revisited after more severe cases are dealt with.
In parallel, after compiling a list of existing problems, one should start checking with the actual users and evaluate the issues. Like in first-aid, if some usability problems prevent users from doing their tasks then these particular issues should be examined and resolved first before other less severe cases are dealt with.
One way to evaluate them is with a severity table in which problems are assessed based on frequency, impact and persistence.
Send for Help = Collaborate with others
When someone is unresponsive, many first-aiders go straight into CPR because, well…, that’s what they do in movies. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. A professional medical emergency team should be called first (in Australia, that’s 000) to both save precious time for the emergency victims but also provide experts’ advice to first-aiders.
In a similar vein, before start tackling the problems, it’s time to collaborate or consult with other professionals. In any environment, whether you’re the sole designers or part of a design team, these collaborators will be your co-UX designers, researchers, product managers, developers or even those in a different department like sales, marketing or customer service.
Collaboration would save you time and efforts as the solutions to many problems may already exist somewhere in the company.
As each of these people is hired for their expertise, one will gain a lot of insightful knowledge that would have taken years to learn.
Airway + Breathing = Tackle the root cause
The next steps in the First-aid action plan are Airway, followed by Breathing. First-aiders should first check if there’s anything that blocks the victims’ airways and removes it. Then examine whether they’re still breathing. If you check the Breathing first without checking the Airway, you may not find any breathing and incorrectly move to CPR while the root problem, the airway blockage, would still be there.
Similarly, after consulting other professionals for their expert insights, one should now have some hypothesis of what are causing usability problems. Folks can then analyse them further using the Five-whys methods (originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda). This would allow them to go deep to the very root causes of the situation and remove the blockage.
If one doesn’t go deep enough, the issues would likely still be there and the design process would end up being a waste of time, money and effort.
CPR + Defibrillator = Redesign the system
The final steps of this plan are attempting CPR and attaching an automatic defibrillator (or defib, for short) to the victims. At this stage, as there are no signs of heartbeat or breathing, CPR attempt is made to provide the necessary oxygen to the victims and revive their hearts. A defib is then used to send electric pulses to the heart that could restore the heartbeat.
In a similar fashion, even after when the root causes are dealt with, some issues are just too severe to fix. Time for a complete shock to the core. At this extreme stage, a complete redesign is needed to thoroughly and quickly deal with all problems at once. This would recover the original functionality of the product which has been hindered by terrible user experience. As a result, in a way, the product is brought back to life.
However, this extreme measure should ONLY be the last resort as redesigning from scratch is very costly in terms of financial, time and effort. As the old saying goes
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
“RECTR” — the universal UX emergency action plan
To summarise, here’s the universal UX action plan that not only UX practitioners but non-designers folks can easily remember and use
R — Recognise the problems
E — Evaluate the problems
C — Collaborate with other disciplines
T — Tackle the root cause
R — Redesign the system
→ RECTR (pronounced “Rectar”)
There you have it, a mnemonic device that you could use the next time you’re in a professional UX emergency.
This is not a silver bullet that applies to all situations.
As all things go, this is not a silver bullet that applies to all situations. However, it’s a general guideline that one can use to start developing their tailored approach to their specific situations. Doing so will allow them to accurately prioritise usability problems and generate a suitable strategy to address those issues.
Thanks for reading. Stay safe and stay creative everyone
