What does “after UX” even mean?
How viral “top of the iceberg” advice could do more harm than good.
Teisanu Tudor shared a riveting account of how they pretended to be an instagram UX influencer a few months back. From their experience, it seems that unfortunately, lots of popular content positions UX as this “happy, easy, 10-step-quick-learn discipline”.
As with any popular industry, thought leaders of varying levels emerge and establish their presence on common social networks. For example, LinkedIn is a newer phenomenon that combines the typical social-media clout-chasing and idea-flaunting with actual network-building and learning opportunities.
The rising popularity of “before and after” UX shots is slightly worrying. You might know the ones I am talking about.
I am not trying to call out anyone in particular, but my main concern (shared with many commenters on these posts) is the focus of these posts can’t possibly be about the user experience without any CONTEXT of the goals that informed the “after” design.
Most designers agree there is often no single “correct” answer that just works for every scenario. One of the main skills a designer brings to the table is the ability to tackle these “it depends” situations where multiple variables, stakeholders, and goals need to be aligned or balanced.
Here is a great post I came across from an experienced design leader Brian Lin explaining this concern.
The before/after example shared is a very common post format I see. Speaking specifically to the one I shared, the debate between Cards vs. Lists (or even Tables) have existed since the dawn of modern interface design. In fact, many authors have covered this exact topic in depth.
With no context, someone new to UX might make the erroneous assumption that: Cards are BETTER than Tables… without consideration for the important context that informed this design.
Sure, this design might look nicer. It is incredible what some colours, shapes and graphic touches can do to enhance the visuals. But WHY does the “after” design look like this?
Context is what determines the metrics used to measure the success of a design. Without including the context, it is almost impossible to determine which is better out of two options as there are very little criteria to compare with (outside of general visual appeal).
Just off the top of my head, here are some (of many) important considerations to think about when working on a design similar to the one in the example.
Who are the people using this design?
- How will their unique experiences and expectations influence the way they interact with this design?
What are their wants and needs?
- Are they browsing the information or searching for something specific?
- Are they trying to use this information to make a decision?
- Do they want to interact with the information to perform a task?
- Do they typically need to see multiple elements to compare or do they tend to focus on one at a time?
What are the typical cases and what are the edge cases?
- How many items are on this list? Are usually between (1–5), (100–1000), or (10,000+)? Designing to display a few items is very different than designing to show many.
- Will they be viewing this data on a mobile device? A computer screen? A TV? AR/VR?
Technical limitations
- What technologies are being used to build this design and what limitations come from that?
Business wants and needs
- Does the design need to drive some business KPIs and metrics?
An example of context:
What if many of the users tend to scan through these items to find something?
Let’s take another look at that “after” UI and add some more items to it.
Suddenly it becomes much harder to scan, doesn’t it? (not even considering the need to “filter” items).
If the main use of this design is to quickly look through the list of items to find something, perhaps the “before” UI with the boring table seems a bit more attractive now.
This of course, is just a very one-dimensional slice of the context pie. When designing for multiple interested parties, there are often layers upon layers of different things that need consideration.
The Problem: People who are new to UX might expect designers to just take old designs, go work alone in a dark cave for a while, and magically emerge from it with a “good UX.”
This is very scary. It undermines all the great work UX designers globally are doing to push the importance of user-centered design processes. It is also very misleading to new designers who risk falling into the trap of stylish mockups = usable experience.
Our work as UX designers is not as simple as a before/after, and decisions in design should have intent, purpose and rationale. It would be lovely to see are more conversation about the process and thought that went into an “after” image, rather than just the image itself.
