Courageous Design: why great design requires intelligent risks

8/8/2019 Courageous Design: why great design requires intelligent risks

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Everett McKayPrincipalUXDesignEdge

This is a rerecording of myKeynote presentation at DesignCamp Boston/New England UXon November 6, 2010

Access video and deck from courageousdesign.com

Copyright 2010 UX Design Edge

Who is this guy?

Im Principal of UX Design Edge I offer UX/UI design training (web,live, onsite) and consulting

I specialize in helping non-designersand software professionals that dont

have design resources



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You needto practicecourageousdesign!

Prof. Keith Edwards

User-centered design

Intuitive design

Empathic design

Multi-disciplinary design

Collaborative design

Participatory design

Activity-centered design

Defensive design

Inductive design

Trustworthy design

Accessible design

Humane design


Courage is often the difference

between great design andgood design

Great design requires takingintelligentrisks



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Do the

opposite

Lets look at courageous design inMaking decisions

Asking questionsSimplicityPersonalityUsing dataTeam culture


Great design requires taking

intelligentrisks



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Driving consensus is important, right?

The goal of UX design

To fully engage your entireteam to create products thatyour customers will love


A typical job description

Smart, gets things done,drives consensus across amulti-disciplinary team


Consensus on key decisions isa good thing, right?


a horse designedby committee

Sir Alec Issigonis


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Why does this happen?

Group decisions political decisionsHolistic vision minor detailsDesign integrity compromise


The art of compromise:

Obtaining something thatnobody wants but everybodycan accept


In consensus-driven environments:

Smart people who get thingsdone propose whatever getsconsensus fastest



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Getting from good UX to great UX

Theres nothing wrong with goodits that getting to greatrequires a different approach


While its always safe to getconsensus, theres no couragein consensus or compromise


Do you really have to ask?

You cant always be certain,but you can usually be right


Suppose you have a question, and theres a99% chance you know the answer1% chance you dont

Do you ask anyway?



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Apparently some designersdont like those odds


The classic excuse:

We dont know for sure whatusers want or do



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The foundation of all UX design:

You cant design for randompeople doing random thingsyou must design for specifictargets


If you dont know what usersare likelygoing to do or want,you dont know your users!


The McKay/Turing Test:

If a question would be stupidfor a person to ask, its stupidfor your program to ask


While its always safe to ask,theres no courage in askingunnecessary questions


The ideal UX is both powerful and simple


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What is simplicity?

Simplicityis the reduction orelimination of design elementsthat target users are aware ofand consider unessential






Everythingshould be made

as simple aspossible,but not simpler.

Albert Einstein

The classic excuse:

We dont know for sure whatusers want or do


Q: What does 0.0033% represent?A: The probability a user reallywanted Caps Lock on whiletyping a password


I have only

made this letterlonger because Ihave not thetime to make itshorter.

Blaise Pascal


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While its safe to offereverything, theres no couragein complexity


All software has a personality

Whether intentional or not

All software has a personality



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Showing your personalitymakes you vulnerable


Talk about doing the opposite

Too often software is rude,unforgiving, and dull


Why be rude? Why be unforgiving?

Why be dull?

While its safe to avoid showingpersonality, theres no couragein being rude, unforgiving, or dull



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Good decisions require good data

You can't

manage whatyou can'tmeasure.

W. Edwards Deming

Data helps solve the HiPPO problem

Making decisions based ondata is safe



Not everything

that can becounted counts,and noteverything thatcounts can becounted.

Albert Einstein

If I had askedpeople what theywanted, theywould have saidfaster horses.

Henry Ford


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A potential problem:

Data is backward looking


data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision,paralyzing the company and preventing it from making anydaring design decisions.

Yes, its true that a team at Google couldnt decide betweentwo blues, so theyre testing 41 shades between each blueto see which one performs better. I had a recent debateover whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, andwas asked to prove my case.

Douglas Bowman


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What you do with data is the key

While good design followsdata, great design leads with it


How to tell the difference

Do you say The data proves thator do you say Our interpretation ofthe data suggests that


While data offers safety, theresno courage in following data


You cant escape your teams culture

MMC Team: We ship our org chart


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Conways Law:

Organizations are constrained

to produce designs which arecopies of the communicationstructures of theirorganizations.

We ship ourculture! We

must fix ourculture first.

August de los Reyes

Every artifact anorganizationcreates is anembodiment of itsculture

Important question:

Can individual designers createproducts that transcends theirteams culture?


My answer:

No! Any organization thatdoesnt reward great designwill produce mediocrity


Attention managers:

If you have a great teamshipping mediocre products,its because your culturerewards mediocrity



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No managers career or compensation

was harmed during the making of this

mediocre user experience.


The Innovator's Cultural Dilemma

Over time, team cultures drifttowards safety and discouragecourageous design


You can measure the greatnessof a user experience by thecourage required to design it


If you remember only one thing

Want to learn more?

Check my website: uxdesignedge.comSubscribe to my blogRegister for Good UX to Great UX


Thank you!

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Courageous Design: why great design requires intelligent risks