UX Concepts and Practices That We Wish Would Just Go Away!

From the experts at UX Matters dot com, a round-up of UX concepts and practices that defy best practices, and consequently create negative concepts and practices.

One True Way: That there is just one true way to practice user experience.

Expecting Perfection and Pixel-Perfect Design: Focus pixel perfect design and perfection––we have to begin designing for mistakes, uncertainty and imperfection.

Imitating Other Companies: The imitation of other companies’ user experiences that have nothing to do with your own…we want our site or application or product to be the next Apple or Google. The problem is that their companies are neither Apple nor Google.

Lean UX: The key original concept of lean is about efficiently testing assumptions and approaches, then iterating in response to what you learn.

Focus Groups and Preconceived Notions: Focus groups may be okay for driving small incremental changes, but innovation happens in leaps. Focus groups can kill innovation and great ideas.

Return on Investment (ROI): Accept the common-sense notion that improving usability is worthwhile… good user experience is valuable and essential.

Roles and Politics: Delegating user experience to one person or role is the wrong approach; each team member should bring his or her own flavor of user experience to the table. End the practice of using the term user experience as a catch-all for all the skills required for product design and development.

Terminology and Semantics: We are not doing ourselves any favors by talking in terms that our companies and clients struggle to understand.

Lorem Ipsum: When used in the wrong context, it can confuse participants in usability studies.

Fewer Clicks: Another example of people trying to dictate a solution before understanding the problem. Is it better for the user to take 5 clicks without thinking, or one click after spending copious amounts of mental energy skimming the page and mulling the available options?

Regarding Terminology and Semantics, I have one internal label that I use when it’s appropriate to what I’m working on  – the Technical User Requirements Document, or “T.U.R.D.”

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