Talking about the "Negative Model" of User Experience

As a user on the site, you may often find something annoying when using the site. For example, a login form, or navigation, or the entire web application, may make it difficult for you to complete a task. What causes the design of the site have these problems?

The answer is complicated. Bear the brunt of the problem is that designers may have overlooked a very important point: the actual user test. The reason for this problem is usually that designers take it for granted that they themselves know how to handle the interaction details of a part of the site. Because many designers feel that they have seen similar interactions in other cases, the original designer has definitely tested it, and why do so much? Just like it So, we frequently see others written CSS open source code library, copied directly to your own design, but not in the real scene test. As a result, we have unconsciously built a work from the established template piling up.

Some templates are more effective, but some have problems. If these templates as a wheel, then often you directly used to install the wheels on the car may be a bicycle wheel, donkey head not a horse mouth. So yes, you should redesign the wheels for your car and try loading the wheels in the car.

- Your users may not be the same as Amazon, Google target users, or even your competitors competitors. To find out whether a design template is valid, you must personally ask your "God" (user) to test. Maybe you guys are Dubai crew members (no kidding! This is a recent case of our company). All in all, the needs of your users and those of other websites are different.

- But do not we already know how the human brain interacts with information?

That's right, but I must reiterate that the knowledge is very broad and broad. Nothing is absolute. Take an example from a recent Harvard experiment in which a researcher designed a game that correctly guessed your age based on the rate at which you clicked the mouse (for more information on this experiment, refer to

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2313388/Age-test-drive-dotty-Online-quiz-reveals-old-REALLY-based-reaction-time.html). I (referring to the original author) is also involved, really very pioneering experiment!

Users of different ages, different physical conditions, different cultures or other aspects may have totally different needs. This is why using big, generic solutions can do the opposite.

An anti-pattern is a design pattern that is obvious but inefficient or needs to be optimized in practice. You will see this in web applications or websites, and more specifically in any place where users can behave, such as landing pages, entering information, or reading information.

As a web designer, you can easily spot areas of apparent design problems (for example, a pull-down menu closes before you click on one of the items). However, the design problems that exist in the negative model are even more difficult to detect. While a user focused on completing a task on the web site will skip this issue, it still carries a bit of discomfort.

In order to make these problems appear the prototype, you'd better open the network data statistics tool. Google Analytics is a good choice because it is free and easy to install.

You need to look for some "symptoms" of the problem (possibly negative) from the measured data, including:

The decline in the number of page users

There are many users have been led to a certain page, but suddenly a large number of users disappear, then you should carefully look at this page what went wrong. Ask yourself, do users need a certain interaction for the next step? Do they not know how to get to the next step? Is the entire page an animation? You must know the questions on the ground. Record these questions for future user research and analysis.

Unfilled clicks

If users mess around the page, they do not even know what to click on.

Repeatedly scroll up and down

If the user keeps sliding the scrollbar up and down within the page to prove that they can not find what they want, or they simply do not know what they want.

The issue of usability is not necessarily the same as the crux of the negative model, but it works well. It is a pity that many of the design's negative modes were taken as bad ideas because of inefficient usability. Here are some examples of the negative model:

Clickable elements do not seem to hint at clicking

(Translator's Note: Why can not we distinguish whether a button is clickable? The color of the button is the same as the color of the text on the page, not set to blue, nor is it buttoned like any other text chain. Underline, no icon or arrow, or any hint of clickability)

Included questions are:

The button is too small

2 text chain without visual distinction (blue is the best choice)

3. The button is so flat that it can not tell the user: "Brother is actually a button!"

4. The absence of hover state may also cause problems, such as not using {cursor: pointer;} label

Hover the question

Hiding the information behind a widget (button or title) that has a hover effect is a handy way to round the interface, but make sure the information is not hidden too fast after the mouse leaves the hot zone. The user's reaction is not as fast as you think. As a designer, imagine how unpleasant it was to repeatedly make a hovering motion to make the information visible.

3. Uniform context

Let's say there are three different types of links on one page. A guide to return to the home page, a user to bring out the site, and the third to open a pop-up window. This is so confusing to the user.

There is no batch execution

In a complicated list, be sure to provide batch processing if you have features that require the user to perform, such as adding, removing, or changing the status of elements in the list! Processing one by one absolutely results in a rather poor user experience.

5. A lot of content stuffed the first screen space

Research shows that users are actually more focused on reading the first screen after the content. However, due to some reasons, the content as far as possible in the first screen approach still exists. So my advice is: to make good use of space and to separate the content.

6. Bounce navigation (Pogo stick navigation)

Bouncing navigation means that in order for an operator to complete an operation, he must navigate deeper from the main navigation to one or two levels and then back to the main navigation , From another column again. Bounce Navigation is named after Jared Spool, a form of navigation that allows users to constantly drill down and back in the hierarchy, jumping and jumping like a jumper.

7. Clear all error messages

The scenario of this model is that when a user finishes filling in a form and the system informs that a certain information does not meet the requirements, the site automatically empties all or some of the user's entered information and needs to re-enter it.

8. The wrong target page

Refers to pages that are introduced to a different expectation after the user completes a series of interactions. This pattern often appears on e-commerce sites: users need to log in before making an online transaction, and when they log in, the user is not directed to the form page where the credit card information was filled, but instead is taken to the homepage.

Check that you are currently doing projects such as the negative model, or its associated symptoms. Find a friend or partner who did not participate in the project to check the site to see what happens. Will they feel unhappy somewhere on the site? User experience is not smooth place is often a precursor to the negative model.

The above example is just the tip of the iceberg! What kind of negative pattern did you find in your website?

Original author and source:

Sarah Kahn, May 8th, 2013

http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/user-experience-articles/the-world-of-ux-anti-patterns/

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