Dive into user experience topics, issues and discussions based on our usability consulting. Want to learn about Lean UX, Mobile UX or how Interaction Design can apply to your project? You're in the right place.

A piece of our mind / our blog

Stop doing ego-centered design and do this instead (QUIZ)

By Frank Spillers

on August 21, 2018 - 5:11pm
man designing at desk

Summary: If your best intentions are not on meeting business and user goals, you should take a hard look in the mirror and re-callibrate. Ego-centered design means you think you are the user, and that means your design will be lacking in empathy. Instead practice User-Centered Design. Take the quiz to find out what kind of a designer you are!

What is ego-centered design?

It's the hardest thing for a designer, developer or manager to admit. We often make a call without evidence (beyond a hunch). But even the best UX Designers do not trust their hunches until they have listenend and observed their users. Note: It's a learnable skill.

Ego-centered design means design decisions are lacking user validation. Many a dozen design revisions were done (you know who you are) without any idea of the audience, their tasks or the business objectives driving the priority. Commonly understood definitions of ego-centered design include:

Accessibility focus: How to design so blind users are not left out of VR

By Frank Spillers

on August 15, 2018 - 2:33pm
Blind user walking down stairs

Summary: Designing for VR must include users with disabilities. If you are working on AR or VR content, the accessibility of your app or piece should be on your radar from design time through to implementation.

Designing for blind users in VR requires the use of spatial audio using tested 3D sound techniques. At Experience Dynamics we work on a lot of R&D projects that we end up publishing results to the wider UX/ HCI community. One of these projects is a Disability & VR project called SoundSpace. 

We include this case study/ demo (VIDEO) included below of how sound can aid navigation, information finding and social VR.

Recruiting Fake Users: Avoid them like the plague (if you want to be successful)

By Frank Spillers

on August 10, 2018 - 3:55pm
fake users- man with masks

Summary: UX efforts should improve their quality of data and informed decision-making by making sure feedback is coming from the right users. 

Let's talk about fake users

Fake users are the wrong people who will provide you biased, tainted or innacurate and imprecise feedback. Precision is everything if you want to be successful with UX. Getting the right users, priceless. 

At Experience Dynamics we learned this from doing it the other way (Hint: Your UX Agency does it this way most likely, ask them). Like many, we used to have a Market Research firm recruit for us, now we do it all meticulously in-house. 

Market research firms provide recruiting (focus groups are happening all the time). But it's also very common to have user no-shows, luke-warm relevant feedback or someone that feels like a badly hired actor. We have not experienced any of that for many years-- that's when you know you are doing it right. 

It's time to think about time in your UX Design

By Frank Spillers

on July 18, 2018 - 11:12pm
clock on table

Summary: Time is an important design variable to understand. Time or temporal aspects of tasks hide metaphors, flows or triggers that you can bring into your design. Designs that miss out on the time aspect of Interaction Design face a poor or failed user experience. 

Examples of Time in Design

1. Pizza ordering: Domino's uses the time tracker as a way to manage expecations. 

dominos delivery tracker

2. Ticket-ordering: TicketMaster and others use the countdown timer to secure the purchase (and refresh inventory). 

TicketMaster countdown UI

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