Category: User Interface

Be Selfless to be Selfish

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Excerpt from The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail

Excerpt from The Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail

If I didn’t prepare documents for my clients so they’re easy to understand, I would have to take the time to explain later.

If I let my business partner work hard to establish relationships with clients, if our partnership ends, guess who those clients will turn to?

If I micromanage my employees, they’ll become lazy or simply walk out the door, and I’d have to work more to find new workers.

If I didn’t treat my parents with respect, how should I expect them to treat me when they’re planning their living wills?

If I fed my cat cheap food and didn’t scoop her litter daily, guess what would happen to my house?

There is a shortsighted tendency to isolate the meaning of “customer” only to those who would pay us for services. But it doesn’t stop at money.

If you want something from someone, whether it’s money, consideration, an exchange/barter, or simply their best effort working FOR YOU, you have to put in the effort to help make their lives easier.

“People think I’m selfless when actually it’s the opposite. I am selfish in wanting to surround myself in happiness, and so I do my best to make everyone around me happy.” -Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Reductive Design is Butter!

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I spent a couple hours tonight helping a colleague stress test the user interface for a web hosting control panel, using cPanel. Amazing how my product design/methodology schooling came on like Spidey-sense. Some quick notes:

1. User interface is often about REMOVING elements and simplifying steps. Less mouse clicks, less keyboard entries, less words to explain anything.

2. It’s better to give the customer LESS OPTIONS and have him accomplish 1 thing very quickly than give him dozens of options and have him NOT be able to accomplish anything at all. Apple has made a fortune with this philosophy.

3. The biggest favor you can do for a developer is try to BREAK his system at the beginning as much as possible. Pretend you know nothing about computers and just click away. It’s much better than being surprised later when the pain comes from disgruntled customers, and by that time it’s too late.

4. Patience is a virtue but not when you’re pretending to be a customer. To emulate the customer, you need to be IMPATIENT, SKIM through the instructions, and NOT PAY ATTENTION to what you’re doing. This is what REAL PEOPLE do when they interact with technology.

#ui #ux #userinterface #stresstesting #experiencedesign #design #frontend