Many times in my short life, even several times throughout a day, curiosity of language drives me to think a change in the description of a problem or title of an exercise can change the perspective of a thing. Here, I’m talking about research, which I do all the time and a task I get plenty of feedback on — as to what I should be researching/testing, how I should ask questions. And that feedback or direction changes if it’s industry research, user research, UI, behavioral, etc. And I find, throughout many of those possible research spikes, these questions I must ask deal with “how much a user likes this or that” or “how likely are you to….?” That quantitative stuff is all well and good (NPS can be important). But it doesn’t illuminate a design problem or point of friction to design for — all of which I’m finding to be more important and illuminating a topic, every time. I need to know why — and I don’t suggest asking qualitative questions only.
Then, I think it’s simple enough, possibly, to change how I view research. If I am to design a thing (problem solve) then from a user’s point of view, all I need to understand are their points of friction within any topic.
So, the royal question becomes, “If we only look at user’s friction through our objectives’ lens (the things moving the business forward), will we be designing the best thing?” We wouldn’t need to know what’s already being done well (otherwise, there would be friction, no?). Therefore, iterating on the friction points while quietly/simply polishing the successful pieces gives a different perspective on priority and process.
“Without first identifying friction, you’re just making your design different, not better for your users.” — DT
After all, when someone tells us what we do well — what does that mean? “Keep doing the same thing?” “Don’t change this, thanks?” When we complain about changes to our iPhones, we are typically asking for them to do the same things, yet bringing up a friction point. I’m curious when we aren’t in the secret rooms with Apple, we assume they are changing things on a basis of making us hate them. But I believe they are more thoughtful (just like us) and have better data to work from than our own opinions suggest. I could be incorrect (quite a real possibility), well, then we know their designs are failing and that’s always possible. We can all loose our mojo. This digression is making feel I’m losing mine. Anyway….
Sometimes we (designers) will change all kinds of things just because we feel we must change something/anything to prevent stagnation.
Always finding the friction points and prioritizing them can only mean betterment is possible - smarter decisions are made and clearer design direction will happen, every time. And the things we do well won’t need praise (though who doesn’t enjoy a pat on the back?). We now know the parts to not change, but polish instead — these are the littler details to keep and enhance.
Ack! And now I just realized how many beautiful questions emerged for a Monday meeting. I should write them down before I forget. Back to work.