• The design just isn’t “fresh” enough!
• It needs more spunk!
• There’s not enough pizzazz!
• It lacks glamor.
• The tables are exploding!

Do you see what all of these phrases have in common? None of them actually mean anything. All of the above comments are subjective. When you ask them to define further, they’ll say something like “I won’t know what I want until I see it”. That my friend is total bullshit.

This is where you have to take a step back and figure out what it is going to make this particular customer happy. Personally, I don’t take web design customers that don’t (a) know exactly what they want, (b) respect and trust my design judgement, or (c) at least utilize actual users when they make design decisions. If they don’t follow any of the above criteria, it’s really hard for me to make them happy. Another caveat to add here: generally, when client’s sway away from my design and incorporate their “ideas”, the designs almost always look like shit. They’re rarely ever portfolio worthy. I recommend if this is the case to fire that client. It’s a win-win for both parties involved. 

Another thing to watch out for with this type of client is that it’s impossible to get something right the first time. No matter how good the design is, they always want endless iterations. Many of them want 3-4 demos before they’ll even get started—the best designers in the world do ONE demo and iterate from there—that’s how I roll.

This is precisely the reason why I advocate a user-centered design philosophy. I think it’s a terrible idea to design by committee and what stakeholders ask for rarely amount to anything that improves the user experience, usability, or sales—on the contrary—it usually hinders all of these things.

This year is different!  My first New Year’s resolution is:

“To not let things bother me not are out of my control.”

How often you let things bother you? Have you ever noticed that the majority of the time, those things that bother us, are completely out of our control? If there is nothing we can do to fix the situation, it is a waste of time to let it bother us.

My second New Year’s resolution is:

“To do more videos for you all of course!”

I started doing these videos last summer, and spent quite a few weeks since it provided an update for you all.  I’ve been working hard at building out my studio, so it’s about time that I start providing more valuable content for you all.  After quite a bit of thinking, I decided to make these videos a little bit more agnostic. I have many many interests I would like to share with you all.  besides working in the field of user experience and website usability, I’m also very good at visual design, lifestyle design and coaching, body language, and many spiritual awakening (woo woo) things I’d love to share.

If you’re using this godforsaken tag, I think you’re making a big mistake. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve observed users accidentally clicking the reset button and leu of submitting the form. The two are obviously not interchangeable and I feel the reset button does more harm than good. Quite honestly, I’ve never been through scenario where the user actually had a need to click on the reset button.

Here is an example of what I mean. There are so many problems with the way these buttons look. For one, two buttons that perform completely different actions look exactly the  same. Some users, who may be accustomed to traditional button behavior, like the like you would experience in Windows or Mac OS for example, make a inclination that all progressive buttons appear to the right—like you would experience in a wizard. I’m not getting into an argument about button placement,  but I can at least recommend deemphasizing the reset button or eliminating it altogether.

Here is an example I recommend: As you can see in the figure below the submit button—the button you want them to click on—is clearly highlighted and recognizable, while the reset button looks much less important. I learned this approach from a colleague a few years ago (@cindyblue, follow her, she’s awesome):  there is a button you want them to click on and then there are the other options.  Always put emphasis on the actions you want the user to take, and deemphasize the actions the users are less likely to take.

Here is one important thing you should always remember: any time you are performing an action that is not recoverable, like resetting a form, deleting a file, or performing a cancel operation, you need to prompt the user first that their changes will be lost if they continue with the operation.

Have you ever accidentally hit the “reset”  button by mistake?

One rule I believe to be almost universal is:

Failing to leave a phone number on your website for people to call and allowing them to get in touch with someone right away.

I have no idea why so many websites make this detrimental mistake. After all, it’s one of the most common website scenarios: getting in touch with someone. It’s also one of the most common usability problems. The data is pretty consistent: people want to talk to someone—especially if they’re genuinely interested in investing their time and money with a company.

Even when showing qualitative data to organizations that have a strong UX culture, I almost always get push back in the end. Here are some reasons people get worried about this:

• Cold calls/marketing solicitations
• Sales team isn’t prepared – they want to talk to customers on their terms

It really is all about design after all. So why doesn’t our industry reflect that. It has become abundantly clear, design rules. Design has become the determining factor on whether someone chooses to use a system or not. We all know that that bad design is the number one factor for usability, user acceptance, and overall adoption.

I know this firsthand: users are willing to except slow performance and system architecture issues because much of this they cannot see. While performance can be devastating to the over arching user experience of a website, the data indicates that if other factors are favorable, users are more than willing to wait-especially when there is a gratuitous payoff.

I’m not saying performance is not a usability issue-and I’m certainly not saying it’s not a huge user experience culprit-but system architects and engineers have a tendency to prioritize architectural issues over design issues.

I certainly believe we all have a place in system development. What I will not accept, however, is the omission of a great design feature that greatly improves the user experience, because the feature is not congruent with the established architecture. It’s almost 2012 people, we can do just about anything we put our mind to.

It’s time to begin to prioritize design with equal attention to architecture and engineering. The truth is we all have a place in the design of the system-but I know for a fact, and I know like I know like I know that: design rules nowadays.

Many people may argue that design is already prioritized in most development projects. If this is true, why is it that user experience designers are not the highest paid employees at companies-or at least the highest-paid contractors on development projects? In my experience user experience designers usually make less than six figures. Even worse, why is it the visual designers and web designers often make below $50K a year—when their responsible for an integral part of the customer experience? System architects, DBAs, and high-level system engineers can make significantly more than that. I’ve seen architects that make a quarter of $1 million a year and sometimes more.

Can anyone give me a definitive answer on why designers don’t make as much as engineers? I would really like to know. In the fashion industry, for example, designers are the top paid employees. Just look at the greats like Tom Ford, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Versace. What can we do in the software industry to be more design progressive?

While we are all at different reading levels, the fact remains that the majority of American’s can barely read.

This very statement should influence the way that content strategists, copywriters, information architects write and organize content—but time and time again this is proven not to be the case.

There are many reasons why the Flesch Reading Ease Score is so important when writing and evaluating copy. I thought it would be fun to take a minute and go through these reasons together.

• Search engine optimization. Did you know that the search engines use this criteria when evaluating and placing your webpage in their search results? We know this because companies like Google have patented pieces of their algorithm and made it clear to us that readability is an important factor in search engine placement. Search engine companies, like Google, evaluate this criteria for a reason. Studies have shown that copy, written on a higher ease score, performs better from both usability and market conversion perspectives.
• Increased sales. Another reason for improving the ease score is because studies have shown that effective marketing is congruent with effective communication. The World Wide Web is built on the notion that individuals navigate by reading—which suggests that effective copy can lead to improved conversions.
• New friends. Another positive side effect to improving your ease score includes opening up your content to a new audience. A lot of people ignore this perspective but but the time it takes to comprehend advanced copy is just too long for most users.

You’re probably asking yourself how to calculate your Flesch Reading Ease Score?

It’s a relatively simple algorithm, but I don’t want you to get too hung up on the specifics. There are only three scores you need to worry about—well technically only two scores you should worry about. First, let me teach you how to calculate your reading ease score and then you can decide for yourself.

Here is the formula, but do check out many of the well-known software titles out there—like Microsoft Word—that can give you this score automatically.

Score = 206.835 – 1.015 * (total words/total sentences) – 84.6 * (total syllables/total words).

As you can see the number of words and syllables in your website copy have a significant impact in your score. One effective way to improve your score is to avoid words with multiple syllables. Words ending in ES/ED/EY can often be avoided pretty easily.

I realize this may seem very convoluted, but once you know your score, it’s very easy to know if you’re going in the right direction. Website copy that scores between 90 and 100 is easily understandable by an average 11-year-old—that, my friend is a sweet spot. Anything between 60 and 70 is easily understood by a 13 to 15-year-old. Anything below 60 is crossing the line.

If you’ve never heard of it before, perhaps this may spark your interest: The Department of Defense requires all documents and forms read at a score of 45 or higher. Other publications such as Reader’s Digest, have a readability index of 65 or more. Time Magazine has a readability index of about 52 and Harvard Law Review which has a readability score of about 30. One thing that is about all three of these publications is that they have a readability index of above 30–which is what you would expect from a high school student or younger.

I highly suggest you write copy that is easily understandable by a child–that’s a readability score of between 65 and 100. That way your copy is easily understandable by ages 11 and up.

Here are a few helpful hints that you can use while evaluating your content. Simply, find out your score, and the table below will tell you how easy your content is to read.

• 90-100 : Very Easy
• 80-89 : Easy
• 70-79 : Fairly Easy
• 60-69 : Standard
• 50-59 : Fairly Difficult
• 30-49 : Difficult
• 0-29 : Very Confusing

1. Check your ego at the door. Your ego has no place when it comes to writing software. If you’re writing software based on how you feel, you’re making a big mistake. It should be made from data. Nobody likes an egomaniac! You don’t want to have that kind of atmosphere
2. Make it feel like it was their idea. Make it about the person you’re trying to convince. It’s way easier to get people on board this way.
3. Don’t be an asshole. You can’t make a difference if you’re fired. Be the voice of the user, but don’t be the voice that is nagging everyone. “There goes AJ again…”.
4. Position yourself as the expert on the user and do this by conveying a message based off of the facts.
5. Use good excuses (but not an ultimatum): “You can’t hold me accountable for usability if we don’t do usability testing.” or “You can’t hold me accountable for the user experience if you don’t put me in front of users”.
6. Get everyone involved. Don’t think that because you’re a UX designer that everyone else can’t do it to. You should be creating an atmosphere where everyone is thinking about user experience. Be an advocate for the user and an evangelist for user-centered design.
7. Listen more, speak less. I’ve learned to only speak about something when I have a really good reason to. One great side effect is that people tend to genuinely respect my ideas and opinions—that’s because I don’t dilute what I say with useless filler.

• Q: What are scenarios?
• A: Scenarios are essentially tasks—usually associated with an action the user will likely have to encounter to in order to achieve sometime. That something could involve finding information, filling out a form, or answering some sort of question they might have. Most of the time, these “scenarios” are directly correlated with a business goal and organization may have—like getting in touch with someone, buying a product, capturing the user’s information for future contact.
• Q: How many scenarios should you do?
• A: That is a difficult question to answer because it all depends on the complexity of the scenario and the user’s persona. For example, a user who daily uses a computer is more likely to complete certain tasks faster than someone who doesn’t. A disabled user—depending on their impairment—can likely take 3-4 times longer to complete a scenario. I advise people—when doing a study that is one hour long—to identify 9-10 scenarios ordered by priority. Higher priority scenarios will be done with every user and lower priority scenarios can be skipped if the user runs out of time. Many stakeholder will want to do more than than 10 scenarios, but I highly recommend keeping the usability testing short and concise.
• Q: How much time should you spend on each scenario?
• A: You should spend as much time as you need to as long as your user isn’t getting fatigued or frustrated. I’m more concerned that the facilitator doesn’t give up on the participant to soon. Remember, it’s not about PASS or FAIL, it’s about what leads up to that PASS or FAIL conclusion.
• Q: Should you create false scenarios (the ones you can’t find an answer for)?
• A: That’s a great question! I would advise that you think about in the real world scenarios. In the real world, you sometimes don’t find what you’re looking for. I suggest that you do create false scenarios when you’re doing user research—especially if you’re introducing new content. For example, if you’re looking to introduce a new Blender in your line of kitchen products, it might be a good idea to ask the user to identify where that product is located on the website. It’s great content strategy!
• Q: What are some examples of bad scenarios?
• A: The ones that never happen in real life. When stakeholders give me scenarios, I can’t tell you how many times I get something along the lines of “What is the total number products on our website?”—nobody freakin’ cares.

Usability recruiting is often a very convoluted and under-invested task that is by far one of the most important parts of usability testing. When usability recruiting is not done well, you often get no-shows, flakes, and non-relevant participants. Here is some advice that will help you select good participants for your next usability study.

• Have a list of all the probable questions and answers that could come up prior to beginning recruiting. Theses questions could be along the lines of “How long will it take?” and “Will you be timing me?”. It might be a good idea to run through this exercise a few times prior to picking up the phone.
• Write a “call script” for the participants you are contacting. This will make it easier to get your message across.
• Have a list of questions ready. These questions should qualify your participants and give you a little background that will help you make a good choice. Start off with where you work, where you live, what your job title/description is, then move onto tougher questions.
• Each question should have a disqualifier. Once the user is disqualified, that is when the call should be terminated and moved onto the next person on the list. For example, you may want to disqualify individuals who are not familiar with the Internet or do not use computers.
• Offer an honorarium (a gratuity) to your participants. It is very likely they will have to take time away from their jobs to participate in your study—so paying them is just a little incentive.
• Don’t wait until the last minute! Recruiting individuals to participate in usability testing is not an easy task and many may abandon you at the last minute. (Tip: if you’re worried about cancelations, consider leveraging a higher honorarium. Maybe $300 vs. $50.)
• The evening before the study, remember to call the participant and verify their appointment and the rest of the details.
• Have backups. Almost every time I do a usability study, someone bails at the last minute. You want to have backups ready throughout the day just in case. It may be a good idea to pay them a gratuity as well. One thing I’ve done in the past is to put the backups on-call. Preferably, this would be someone who is close to the facility, lab, or test site. Call your scheduled participants two hours prior to their appointment to verify they are still coming.

While there are other kinds of usability testing exercises, like eye tracking, card sorting, analytics, heat maps, etc—none of them are as impactful and eye-opening as qualitative research like cognitive walkthroughs.

Here are five reason you can benefit from doing usability testing using the cognitive walkthrough methodology:

1. It’s efficient: Jakob Nielsen (godfather of usability) says that 85% of usability mistakes are caught with just a small panel of 5 users! Oh, and If you test 15 users, almost 100% are caught. If you do iterative design (which I hope you do), testing a sample 5 users at the end of every sprint and keep your application/website almost usability issue-free.
2. It’s affordable: Paying an honorarium for 5 users can be as little as $250 bucks, you can do it anywhere—so you don’t even have to pay to rent a facility, and you can do this yourself.
3. It’s convenient: It can be done in conference room, in the field, at the user’s workplace—anywhere that’s convenient to the user.
4. It’s qualitative: Data is put in context, you’re dealing with people, you’re getting to know what the user is thinking—not getting buried in boring charts and Excel spreadsheets.
5. It’s in context: You learn more than just usability, you learn about your users, their behavior and their frustrations. You learn about their desires, their hopes, their dreams, their passions. Imagine if you could build software that get’s in touch with those qualifications—rather than building an experience based on requirements that don’t make sense or are written by some disgruntled office worker who just wants to get the job done.