UI/UX Articles And Interesting Tidbits Of The Week
February//5//2021
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
Creating Engaging and Useful Chatbots. Another great article hailing from Smashing Magazine, this time around centered on Chatbots. This type of solution/feature has become more and more prevailing across a variety of Interactive Products, since it provides in the specific cases of Onboarding opportunities for users to understand a journey, particularly when they are adopting a new product. Other scenarios of applicability, are tied to help desk situations and even checkout scenarios. As their applicability proliferates, it’s fundamental to understand what Conversational Design is based on, and how that reflects itself in the product experiences being devised. This article from author Marli Mesibov is well worth reading. Highlight of the article includes:
“Chatbots replicate human conversations, and most chatbots use decision trees to do so. They either recognize key words and respond accordingly, or they allow the end-user to select from options to direct the conversation. Conversational design broadly refers to any conversation-like content, whether that comes through headers and text on a webpage, voice UI such as Google Home and Alexa, or chatbots. As such, chatbot content is one type of conversational design, but the two are not one-and-the-same. A chatbot is also not a human interacting through a chat interface (that is sometimes called “live chat”). It is specifically a computerized system.”
2.
Product Design for Different Age Demographics. Very relevant topic, even if the content of the article itself is slight, focused on Designing Product solutions that contemplate an ever dynamic and progressively older demographics that composes modern society. I’ve mentioned this topic quite a few times, and it’s always worth revisiting. As medicine progresses, and enables people to live longer and more productive lives, it’s fundamental that technology and product solutions are created for truly diverse audiences, and not simply for segments that ultimately fail to be representative of the whole. Topics such as Accessibility, Inclusivity immediately spring to mind, and now more than ever, with all the tribulations every single country in the world as experienced, this is a concern of extreme importance. Highlight of the article includes:
“The scrollbar can also be a bit of a problem for people with impaired motor skills. Because of this, it’s best to keep your focus on designing above the fold. Make sure that users don’t need to scroll far to find the information that they need and keep scrollbars simple in terms of their look and feel. While you’re working on usability, remember that it will be important to keep interactions to a minimum wherever possible. Where you can engage younger audiences with double-taps, swiping and scrolling, it’s much easier to connect with seniors through simple one-tap interactions. The less actions your user needs to take to reach their goals, the better.”
3.
Dark Patterns in UI Copy. Terrific article from author Graeme Fulton, published in the Prototypr.io stories section. I’ve alluded to Dark Patterns in Product Design often enough, but this article provides great examples of how that proliferates in products these days. The typical Dark Patterns include Sneaking, Scarcity, Urgency, Misdirection, Forced Action, Social Proof and Obstruction, and the author touches upon quite a few of these. He provides specific examples of ambiguous CTAs, complex Jargon, to name but a few. Worth reading and reflecting upon. Highlight of the article includes:
“Even though all of this can be frustrating for customers, at the end of the day, these sneaky tricks are business tactics to support the goal of generating profit. Author of How Design Makes the World, Scott Berkun, points this out when suggesting customers of companies like Amazon are happier with cheaper prices and next day delivery than good UX. Similar to a Medium writer who benefits from excellent distribution — they can put up with the downsides and dark patterns because the service is so good.”
